Page 1 of Besties
Chapter1
“Max, do you need a hug?”
Hearing the question always reminded me of the first time Richie had asked it. I’d hit puberty, and my body was going through all kinds of changes—some scary as hell, others pretty damn exciting. I mean, who knew your dick could getthatmuch bigger? And the hair? Hell, had I known, I would have tried to get the whole thing started earlier.
Anyway, a few months after my birthday, my father decided he liked his secretary more than me and my mother. He’d come home one afternoon, a wide smile on his face, and told us he was leaving to start life over with her. He said this family—ourfamily—didn’t mean anything to him anymore and he wanted out. My mother told him to go. When he offered to pay her, she told him to shove his money up his ass and that we didn’t need him anymore. So he packed his bags and walked out the door.
Now, twenty years later, he had a wife and two new kids in a different state and somehow forgot we existed.
It turned out okay, I guess. Mom was a great single parent. She worked hard, brought home decent money, and always made time for me. When I asked why she wasn’t more upset, she said she’d known for a long time that he was cheating on her, and she’d just kept up appearances for my sake. Whatever.
Me? I was a hot mess. I couldn’t believe my dad—the guy who took me fishing, the one who’d helped me to build a soapbox car, and the one who called me “pal”—just up and ditched us. In my anger and frustration, I started getting into fights, my seething rage needing a target. Oh, I never started them, but I always finished them. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a tough guy by any means. I’d just turned thirteen and was five two, one-thirty dripping wet. I didn’t exactly strike fear into anyone’s heart. But playing soccer had made me scrappy and fast. If you were going to put me down, you’d better make damn sure I stayed that way. Otherwise you’d find out that I fought dirty.
Mom tried to talk to me. She wanted me to know that nothing that had happened was my fault and that I shouldn’t blame myself. I guess she never figured out that I didn’t. I blamed him. I hated my father’s guts for what he did to her… and me. At least that was what I’d told myself.
My best friend, Richie Ryland, stood by me through thick and thin. No matter how horrid I got, he still had my back. Oh, he wouldn’t fight for me. No, Richie was more of a bookish type. You asked him a question no kid should be able to answer, and by God, he would. If you actually stumped him, he’d be so damned excited, because it meant he’d be able to learn something new.
More than once he’d talked someone out of fighting me, or was able to convince me to stop being a dick. Usually the latter.
The two of us were opposites in every way. I was short, he was tall. I was skinny, he was chunky. I had dark hair, his was blond. He wore glasses, I didn’t. But whatever had brought us together simply worked. He was my best friend since the day he walked into my homeroom in second grade, and nothing had changed that. Even though we lived on opposite sides of town, Richie was my guy.
One day, after a knockdown, drag-out fight, I was in my room, pissed off to high heaven. Mom was at work, and I was in a rage over some stupid comment that Bob Jenkins made. It resulted in both of us with black eyes, and him with a fist-shaped bruise on his pudgy face. When Richie called, I didn’t answer, knowing how angry I was and fearful I might take it out on him. But then he called back again and again.
“What do you want?” My tone was clipped, petulant.
“Do you need a hug?”
“Fuck you.” I was ready to hang up, when he called my name.
“I’m not kidding.” His voice grew softer. “Max, do you need a hug?”
“No, I don’t need a fucking hug.” Yeah, I did. I needed someone to hug me and tell me everything would be okay. “I gotta go.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I laughed. He lived twenty minutes away by bike, and though he came over pretty frequently to watch cartoons and have the snacks Mom made us, we usually met somewhere in the middle, more toward the malls and stuff.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” Then he was gone.
Twenty minutes later the doorbell rang. I walked downstairs, ready to give whoever was there a piece of my mind. When I opened the door, there stood Richie, his arms wide.
“What the hell?”
“I brought your hug.”
I stood and gaped at him. His bike was laying on the sidewalk behind him, and he was there, arms spread out, waiting for me.
“My arms are getting tired.” He grinned at me. “Come on. Let me hug you.”
It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, but I moved into them. He embraced me, holding my head to his chest. It was warm and sweet and… I never realized how much I did need this hug. Tears started streaming down my cheeks. Somehow Richie got us into the house and onto the couch, where he held me as all the anger, pain, loathing, and sadness that had welled up inside of me finally started to bleed out.
“He fucking left us. Like we were trash. And Mom says it’s not my fault, but it is.”
He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “Tell me how.”
I tried to move back to look him in the eye, but he held fast. I was going to protest, but the hug was nice and made me feel a lot better.
“He and my mom were happy until I came along. She said he became a different person after that. Moody, pensive, you know? Then he just up and leaves and starts a new family.”
