Chapter 1
TRUEN
The boy who would ruin my life showed up to practice and smiled like he’d already been chosen as the striker.
He had the fanciest cleats I’d ever seen. They were white, with no scuffs, and had gold accents that flashed every time he moved. His socks were pulled up perfectly, his jersey didn’t wrinkle when he ran, and he walked confidently, assured he’d already earned a spot.
I sat alone on the edge of the bench, tying and untying the same knot in my laces, stomach tight, trying to breathe like this wasn’t a big deal and I wasn’t already counting how many ways I was about to humiliate myself in front of total strangers.
Then the boy glanced my way. Just for a second. A flicker. Not even a smile. But it was enough to make me look away fast and pretend I hadn’t been watching him at all.
The sun was already brutal, though it wasn’t even noon. The grass steamed, and the humid air smelled like fresh-cut blades and Gatorade. I squinted into the heat waves coming off the blacktop, hoping for a cloud that never showed.
“Alright, listen up!” Coach’s whistle shrieked across the field. “Drills in pairs. We’re working on control and accuracy today. You don’t need to show off. Just pass and move.”
The other boys scrambled into loose lines, already pairing off. My heart did that thing it always did—skipping, stuttering, dreading. I hated being the last one picked, but I always was.
Then the boy with the gold-trimmed cleats turned around with the ball tucked under his arm. Coach pointed directly at me.
“You. With Carter.”
Carter. That was his name… well, last name, since that’s all Coach used.
He jogged toward me, unaware of how my heart tried to leap out of my chest.
“You any good?” he asked, bouncing the ball between his feet as if it was weightless.
I shrugged. “I’m... okay.”
“Well, if you suck, I’ll make you look better. If I suck, I guess you’ll just bring me down more. Deal?”
I blinked. “What?”
He grinned. “Relax. I’m just messing with you.” Then he nudged the ball my way. “Let’s go, quiet kid.”
We started slow. He passed tight and low with perfect control. I bobbled my return, cringing as the ball skidded off the side of my foot.
“Don’t overthink it,” he said. “It’s just a pass. Pretend you’re kicking a rock. Or your little brother.”
“I don’t have a little brother.”
He smiled huge, his head blocking out the sun. It made a halo around him that made him glow even brighter. I couldn't look away.
“Kick it like you hate someone, then.”
I huffed a nervous laugh and tried again. This time, it landed cleaner.
“There you go.” He bounced it back. “See? We’ll make a striker out of you yet.”
He was good. Not just fast, but smooth, like he understood the ball in some secret way the rest of us didn’t. He barely looked down when he passed, and he never flinched when the coach shouted across the field.
I, on the other hand, jumped every time a whistle blew.
We passed back and forth, and he kept talking.
About the cleats hurting his heels. About how his dad made him do this, even though he liked basketball more.
About the weather. His new house. His neighbor’s weird dog.
I didn’t say much, but I listened to all of it.
Every word, thinking it might mean something if I held onto it long enough.
“You always this quiet?” he asked after I gave him a sharp pass that made him stumble slightly. He recovered fast, with a laugh. “Or do I just intimidate you?”
“You talk a lot.”
That made him laugh harder. “Fair.”
I didn’t want to like him. Not that fast. Not like that.
But he was everything I wasn’t. Loud. Confident. Easy in his skin. His body just knew how to move, how to take up space without apologizing. I was always trying to shrink myself so nobody would notice the awkward kid in the back.
I wouldn’t understand it then, what he’d become to me. What I’d become to him.
But something started that day.
Something inescapable and historic and dangerous.
By the end of practice, we were passing cleanly. Even Coach nodded once. “Nice work, boys.”
Carter winked at me. “Told you I’d make you look good.”
I tried not to smile and failed.
After practice, most of the boys got picked up in SUVs and vans. One by one, they disappeared until it was just me and Carter left on the bench.
My mom was late. She’d said something about stopping by the grocery store.
“You need a ride?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He looked up as if I’d surprised him. “Nah. My mom’s coming.” Then he added, almost as if he didn’t mean to say it out loud, “Eventually.”
