Boy by Blake Nelson

Chapter 15

So yeah, junior year, a lot of stuff was different. And not just for me. There were new friendships, new cliques, new couples. One day I was at my locker when I heard a shriek behind me. I turned and here came six-foot-three-inch Austin Wells carrying tiny, slender Grace Anderson slung over his shoulder. "Coming through! Coming through!" he shouted. "Emergency girl removal!" Everyone jumped out of the way, laughing and pointing at Grace, who was also laughing and making faces as she beat her little fists against Austin's huge back.

Of course, there were rules against carrying people in the hallways. But that didn't stop Austin. He turned out to be this big, goofy, teddy-bear-type guy. And with Grace being so small and skinny, a lot of carrying went on. But people liked them, you could tell. They became a very popular couple. This gave Grace a new confidence. She'd been so timid and reserved with me, but now she'd run up behind Austin and jump on his back. It became their thing. Everyone loved how much they were in love.

Meanwhile, the rift between Claude and me remained. There wasn't actual hostility between us, but there wasn't any communication, either. I would see him in the halls and sometimes we'd exchange a head nod. But that was it. I could follow what was happening in his life through other people. It hadn't been a great summer for him tennis-wise. He had made it to the finals of the Idaho Junior Championships but had not done well in California or in Washington State, either. He looked different too. Something in his face had changed slightly. He was still very good-looking, but he seemed to have lost some of his Claude swagger. I assumed this was because of the tennis. Getting your ass kicked all up and down the West Coast, that was no fun. It made me glad I had bailed on that.

And then there was Hanna. I didn't talk to her, either. And yet I didn't hate her. It was hard to hate Hanna even if you had a good reason, which I did. For the new school year, she'd changed her hair. She had new highlights and her hair was a different shape, curving inward around her neck. She had obviously asked her stylist for a fresh look for junior year. But it looked sort of cheesy, and the next week she had it changed again, more like her old hairstyle but still with the highlights.

Despite hating Petra for talking to Claude, Hanna and Petra had somehow become friends over the summer, while Grace, who mostly hung out with Austin Wells's friends, had moved away from them both. This made sense in a way. Hanna had really hurt Grace by making out with me at Logan's party, though that wasn't how other people saw it. That mess was generally considered my fault, which was true in a way. Though to be honest, it wasn't a huge topic of conversation. That was summer stuff—ancient history. Nobody cared once school started.

The main thing was how popular Grace and Austin became. People were always talking about them, even more than Hanna and Claude. They were more real in a way. Though Hanna and Claude were pretty real too. That was their dirty little secret: They really were in love. I'm sure from the outside it didn't look that way. Most people considered them shallow and spoiled (they were often referred to as "Ken and Barbie"). But they really did share every- thing with each other. That part was never an act.

As for me, I had no girlfriend and barely any guy friends left. I didn't even have my older brother to make fun of any- more. That actually became a problem, going home to that big empty house every night. I missed Russell. I'd go shoot baskets in the driveway and think about the epic games we used to play with the neighborhood kids. I was always a better athlete than he was and was the same size as him for many years, though he would still win somehow, often by talking us out of something or changing the rules. At those moments it became obvious he was genuinely smarter than me. But in other ways, he was a total dork. He always liked the worst music. He'd get super into Porsche cars or Rolex watches and he'd rattle off specifications to you, or tell you how incredibly expensive something was, as if that proved beyond a doubt how great it was. I wasn't like that. Some- times the plainest thing was the best thing.

Russell had the better room of the two of us. Now that he was gone, I would go in there sometimes, to look at things or to steal a pair of socks. As a senior, he'd arranged the room like an office, like my dad's. He had a big desk and a fancy chair. He would be a good lawyer, that was pretty obvious, though he never expressed that as his objective. That was because Dad told him not to. Dad told him to keep his options open, to go into law only if that's what he really wanted. But Russell didn't know what he wanted. Except for money. He knew he wanted that. How else was he going to get all those Porsches and Rolex watches?