Good Guys Go Bad

School finished and I grew insane at the thought of no longer having anything to do. I usually occupied myself with studying and with summer here none of that was necessary. Maybe, like every other summer, I could reconstruct my social life, morph into the social butterfly. Hah, who am I kidding? Not myself, but it was an obscure option I had and I didn't push too far away. Sure, I still had my limits and morals, but summer was supposed to be fun. My definition of fun contrasted with your average eighteen years old and were not the same, but maybe I could redefine it, a little bit. My mom had me on a leash, but I could inch away and eventually set myself loose. I didn't plan for parties, simple and harmless hangouts with the friends I'd known since a kid.

Day one of summer, I woke up at seven in the morning, my brain still wired to my school schedule. I sighed, knowing all too well that sleep wouldn't be granted to me anymore. After what held the sensation of hours of ogling stupidly at my ceiling, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I brushed my teeth, sent of splash of freezing water on my face and went down stairs. I felt instant relief as I my olive eyes swept over my mom and then did the aroma of the pancakes she cooked hit my nostrils. I smiled. My mother was a teacher, an English one at the high school here in town. So, not only was I on vacation, but her too.

“Not surprised to see you up so early,” she mumbled, coating off her statement with a chuckle.

“Morning, mom,” I huffed.

I sat down at the kitchen table, taking a small glance at the headline of the newspaper. It read: Tragic car wreck. Yeah, to my amusement and disappointment that's what our newspaper consisted of. Small towns really have nothing consequential to inform to the citizens and accidents like that were usually on the front paper. They would even stretch the news out for the reason that other topics of interest never popped up. They would stretch the news so far, that follow ups, days later on the people's health would be inserted on the pages; not just days, but weeks. I saw it as pathetic, but remained indifferent to it. Glad, I didn't have that job.

After she set the platter of pancakes drenched in honey (which I preferred over syrup) in front of me, I ate with a hungry anxiety. We talked for about an hour as we took generous sips of our coffee. I washed the dishes and bolted off to my room to the shower with some random clothes I had picked up from on top of the washer; that was where mom put my clothes once she cleaned them. The chilled water pattered against my body and the muscles that tensed overnight loosened much to my pleasure. I liked cold water. It brought refreshment to the body unlike hot, which caused steam to curl around you only making you stuffy from the humidity.

Nothing special had I jotted down on my mental agenda for that day, so I dressed in my lucky pair of skinny jeans, that were sort of ripped on both of the knees in hopes of something lucky happening that day. Regardless of their state, I loved them. No, the jeans did not squeeze the life out of me like the scene kids at my school. Nowadays, everyone wore skinny jeans, from the scenesters to the gangsters. I chose to wear a solid red shirt and flashed my brand new pair of silver and red dunks. I looked decent, compared to how I would have looked had I stayed in sweats with my disarranged platinum hair. Like Christmas colors, the ruby red complimented the soft green color of my eyes and also made my almost blond white hair burst out all the more.

I had a lean physique due to my lightning metabolism, similar to my mother's. The rare and authentic exercise I got rooted from when I swam at the YMCA, which during the past few months hardly happened. I sat around a lot and the fact that I was as fit as I was surprised me and others alike. Thinking back to the idea of swimming, maybe I could apply for a job as a lifeguard at the YMCA. Swift arms and quick thinking sufficed as good enough qualities to get hired. I needed money, not just to shove into my pocket but to have a supply of independence surge through me.

Mom basically shadowed over me as I made every single decision in my life and not that minded it, but I didn't want to have to rely on her for my personal finances. Mom always frowned upon the idea of getting a job. She wanted my main focal point centered on studies. I see where she came from on the idea, but with school out of the way, her excuse, nonexistent. She just wanted to secure herself that I would have a good future and I couldn't bring myself to blame her with an accusing finger even if I ever felt the need to.

I laughed, picturing myself off to the rescue, plundering into the chlorine treated waters with the determined intent of saving a drowning child. As I replayed the over dramatic scene once more, my phone, which lied across the room vibrated. I always left the thing on vibrate because well, ringers annoyed me. To me, there's nothing worse than having your ears bulleted by a loud ring, song or anything. Vibrate mode had more subtle qualities and it pestered me little.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Heath! I was wondering, do you wanna join me and Casey at the Brew later?” My friend Dahlia, a fun girl with soft features, silky ashen brown hair and anything but good intentions. The brew, it was a miniature coffee shop with vintage interior decorations that blanketed a set of peaceful emotions whoever stepped in there. They always had low jazz music in the background that lured one to sleep as they lounged on the couches. At times they had random local bands or DJ's that showcased their talent to the college kids that usually inhabited the place along with a handful of high school students.

“Hey Dahl,” I greeted her, letting a smile play onto my thin lips, which once a girl thought of as delicate; the statement left me bewildered. “And, sure. Not much else to do. What time?”

