After the boy was dead and hastily buried, we stood around for a long time wondering what to do next.

No one said anything. What was there to say?

Sam was dead. I still see the five of us standing in a hush around that shallow grave. It is an image frozen in my mind.

I saw the faces of my friends. Haunted. Drained. We had mud on our hands and clothes from the digging. I knew then that all of us would be forever linked by our terrible secret in the tall grass at Mill...

Sam Wendall is fat.

This is not a new observation. It doesn’t come as some kind of shock to him. No. It never did. Sam has been big - Mom always says big instead of fat - his whole life. This morning he stands in front of the mirror behind his bedroom door and looks at the reflection with a familiar feeling of revulsion and curiosity. Mom always tries to be optimistic, reassuring. You’re sixteen, honey. You’ll grow into your body and your face wil...

Nadine thinks to herself, I’m too hungover for this shit.

Monday morning. Trigonometry. The fluorescent lighting in here hurts her eyes and her stomach feels hollowed out, empty. She can still taste the Vodka from the party last night.

“Fuck my life,” Nadine says, quietly.

Mrs. Keating, that dried up cunt, is passing out the math test. “You’ll have the whole period to complete this exam. There is absolutely no talking. When you...

I came home from school one afternoon and found Big John passed out on the couch.

This was a pretty familiar state to find him in ever since the accident at his job. He swept floors and cleaned toilets at a middle school in South Kingstown for the last twenty years. A couple weeks before, he and the other janitors were moving the bleachers in the gym to set up for a pep rally the following day. I’m not entirely sure of the details of the accident – Big John always seemed to ...

I want to interrupt the narrative for just a minute to talk about Mom.

I still think about her to this very day. I can see the two of us walking downtown that Christmas before she died. All the stores along Main Street were strung up with red and blue and white lights. My hands were stuffed in the pockets of my camel’s hair coat. I could see my breath in the cold night air. 

The annual Christmas tree lighting was about to take place in the town center. Mrs. Morr...

“I need Jack to fix me up with some heavy shit for this weekend. Let him know I want to meet up after school.”

Sam shuts his locker and looks at the hulking six-footer standing in front of him. He tries not to feel too intimidated.

Brad Mulligan. Senior. Movie star looks. Quarterback for the Greenfield Coyotes. He’s just another kid trying to arrange a deal. That’s how Jack said you had to think of all of them. He’s only another customer....