We had been through a lot, Spot and me. I mean, all of us had been through a lot together, but me and Spot seemed to bear the brunt of it. My mom got cancer when I was in sixth grade, and even though she pulled through she was never the same as she was before. She was almost depressed, always quiet. Sometimes, when Dad was away on business or something, the house was so quiet that I had to go somewhere else to escape it. Spot and I built a treehouse in my backyard for times like that. It ended up being where we could count on each other to listen. When Spot got the news that he was moving again, even though it was only a few houses down, that was where we spent the night, and where we designed our system of banners to tell each other we were up there. Red for urgent, blue for bored, orange for needing or wanting to talk, and yellow for wanting to be alone. Yellow was the flag we used the least often. Orange was flung out the window at least four times a week.
We saw each other in school, but we couldn't really talk there. At school, there's always somebody close enough to hear, always somebody who could be listening in and hearing our secrets, and so we couldn't say the important things there. I mean, we could talk about stuff like homework, sports, normal, everyday things, but the most important things, our hopes, dreams, secrets, all that sort of thing were only talked about in our treehouse. Only to one another.
I learned a lat about his family, including his older brother.
"His name was Shane. He was six years older, but he always took care of me. Better than our parents, especially before Dad left. Mom got better once she met Kyle, and now they're both great, but when Dad was still around and they were fighting, Shane took me out with his friends to get me out of the house. Well, he did once Dad gave me this." He gestured at the scar on his eyebrow. "Before that he just gave me advice on how to hide when the yelling started. I don't think I ever saw him as angry as he was when he came home and saw me bleeding. He yelled at Dad, but couldn't do much. After that, he always took me with him when he was out."
"What did you do?" He laughed.
"I thought I was so cool. He used to take me down to the bridge, and lean out over the water and just yell. Not even words, just constant noise. He told me it made him feel powerful, that he could make enough noise that it could reach the river, even though we were surrounded by cars and people." He smiled. "And once he and his friends took me all the way to Manhattan, and we made fun of the rich people. We saw some like right out of the movies; I think even one with a dog in her purse." We both started laughing at that picture.
"Sounds fun."
"Yeah." He sighed. "I was the little brother of that whole group of boys. They were the only ones who showed up at Shane's...at his funeral. Beside me and Mom and Kyle, I mean. And they said goodbye, too. Nobody at school did that." He was talking more quietly now. "They...they were with him when...when it happened. He'd left me a home that day, since Kyle and Mom were good with me, and then Bumper came running in yelling, and I couldn't understand him at all but Kyle ran out and Mom started crying and then the police came and I figured it out. They had been coming home, only a couple of blocks away. And a car came up, stopped next to them. They didn't see who it was, and they fired a couple of shots at the group and sped away, and then Shane just collapsed, I guess, and he was bleeding. The ambulance was too late." He wasn't crying. He almost never cried. But his voice was dry and shaky.
"Wow."
"I was only nine. We stuck out the year in the city, but Mom couldn't bear it anymore, so we moved out here." He sighed. "I guess I'm glad. But sometimes I miss it." He leaned back, slouching against the wall.
That was the end of that conversation, but not the end of the subject. He seemed to like to talk to me about the city, and how life had been before. He also enjoyed listening to me talk about stuff, even though nothing really exciting happened to me before he moved in. Our friendship was strong through it all, and that treehouse was the grounding point of it. That was where we shared it all, where we worked together when we needed to. It was where I began to realize that I was in love with him.
The blue flag was flung out over the side facing my house, so I knew he was up there. I climbed up and he was sitting there was a stack of board games.
"What's with the games, Spot?" He smirked at me.
"I'm bored, so we're playing games. I hate Tuesdays in the summer."
"Only Tuesdays?"
"Well, Monday, Wednesday and Saturday I go to the pool. Thursdays and Fridays are when we see the guys, and Sunday is chore day. Tuesdays are boring." He pulled Clue out of the bottom of his stack. "Let's play this first." He flipped out the board. "I'll be Green."
"Then I guess I'll be Plum." He grinned at me.
"What were you doing? You got out here quick."
"I was listening to music. Drake."
"Nice." He nodded at me. "Jack told me that he was going out west for the rest of the summer. Some art show or something."
"Yeah, he sounded really excited."
"I think Dave went with him."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Pick?" He offered me the stack of room cards. I chose one, and he moved on to the weapons and people, slipping the three chosen ones into the envelope and hiding it under the board. "You roll first."
"Seven."
"Nine." He grinned at me, rolling again and moving his piece. I caught myself watching him, seeing the way the sunlight reflected off his hair and in his eyes. "Miss Scarlet in the ballroom with the knife." I was too distracted to answer. "Race?" He waved his hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my staring at him.
"Huh?"
"I guessed. Miss Scarlet in the ballroom, with the knife."
"Oh, uh…" I scanned my cards quickly. "Miss Scarlet."
"Okay." He marked it down, and I was staring at him again. At the way his arm moved and his face twitched in a half smile. "You're staring." He said without looking up.
"Am not!" Now he met my eye and grinned.
"Childish much?"
"Shut up." He raised an eyebrow at me, and my stomach did something funny, like a flip. Butterflies. That was new.
"Well, you were staring. Pretty obviously."
"Whatever."
"Fine. It's your turn." I rolled, ignoring Spot's lingering smirk every time I made eye contact.
"Mr. Green in the study with the rope."
"Rope." He was watching me out of the corner of his eye, I could tell, but I refused to look at him again until he was moving his piece. "You're staring again. It's like you're a kid with a crush."
"I am not staring!" He smirked at me again, and my stomach did a flip again.
"Sure, Race. Whatever you say." He said sarcastically. "Colonel Mustard in hall with the knife. Thanks for moving me to the study, by the way."
"I have Mustard."
"Cool." We kept playing for a while, and even though I tried to not, I caught myself looking at him a few times. "Ha! Solved it!"
"Good for you. But it's my turn to guess, and I know too, so too bad."
"Yeah right!"
"My guess is...Mrs. White...in the library...with...the...lead pipe!"
"Dramatic schoolgirl much?" Spot grumbled, pulling the envelope out from his side of the board and handing it to me. "I bet you're wrong."
"Lead pipe." I flipped the lead pipe card over. "Mrs. White. And...the library." He lifted his lip at me in some sort of snarl.
"Butthead."
"Did you just call me that fifth grade insult?"
"Butthead, buttfart, idiot." He used no inflection whatsoever, just listing off random grade school insults. "Poophead. Dumbo, stupid, copycat."
"Copycat?"
"Copycat." He confirmed. "Copycat, poophead, idiot."
"You already said idiot. And poophead."
"Well you are." He snarled at me, a totally over exaggerated expression. "All of them."
"Well then." His face melted into a smile, a huge, bright smile that few people ever saw on his face. He didn't smile like that often. That time, my stomach didn't just flutter, it flipped several times, and I was smiling back at him. It was then that I came to the crashing realization, the realization that changed my life. I, Antonio "Race" Higgins, was in love with Spot Conlon. My best friend. I was in love with my best friend. I was in love with a boy. And really, I couldn't be happier. I didn't really understand it, but I knew, instinctively, that it was a good thing. I just knew it.
Chapter two! Yay! Sorry if it was a little bit boring, but it will be kind of influential later.