I heard her breathe in and she released the leftover of the breath over the speaker, volcano-like static shrouding the line for a second or two. “Anytime, how about three on the dot,” she suggested.

“Sounds good. You want me to pick you up?” I knew she did, the flirtatious tone I recognized all too well said so and then her malevolent chuckled verified my assumption.

“I don't want to impose- -”

I cut off her innocent act with my reply. “You're not and I'd be glad to.”

“Thanks, Heath. You're a doll, but I'm going to start getting ready so I'll see you later then.”

When I went down the stairs, my mom babbled on the phone. More than likely she talked to her friend Karah or grandma, either one. I stood on the stair case, gripping the rail and when the beep of the phone went off, that signaled the call had ended. Until then, did I descend down the stairs and into the living room.

“Hey, I was just talking to Karah. Her and her boyfriend are coming for dinner tomorrow and I want you to be here,” she informed, her ocean eyes vivid.

“Alright,” I told her, my gaze straying from her face, the face I saw my own in at times. “I'm going to the coffee shop with some friends in about. .” I give the clock a long, hard stare. “An hour and a half.”

With a nod of her head, she granted me permission. “Just make sure to bring me something when you get back.”

“Haha, chai tea?”

“Always.”

Sometimes when I analyzed my mom it stunned me that she had worn the title of single for so long. She had this vibe about her, an infectious one, that made the most depressed of people grin. Her hair, light in pigment like mine, showed like the sun in all its glory. She had deep set eyes, a murky teal, a mixture of blues and greens, high cheek bones and a natural tan. She was thin, short and overall she was beautiful and would make the flawless wife for any man. She had her scary side, like every mom out there, but I witnessed it on rare occasions and mostly her wrath was not directed towards me, but others who had evoked anger in her. Maybe she felt she had to keep full loyalty to my deceased father and I understand, but as cliché as it is, Dad would have wanted her to find someone else.



“So, what is there to do around here, Daddy-o,” I queried as I hopped up and sat on the island in the center of the kitchen as my dad excavated through the refrigerator. He stopped, his shoulders slumping and turned towards me.

“Clean the backyard if you want,” he shrugged.

I laughed, throwing my head back. “I meant as in entertainment.”

“Well Justin, go watch a movie. Go to the library, there's a museum, also a new coffee shop opened not too long ago. I heard it's a hit with kids like you,” he shrugged again, his mouth lop sided with oblivion.

Kids like me? I didn't know what the emphasis on that meant, but I brushed it off. Starting arguments already on my first day here didn't appeal to me as the best of ideas. The morning was slow, or more of the afternoon, taking in consideration that my lashes lifted past twelve. I adored sleeping into the late hours of the day; it brought me an odd yet even more tiring relaxation, but nonetheless I enjoyed the act. What I found more amusing was that my dad slept in two hours later than I had. I skipped breakfast and lunch and by that point I still hadn't had any food, but my stomach didn't twist with any sort of appetite.

“Tomorrow son, you're going to meet her,” he said.

He referred to his girlfriend. If I remembered right, they had been together for the past year and the idea that he had kept her on his side so long made my eyes bulge out in astonishment. After my own mom, the man couldn't seem to settle with a woman longer than two months, Marie's personality and image, my mother, still too fresh in his mind. I wasn't dying of anticipation to meet the new lady in his life, but I held not any hostile feeling toward her.

I showered, got dressed in a laggard manner, misting a sheet of Paul Sebastian cologne on my navy v-neck shirt. My haired dried on its own, no gels, or sprays added to it because of my straight haired genes I was quite pleased with. I sported my raggedy Sperry's and some loose Hollister jeans and. frustrated with boredom, I strained a strong hand through my humid hair, sighing.

The town, like I expected, had the volume of a television set on mute. One measly day and I already toyed with the spontaneous thought of returning home. When someone moved to a new city, they gambled the chance of meeting absolutely no interesting people, not making bonds, and their reputation as well. How would the citizens of this place see me as? Would their minds distinguish me as a foreigner to this part of the state or would I blend in? Those were some of the thoughts that plagued my train of reason. The opinions of others concerned me in no fashion, but I longed to be perceived a certain way for my own egotistical satisfactions.

I wanted to be untouchable as I was back in San Antonio. Most people cleared my path and it gave me something to boast about. I was aware that this lame excuse for a town wasn't my home, but the effects I casted on those around me I hoped would manifest in the people I'd meet here sooner or later. With these arrogant philosophies lurking in me, I roamed around the house, in and out of every room, but nothing peaked my interest. Though, nothing ever truly did. That was the way it worked, others attention spans became hogged by the likes of my own, but nothing, no one, not a thing clutched onto mine.

