Chapter 3

It's been a couple of weeks since we moved, and during that time, I've learned two things about the boy next door.

One: his name is Jace Rivera, and

Two: he's the Golden Boy of Rowville.

It didn't take long to figure these things out. In fact, they were kind of shoved in my face.

The day after the move, my dad took me into Rowville's version of downtown—a gravel road that was home to a whopping three buildings. There was the general store/post office/bar, a secondhand store filled with anything too good to trash but too crappy to keep, and, lastly, a skating rink that looked like someone built it specifically for the set of Stranger Things. On the glass doors of all three buildings were posters of Jace. Standing tall in his high school basketball uniform, the ball held at his side, his dark, empty eyes stared right into the lens of the camera… right into my soul… or, at least, that's how my dramatic ass felt. This is the problem with having no car, no friends, nowhere to go and nothing to do… I just kind of sit around and think. But the more I think, the worse things get, and sooner than I'm ready, I start to feel things.

I don't like feeling things.

According to the posters, Jace Rivera, number twelve for the Vikings, was about to enter his senior year at Knox Heights High. The same school and grade I would be attending.

Starting tomorrow.

Which leads me to why I'm sitting in the middle of my closet surrounded by trash bags filled with clothes. It should've been such a simple task—finding something to wear for your first day of school. But the more clothes I pulled out, the more I realized that… it didn't matter what I wore on the outside.

I'd still be filthy, discarded trash on the inside.

I reach into a bag and pull out the next item, only to freeze the moment my eyes catch sight of the red and white fabric. Slowly, carefully, as if it'll fall apart at my fingertips, I pull out the heavy letterman jacket and hold it to my chest. My eyes fill with tears, my heart heavy with longing, and I raise the fabric to my nose and inhale deeply.

It feels like everything all at once.

Like pride mixed with pain and coated with punishment.

I stand up and rise to my toes, feeling around the back of my closet shelf until my fingertips meet leather. Without another thought, I grab the basketball and hug it to my chest, along with my dead brother's jacket. I try not to remember when he gave it to me, how he gave it to me, but the memories are right there, in the forefront of my mind—a penance for who I am and who he was. He'd found me at a party, alone in a bedroom and blazed out of my fucking mind, scrambling for my dress I couldn't seem to find. Seconds earlier, Bryce Lynn, the school's resident stoner, left the room, closing the door behind him. As soon as my brother saw me, he turned to face the wall, slipped off his jacket and blindly handed it to me. "Get dressed. We're going home."

I didn't fight back. Didn't argue. I simply did as he ordered and waited for the lecture. The disappointment. The shame. It never came. The only thing he said was, "Did he force you, Low? Or did he make you feel pressured in any way? Physically? Emotionally?"

I was halfway through buttoning up his jacket and paused, looked over at him. He stood rigid, his shoulders square, and even through the sounds of the party on the other side of the door, I could hear the heaviness of his breaths as they left him. "I wanted it," I managed to say through the knot in my throat. It wasn't a lie. I wanted to lose my virginity to Bryce, a guy I'd been seeing for one whole month. He was a senior—a year older than my brother—and I was a sophomore. What could go wrong? As soon as it was done, I could tell he was done.

With me.

I kept my gaze low while my brother walked me out of the party, his head held high, and it wasn't until we got to his car that he spoke again. "You deserve better," he'd told me. "Guys… they're only going to treat you as well as you treat yourself, and right now…" He didn't finish his thought.

He didn't need to.

What started as a way to seek the same attention that always seemed to surround my brother was slowly becoming my life.

I was losing control.

But how could I not?

At home, at school, everywhere we went—my brother was the king, and I was the jester.

I close my eyes now, let the tears build behind my lids, and when I concentrate hard enough, I can almost feel him with me.

Beside me.

Above me.

All around me.

It feels like…

… like nothing all at once.

Like hopelessness and heartache and..

…feelings.

So many fucking feelings.

"Harlow!" Mom calls from downstairs, and I open my eyes. Wipe the tears away.

"Yeah?" I reply, rushing to hide the basketball and jacket in a trash bag.

"We have to go downtown to buy you a bike and figure out this bus schedule. Let's go!"

I throw the bag up on the shelf and move things in front of it to keep it hidden. "Coming!" I call out, then check my face in the mirror, make sure there's no evidence of my shame.

And my shame is this…

There's one other thing I know about Jace Rivera.

I know where his basketball is…

And it's a secret I'll take to the grave.

I can see the entire world from my bedroom window, or at least the world as I've always known it. Most nights, I crawl out of the window and sit on the roof just to get away from it all. Obviously, since the neighbors moved in, my view of the world has changed. The house they now live in had always been dark. Not just physically, but because of its history. Now, it's a living organism, moving and breathing and full of life. Or, at least, it seems like that at first glance. Too bad for them, I'm far beyond first glances.

Because I've seen more than I should.

Know more than I want to.

For example, I know that most nights, the crazy mom leaves. I assume she goes to work because she doesn't return until morning. The dad, who drives the eighteen-wheeler, stuck around for only three days after they moved in, and then he was gone for days on end. He's only returned once since they moved in two weeks ago, and that was only for a couple of days before he left again. The other man who helped them move left the following morning and hasn't come back since. And then there's the girl…

The same girl who just walked into the skating rink—where I'm currently working behind the counter—with Lana, the owner of the rink, at her side. "I'll be in my office interviewing," Lana, a woman in her fifties with natural blonde hair and an easy smile, says as she passes me. "You're in charge, Jace."

I nod, and when the girl smiles over her shoulder at me, I nod again.

