I used to be the king of my own high school kingdom. I was the popular guy who had the right girlfriend and the perfect best friend, I had everything to look forward to for my last year of high school. But that was before the end of it all. When Nessa and Jake still meant the world to me, when my world was perfect. That was before goodbye, before the people I loved the most betrayed me. That was before I met Katrina, the whirlwind of a girl who saved me from the worst part of my life, and showed me that love isn’t hard if you have the right person to share it with, and that everyone deserves a chance to leave the past behind.

The air was thick with the smell of cheap booze and even cheaper perfume. Thanks to Ricky, the past summer had been weekend after weekend of hangovers, and I was beginning to wonder what the point of being a senior was. Did we really have nothing better to do than get drunk every Friday night and maybe get to second base in the back of our souped up cars or someone else’s bed? It was only because of Jacob that I was here, again; stepping over person after person, silently apologizing when I stepped on a stray hand or foot, trying to find my errant friend, knowing that he was still here. Not seeing him in the living room or the basement worried me so I tried combing the rest of the house looking for him. Finally I gave up when I got to the fifth locked door in a row. Dang booze and hormones. I swear, half the senior class will be going back to school knocked up. I slide my sleek new Samsung out of my pocket and dial Jake’s number from heart. I was unsurprised to hear it ring from a door down the hall, and was trying not to choke on laughter as I heard him stumble around looking for his phone. What really didn’t surprise me was the girlish, breathy giggle I heard when he found and answered the phone.

“Hello -- who is this?”

Layering my voice with the thick sarcasm that comes with having Jake for a best friend I say, “Alex-from-Target... who do you think genius? It’s me, I came to pick your lousy butt up… again.”

Have you ever had one of those moments where the world stops, everything stands still, and you want so hard to go back in time and stop it from happening, but you can’t so all you do is sit there and wonder why? Here was my moment.

“Who is it babe?”

“Shhh! It’s Aaron! - Sorry man that was just some -”

He never got to finish his sentence. As soon as I heard her voice I was down the hall and busting through the door faster than I thought I could move.

Deep down there was some small part of me that hoped, believed that it wasn’t her. God, I wanted to see any other face than hers in that bedroom, but fate is cruel that way.

“Vanessa?!”

“Aaron, I-I-I can explain.”

I couldn’t make sense of it. These were the two people who I thought I could count on, in the bedroom together, one stumbling around for clothes the other giving me a strange pleading look while trying to cover her nakedness as if I had never seen her that way before, and in a sense I hadn’t. I hadn’t ever seen her lips flushed from another guys kiss, and I sure as heck had never seen her try to make me understand something like this. This to me was the worst kind of betrayal.

“How long?” I choke the words out like the bile they are because I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

Nessa’s eyes start to glimmer with tears and her lower lip is trembling in that way that used to make me want to hold her till the world was gone, but now I am too furious to even care.

“HOW LONG?!”

Nessa and Jake both jump, but Nessa speaks first.

“Since Valentine’s... at Emma’s”

That made sense. Valentine’s Day weekend my dad had packed up the entire family and took us to the ski resort in Switzerland where he had first met Mom. It was their 20th anniversary. I’d made plans to go out with Nessa that day, but had to leave the day before Valentine’s because Dad kept the trip a secret. I texted her that I was sorry and promised that the next weekend we would go out. I had assumed that she was okay with it, and now I could see why she hadn’t been more upset. She’d been cheating on me since that weekend.

I whirled to Jake. This was the guy who I had grown up with. The first one I told when Nessa said yes to going to the movies with me, who I told when Nessa kissed me as the lights went down when she saw how flustered I was, the one person I thought I could count on for everything.

“All those days you said you had to work or you were grounded, all those times Nessa was shopping with the girls, the spa days with her mom, those were all lies?!”