My mouth watered for a smoke, of something, tobacco, weed, whatever. It yearned to be replenished with tendrils of ill smog that tarnished my lungs. A beer sounded good at the moment too, but with my tongue clicking against the roof of my mouth, I endeavored to ignore my brain cells' sharp pleas. Later, I would occupy myself with a cigarette, but I had just cleaned up and hesitated -and refused to coalesce the scent of my cologne and that of the spidering smoke.

I sighed as plopped back onto my bed. The room dad had given me didn't excite me. Devoid of any color on the four walls that appeared to close in on me, my eyes examined the room. A drawer with a large mirror over it crowded the far corner of the room and a laundry basket slumped on the opposite side of it. I attempted to picture my whole summer here and honestly doing that gave me a peek as to how suicide felt. My head spun, the head ache bashing like a beast against the inside wall of my forehead. Why did I agree to this?

I started replaying the conversation my dad and I had. He mentioned something about a coffee shop. I had the urge to check the place out, places like that were for mainly two kinds of people from what I'd learned previously: Loners and small crowds of friends. I hoped with eagerness to bump into the latter. If it was a small group of kids, I figured they'd be wary as to letting a stranger join their little group, but maybe upon another confrontation they wouldn't be as reluctant. Don't judge me wrongly on this, but I didn't mind the idea of a loner either. The female or male would be alone and the task of instigating a conversation seemed easier, but I chose to savor the difficulties of a challenge.



At two o' clock with fifty minutes left for the selfish hour to relish, I picked up Dahlia. I drove to the Broadway Brew, named after street it was on the corner of, with chit chat about what she had done all day. I offered nothing to the conversation for the reason that I did just that: nothing. I provided nods here and there so she would think that I listened with intent when really my mind fiddled with something else, the knot in my throat. Deranged and lashed by the hands of a migraine, I did everything in my power to concentrate on Dahl's self absorbed rants, but my fingers didn't reach the goal.

We entered into the shop, the fragrances of coffee beans and sandwiches, which they prepared here as well, welcoming us as well as Case, or as Dahlia called him, Casey. I smirked at my friend, whom I had first met in my pre kindergarten class as we ferociously and terribly colored away at the blank paper before us.

“Heath, Dahlia, you hooked up with a girl, man,” he chided as the three of us headed toward the far right where the lounging section was, the door which we had entered, on the left. The hang out place, the front wall that faced towards the street was constructed of three quarters glass on top and the remainder brick, this design extended to the left wall, only halfway though. An antique chandelier hung over us that had been painted a teal by the owners probably to give a hipster impression.

“No, Case. Friends, just friends,” I reminded him as we fell back on the couches and I propped my feet on the futon in front of me. Dahlia giggled as a follow up to my comment and Case sneered.

“Any plans for the summer,” he questioned and raised his eyebrows, his fist digging into his face, his elbows mounted on his knees.

I shook my head and Dahlia opened her mouth and talked away, filling him in on just about everything she was going to do for the summer.

Lazily my eyes swerved from the faces of the people that colonized the booths and tables and far in the back, sat a guy in a booth. When my eyes flashed passed him, they returned quickly because not only was I staring at him, but he glared at me. My breath was stolen. Something about him, besides the glare that churned that feeling in my stomach to an extremity where I couldn't handle well. He looked like a grunt, something girls surely saw as attractive about him. He had caramel hair and looked as if a comb hadn't been run through the nest in days, but the messy look worked for him as it did for me.

Even when I flicked my gaze from his rigid looks, his stare remained on me. I excused myself from my friends and darted towards the restroom. Those icy blues trailed up and down my body, scrutinizing me, pointing out all my flaws, flaws I ignored for the sake of trying to be the perfect son. I heard the echo of my Nike's pounding on the black and white tiled floors as I escaped from that awkward moment I shared with the outsider.



It was an instant desire when I first saw him that shot through me. The stranger with extremely fair hair in the red shirt carried himself with such deftness and a timid sort of confidence. His voice was low in octave, but polished around the edges and I imagined waking up to such an art. He exhibited a durable simper as he chuckled among his friends. I had anticipated a challenge and here it was, right in my face. I didn't think a hick town like this supplied this high in quality eye candy. I smirked, already tasting my victory as I pictured myself getting into the boy's pants. He was attractive beyond reasonable doubt, lean and built with a tenderness most people couldn't pull of nowadays. I kept my stare adamantly on him even when his curious one tapped on mine, I continued my staring and saw firsthand how his nerves sky rocketed.

That was the effect I mentioned earlier. The teenage boy, out of breath, bolted for the restrooms in the back and aside from his shortness of breath he looked well composed. I almost moaned at the sight of him standing up and all the muscles beneath his semi tight jeans flexing as he trotted to the bathroom. I bit into my tongue and thought, “if there's more fine kids like that, then I'll waste this summer away like nothing.”