Like an idiot.

And then I get back to work.

Lana said I'm in charge, and that means… absolutely nothing. I'm the only one behind the counter, and besides Jonah in the kitchen and the few families with little kids on the floor, the place is empty. That doesn't mean we're not busy, though. The parking lot is the only spot in Rowville large enough to accommodate over five vehicles, which means it's where most kids go to hang out.

A fucking parking lot.

At a fucking skating rink.

How ridiculous.

A few years back, Lana decided it was time to upgrade the place, but instead of doing anything to the main attraction—the rink itself—she knocked out a hole in the wall from the kitchen to the parking lot, thus creating Rowville's first ever drive-through.

I hate it. For no other reason than it forces me to engage with people from school, or worse, people from my team. And don't get me wrong; it's not that I don't like people. I just don't have the mental capacity to deal with bullshit. And if bullshit had a home, high school would be it.

"Was that fresh meat?" Jonah says, sidling up next to me—perfectly timing my point.

Spraying disinfectant into the rental skates, I mutter, "Fresh meat? The fuck?"

Jonah sighs, then lifts himself up on the counter. "I hope she gets the job. Give us something new to look at."

I look at her enough.

"You think she'll be going to our school?"

I've thought about this, and I've decided that it's likely. Rowville isn't a place where people go to live out the rest of their lives post-high school. If you're born here, you either leave for college right after or you're stuck here forever. The ones who are stuck here choose to be, and I'll argue that point until I'm dead on that hill. Jonah will live and die here because he's spent the past few years doing nothing more than the bare minimum. This includes school, work, and basketball.

This girl—whoever she is—definitely didn't have a choice when it came to moving here, because if she did… there's no way she'd be here. Which leads me to believe she's not old enough to get out from under her parents' thumb (unfortunate for her) and therefore… she's most likely a junior or senior and unless she's homeschooling, then she'll be attending Knox Heights High like the rest of us.

How tragic.

"I wonder where she's from," Jonah continues, changing the song that's playing through the speakers even though the previous one hadn't ended. "You think she's down to party?"

By party, Jonah means hanging out in the parking lot, pretending to get drunk off whatever booze kids can steal from their parents' stash.

I shrug, hoping that it's answer enough.

I may not know if the girl likes to "party," but I know other things about her.

I know she spends most nights in that house alone and that she's either afraid of the dark or has trouble sleeping.

I know she leaves her house a half hour before her mom comes home in the morning and returns a couple of hours later.

I know she wanders the property during the time she's gone and disappears into the tree line about a hundred yards from where I usually go.

I know that while she's wandering around, she has nothing else to distract her. No phone. No headphones. Nothing.

And I've wondered how it is she can live so easily and peacefully in her own head like that.

And lastly, I know her mom is having an affair with that guy who was there the first night.

The guy who isn't her dad.

And I wonder if she knows it too.

And maybe that's what keeps her up at night and the reason she can't stand to be around her mom.

Like I said: I've seen more than I should and know more than I want to…

"Shit," Jonah whispers, jumping off the counter. Lana and the girl reappear from the hallway leading to the office while Jonah does everything possible to look busy, which is stupid considering he's supposed to be working in the kitchen anyway. They walk past us, smiling and talking, and the girl's eyes meet mine for all of a millisecond. I smile at her for half that time.

"I'll be in touch," Lana says, holding the door open.

I don't quite make out what the girl says in return, but Lana's barely made it back to us before Jonah says, "Please tell me you hired her."

Lana rolls her eyes. "I have to go to Odessa to run some errands. Make sure the place doesn't burn down, okay?"

Jonah salutes her.

Lana shakes her head. "I meant Jace," she says over her shoulder as she goes back to her office, and I go back to what little work there is to do. Jonah stays next to me, bouncing on his toes like an unsupervised toddler who has no control of his emotions. A minute passes before Lana returns with her handbag and car keys. "You boys be good," she says.

Jonah waits for her to leave the building, then counts to ten, out loud, before hopping over the counter and running to the office.

Within seconds, he's returning, waving a sheet of paper in the air. By the time he gets to me, he's out of breath. "You not been training during the summer?" Jonah's not only my co-worker, but he's also my point guard and potentially one of the strongest players in the district if he actually tried.

"Her name's Harlow Greene. She'll be a senior, and she's from Dallas."

I snatch the paper from him and read what he clearly already has. It's nothing but Lana's handwriting that states exactly what Jonah just told me.

Harlow Greene. I turn the name over in my mind a few times. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"I don't know." Jonah shrugs. "Do we know any Greenes around here?"

"No," I'm quick to say, going back to lacing the skates. You can match up most last names here with the street signs, so I'd know if there were any Greenes around.

"Oh, wait!" Jonah says, snapping his fingers. "Maybe you're thinking of Harley Greene."

The name is as familiar as Harlow Greene, but I can't figure out why. "Am I supposed to know a Harley Greene?" I quickly run through as many names on the rosters of our opposing teams, and still… nothing.

"He's that kid…" Jonah says, moving around me to get to the computer. "You know, with the heart thing…"

"What heart thing?"

Jonah taps at the keyboard, then dramatically hits enter when he's done. "Oh, shit."

"What?"

Whatever Jonah's seeing has him stunned silent.

"What?" I repeat, dropping the skates so I can see what's on the screen.

He turns the monitor to me, and I freeze mid-inhale.

On the screen is a picture-perfect family of four, but I'd only ever seen three of the faces before—the mom, the dad, the daughter. Above the photograph, the headline reads: NBA to Pay Tribute to Late Texas Teen with an Honorary Draft Pick.