Jake hung his head and I lunged for him. I got him to the floor and started whaling on his face. I could faintly hear Nessa in the background screaming for me to stop, screaming for help. All I could see and hear was angry and red. I was set in the continuous motion of my hand meeting his face when someone grabbed me around my middle and pulled me out the door, down the hall and out of the house. I was pushed against my car and then several someones held me there. I could vaguely hear things like, “Calm down, Aaron,” or “Chill dude, the cops are on their way.” After about five minutes of thrashing and trying to break free with no success I go slack against the hands that hold me and fall slowly to the ground. I feel my eyes closing of their own accord just as the pulsating flash of red and blue lights enter the yard.

***

I wake up with a throbbing headache sitting at a table with my hands cuffed in front of me. I had never had any contact with the inside of a police station before, but I had watched enough Law and Order to know that I was in the interrogation room of a police station. About a dozen different scenarios were going down in my head, and none of them were pretty. Underage drinking, Assault; either case I was screwed. I was imagining the look of utter disgust and disappointment on my parents’ faces when the door opened and my frankly rumpled looking uncle walked into the room.

“ Uncle Jax? What are you doing here.”

I hadn’t seen Uncle Jackson in four years, since my father found out he had a little drinking problem. It had torn me up because I was so close to him. I thought I’d never see him again, and yet here he was looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Let’s go, Aaron.”

“That’s it, that’s all I get is a ‘Let’s go, Aaron,’ after four years of no contact? I’ve just found out my girlfriend has been cheating on me with a friend so close he could have been my brother, and I have been handcuffed in this room for who knows how long with no one telling me anything. I want to know what is going on.”

Uncle Jax tossed a weary look my way and walked out of the room. He left the door open, which meant I had a choice; I could stay in this room and probably learn nothing, or I could follow him and maybe get some answers... so I followed him.

At the door, I was uncuffed and briefed on my situation. The cop that uncuffed me turned out to be Nessa’s dad.

“Son , I’m so sorry. Every time she went out we just assumed she was with you. I guess we should have asked her about her activities more often. Well, you beat up her bedroom buddy pretty badly, but, luckily, he has decided not to press charges. The main reason you’re here is to get you a chance to cool off.”

Something Mr. Hodgens said caught my attention.

“You said main reason, was there another reason I was being held?”

“Well now, you haven’t been told yet? Son your parents-”

My uncle chose that moment to clear his throat rather loudly. I just happened to catch a glimpse of my uncle’s face when I turned around; it looked like he was giving Mr. Hodges a warning of sort.

“I apologize, sir, but my nephew and I must really be going. There’s a lot to be done and very little time in which to do it.”

“Right then. Aaron, I am so sorry.”

And with that my uncle grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me out of the station.

***

The sunlight was a cruel and painful thing to face after the dimness of the police station - the hangover didn’t help much either.

“You’re lucky they had no reason to test your blood alcohol level or dear Mr. Hodgens wouldn’t have been quite as cordial and apologetic.”

I turn to my uncle and he’s holding out a pair of dark tinted sunglasses, a pair of his own already on his face. I manage to grumble a, “Thanks,” before sliding them on and taking in the wonderful relief I gained from them.

Somehow, my car is sitting in the parking lot waiting for me.

“I towed it over here. Figured you’d want your car back and I don’t think you going back to that house is such a good idea.”

“Then how did you get here?”

“Well who do you think towed it?”

My uncle points towards a shiny green tow truck with the words “The Greenman” embossed on the side in a shiny gold color.

“What the he-”

“Hey, watch it bub. Last time I saw you those words were not to come out of your mouth and that’s the way I’d like to keep it.”

“Okay, what the heck are you doing with “Greenman” written on the side of your truck?”

“Well now, that’s a rather simple question. That’s the new Ford that I had converted into a tow truck. It’s fuel efficient and better for the environment, so it’s green. I am the best business in town because I don’t cost people a lot of green. Plus the first truck I had was green, and when I was your age, my girl called me “Greenman” because of it.”

“Okay then, weird backstory taken care of. So, where’re we headed Uncle Jax?”

Uncle Jax harrumphed, “Well, I suppose we oughta go to your house first, and then we are heading to my place.”

