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“If you want a happy ending, that depends on where you stop the story.”
—Orson Welles
One
Declan
June 20, 2008
“Happy seventeenth, mofo.” We’re in the junior common room, a big square at the center of the Carogue campus high school boys’ apartments, shoving New York-style pizza into our pie holes, when I reach into my bag and lift out a handle of Saloon Moonshine.
“Well, dammit. I don’t think it’s big enough.” Alf’s dark brows jut into his mop of hair as Farhad swipes the bottle from me.
Nate reaches across the table, grabbing hi `s birthday gift. He turns the bottle around, checking out the label before giving me a funny grin. “What the fuck is this?”
“Came from Texas, cowboy.”
“How the fuck did you get moonshine here from Texas?”
“I’ve got my ways.”
And my dad has a jet he and my cousin Bryant flew here on back in December. Avoided customs and all that. I can see the wheels turn in Nate’s fat head.
“Bryant?” he asks, catching on.
I laugh.
“You were planning birthday shit for Cowboy in December?” Makis gives me bug-eyes, and I roll my own.
Nate turns the bottle around again. “A hundred and eighty percent.” He gives a low whistle, shaking his head. “You must wanna kill me.”
Alf snorts.
“I think you’ve got the monopoly there,” Farhad mutters.
Nate doesn’t even blink at Farhad’s jab as he shoves his chair back. “Hands off, ladies.” He pushes the bottle to the center of the table and stands, nodding toward the hall behind the table as Alf makes some wise-ass crack about the two of us and “swordplay.”
I get up and follow Nate, because I’m not worried about that dumb shit. Last night, I fucked Ms. Keller, the new ninth-grade history instructor—but if I wanted swords, I wouldn’t let a bunch of fools like Alf and Farhad make me feel bad for it.
Nate strolls down the hall and steps into the laundry room.
“Check this out.” He grins darkly as he reaches into his shorts pocket, pulling out a bag of…oh fuck, that’s a lot of pills.
“Knock-off Xannies?” My throat damn near closes off.
“Oxy.”
“Fuck, dude. Where’d you get it?” That Ziploc must be stuffed with a hundred of the little oval-shaped pills.
He laughs. “I don’t wanna tell you that now, brother.”
I’ve got half a second—maybe more like a quarter-second—to decide how to play this. I’m afraid I know exactly where he got them, but I don’t want to spook Nate. He’s been skittish as fuck since last summer, starting on his birthday, actually, when he got too coked up and Makis found him razor-blading his wrist in the shower. Had to call a goddamn ambulance.
“If it’s who I think it is—” I’ll play it low key— “you should be careful.”
He snorts. “Says the kettle to the pot, man.” Something crosses his face—some kind of look that wants to be aloof but falls short. His thick eyebrows narrow. “You think you’ve got the monopoly on Laurent?”
Hearing his name makes my stomach knot up. “What does that mean?”