He paused just long enough for something to slip in. Sadness? Loneliness? I wasn’t sure. But I offered him my Gatorade, to which he shook his head.
He nudged a pebble with his toe. “You live close?”
“Just past the school. My mom’s probably making grilled cheese.”
He nodded, like that sounded good.
“I’m Darien, by the way,” he said after a minute. “You?”
“Truen,” I said, then added quickly, “But you can call me Tru.”
“Tru.” He tried it out. “Cool. You gonna be at practice Thursday?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll save you from the worst partner.”
I was pretty sure I was the worst partner, but I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I offered, “You wanna come over and have lunch with me? You can check out my Pokémon cards. We can call your mom and let her know.”
His face lit up, as if my offer opened the curtains on whatever dark mood he’d been sitting in and let some sunshine through.
“Yeah, okay.”
It wasn’t an epic moment. Nothing earth-shattering or monumental. Just two boys on a curb with grass in their socks and dirt on their shins.
But it felt like something.
Something important and new.
And part of me already knew—Darien Carter was going to change my life.
We rode in the back seat of my mom’s car, both of us a little sweaty and smelling like sunscreen. She asked Darien polite questions.
“Do you play other sports? How long have you lived in Oak Hill?” And he answered easily, charming like he’d been trained for it.
I said almost nothing. I couldn’t. I was too busy paying attention to his answers, hungry for pieces of him. Who was Darien Carter? Where did he come from? And why, of all the kids he could’ve gone home with today, had he chosen me?
When we got to my house, he followed me inside as if he already knew where everything was. He dropped his bag by the door and kicked off his shoes.
“Smells good,” he said, sniffing. “What’s that?”
“Grilled cheese,” I said. “My mom makes them with three kinds of cheese and garlic salt on the crust.”
His eyes lit up. “Okay, fancy.”
“You want one?”
“Duh.”
While she cooked, we camped on the living room floor with a tray of apple slices and juice boxes for little kids instead of the mature ten-year-olds we were. I pulled out my Pokémon card binder and watched his face go from curious to shocked.
“Dude,” he said, flipping through the pages. “You have a Holo Charizard? This thing’s worth, like, two hundred bucks.”
I shrugged. “My uncle gave it to me. I don’t play much anymore.”
He held it up as if it were a treasure. “You don’t play, but you keep them this organized?”
“I like the art.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s actually kinda cool.”
He said it like it wasn’t lame. Like I wasn’t lame.
My mom dropped off our sandwiches on paper plates and told us to holler if we wanted dessert. As soon as she left, Darien stuffed half of it into his mouth and made a groaning sound.
“Oh my God. You weren’t kidding. This is insane.”
I smiled around my bite. “Told you.”
We finished eating, and I showed him my GameCube, the beanbag chair I’d won at a school raffle, and my room. I went through everything carefully, letting him in on my secrets. He flopped on my bed as if he lived there, arms behind his head. “You always this nice?”
I froze. “I dunno. Am I?”
He shrugged. “Nicer than anyone I know.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So I turned on the video game and handed him a controller.
We played until my mom knocked and asked if Darien’s mom was still planning to pick him up. He checked his phone. Nothing.
“She’s probably busy,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “You want to stay for dinner, honey?”
Darien looked at me. Then at her. Then back at me.
“If it’s not a big deal,” he said, voice small for the first time all day.
“Not a big deal at all,” she assured him. “You boys have fun.”
We did. After he trounced me in the game, he checked out my extensive collection of comic books, which, again, I told him I collected for the art.
After dinner, and finally getting in touch with his mom, he asked if he could stay the night. My mom made up the trundle bed and brought us popcorn in a giant mixing bowl. We watched cartoons until we passed out, him half-tangled in blankets, me staring at the ceiling, brain wide awake.
Darien didn’t talk about his parents, and I didn’t ask. But something in the way he clung to the comfort of my house—the grilled cheese, my room, the warm lamp glow in the hallway he asked if we could leave on—told me more than I needed to know.
He didn’t want to leave.
And I didn’t want him to.