“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on now?”

Uncle Jax shook his head no, “Later,” was all he said. So, I did what I do best. I got in my car, slammed the door and drove off.

***

I pulled into my section of the garage when I got to my house. The thing that struck me odd was that my dad’s Corvette was there, but the Suburban was gone. I wrote it off as a new art piece my parents had gone to look at. I went inside and was greeted by the sound of multiple alarms; the intruder alarm, my alarm clock, and the coffee pot. I went to the coded keypad to shut of the alarm system and then head to the kitchen, where I am greeted by the wonderful smell of our French Vanilla coffee, brewed and ready for the first cup to be made. I make my cup and amble to my room. I shut off my alarm and look thoughtfully around my room. I see all the pictures of me and Nessa, me and Jake, the three of us goofing off. I start tearing up, thinking about all the times that I hadn’t known, hadn’t seen what was going on right in front of me. I put down my coffee and pick up the closest photo. It’s from last week. My parents trusted me enough to go on a trip with Jake for a week. What they didn’t know is that Nessa and her best friend Reese were coming with us. It was a picture from our first day there. I kissed Nessa on the dock and Jake snuck up behind us to push us in the water. As we fell in Nessa and I both grabbed his arms, so the photo is of all three of us falling in the water, Jake flying headfirst and me and Nessa cannonballing with Jake’s arms in hand. I pick up the picture and raise my arm, prepared to throw it to the floor smashing it to smithereens when I hear my uncle downstairs talking to someone.

“... I understand that you want to be there for him, but you should have thought about that in February when you started cheating on him. He’s already under a lot of emotional duress right now he doesn’t need you here.”

I could barely hear her, but I would have recognized that voice anywhere. My heart fluttered in my chest in a happy sort of way, and then the events of this morning came back to me. All the memories, images, and thoughts that have already engraved themselves into my mind. Pain sprang through both my mind and my body. Almost as soon as I began to think of ways to get out of the house unnoticed, Nessa walked through the door. I tried to act angry and surprised at her coming to see me, but all my anger had already been used up earlier. All that was left was sorrow. It must have shown, because nearly immediately Nessa assumed an apologetic look. I tried to speak but my voice failed and I just looked like someone who is mute but believed he could talk. She saw my inability to speak, and spoke first.

“ Look, I didn’t expect any forgiveness for what I did, I just wanted to be the first to tell you that I am sorry to hear about your parents.”

She had barely gotten these words out before Uncle Jax walked in telling her it was time for her to go.

As she walked out the door I managed to muster anger from somewhere as I yelled, “WAIT! What about my parents?”

Uncle Jax’s jaw began to twitch the way it used to when he was contemplating something. He just turned and continued to escort Nessa out as I stood there with curiosity and anger swirling within me like a raging sea. Suddenly the anger was back and I stormed out after them. They had just gotten to the door when I whirled Uncle Jax against the door jam.

“Aaron, STOP!”

Vanessa’s voice was filled with panic. She was pulling at my hands and arms, but she couldn’t move them; the anger coursing through me at that moment made me stronger.

“I want to know what is going on NOW! What happened to my parents, and why won’t you let anyone tell me?”

My uncle’s eyes contained a bit of surprise, but when I looked deeper I saw something more. Almost like a protective grief, like he knew that the weight of the world was about to fall to my shoulders, but he wanted to hold it a little longer, keeping me safe as he wasted away.

“Aaron, please, let go of me. I’ll explain everything.”

I set my uncle down on the floor and he starts rubbing at his shoulders and back from where I slammed him into the frame. He turned to Vanessa, gave her the most venomous look I had ever seen from him. Vanessa’s eyes widened, but she said nothing more as she turned and walked out the door. Uncle Jax watched her get into her little white car and drive off.

“Do we talk now?” My voice was filled with shame and regret at having been so angry and untoward to my uncle.

Uncle Jax turned, weary once again.

“Yes, Aaron. Now we talk.”