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Five

FIVE

It nagged me on my ride home after we all parted ways on Asher Street: something was wrong with Jake. Something had always been wrong with him. It wasn’t just how annoying he was or his lack of social graces or his dirty jokes that weren’t funny or even his lightning-quick temper. It lay deeper, and somehow I understood without actually knowing it had something to do with his dad. Which made me think about the similarities between Jake’s dad and mine, and how similar we were, in a way . . . even if I didn’t want to admit it.

Neither of us had a mom. Both our dads worked at the lumber mill (until Jake’s got fired a few months ago) and both fought in Vietnam. Even though he wasn’t a drunk like Jake’s dad, my dad liked a beer every day after work to wind down.

This also made me think even more about how Jake had latched onto me, following me around the most. In a burst of juvenile paranoia, I started worrying that maybe Jake hung around me so much because he recognized something in me that he connected to, that maybe, someday, given the right factors . . . I’d be like Jake, even.

It was ridiculous.

But it went a long way (in my fevered little brain, anyway) toward explaining why Jake had pegged me for his best friend. By the time I skidded to a dusty stop in our gravel driveway I was stewing over it so bad I couldn’t think of anything else. Actually, I didn’t think of much else for the next few days, though I hid it well, as always.

Just like I’ve hidden it for the past twenty years.

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