Killer

If memory serves....

What if, all of a sudden, you could remember every single second of your your entire life? And not just the major events everyone remembers-little things, too. Like that you and your best friend first bonded over hating the smell of rubber cement in third-grade art class. Or that the very first time you saw your eight-grade crush, he was walking through the the school courtyard, palming his soccer ball on one hand and an iPod Touch in the other.
But with every blessing comes a curse. With your spanking-new flawless memory, you'd also have to remeber every fight you had with your best friend. You'd relive each time your soccer-loving crush sat next to someone else at lunch. With 20/20 memory, the past could suddenly get a whole lot uglier. Someone who seems like an ally now? Look again-could be they weren't as nice as you thought. A friend you remeber as always having your back. Opps! On closer inspection, not so much.
If four pretty boys in Belleville were suddenly given perfect memories, they might know better who to trust and who to stay away from. Then again, maybe their pasts will make even less sense than before.
Memory's a fickle thing. And sometimes we're doomed to repeat things we've forgotten.
There it was. The big Victorian house at the corner of the cul-de-sac, the one with rose trellises along the fence and the tiered teak deck in the back. Only a select few have ever been inside, but everyone knew who lived there. He was the most popular boy in school. A boy who set trends, inspired passionet crushes, and made and broke reputations. A boy who every girl wanted to date and every boy wanted to be.
Frank Iero, of corse,
     It was a peaceful early September Saturday morning in Belleville, New Jersey, an idyllic Main Line town about 20 miles from New York. Mr. Cavanaugh, who lived across the street from Frank's family, strolled out to his yard to get the newspaper. The tawny golden retriever that belonged to the Vanderwaals a few doors down loped around the fenced-in yard, barking at squirrels. Not a flower or leaf out of place... Except for the four sixth-grade boys who all happened to be stealthily creeping into the Iero's backyard at the same time.
    Gerard Way hid amongst the tall tomoato plants, tugging nervously on the strings of his Belleville Long Course Swimming sweatshirt. He'd never trespassed on anyone's property, let alone the back yard of the handsomest most popular guy in school. Joe Trohman ducked behind an oak tree, picking at the embroidery his bag his dad had brought back from yet another last-minuet art history conference in Germany. Patrick Stump abandoned his bike by a boulder near the family's shed, devising his plan of attack. Miley way, Gerard's brother, had just crossed fences from his grandmother Elena's house. He crouched by the carefully pruned raspberry bush, inhaling the berries' slightly sweet, slightly tangy smell. 
      Quietly, each boy started into the Iero's rear bay window. Shadows passed through the the kitchen. There was a shout from the upstairs bathroom. A tree branch snapped someone coughed.
    The boys relized they weren't alone at exactly the same moment. Mikey noticed Gerard fumbling by the woods. Gerard spied Patrick squatting by the rock. Patrick glimpsed Joe behind a tree. Everyone marched to the center of Frank's backyard gathered in a tight circle.
   "What are you guys doing here?" Frank demanded. He'd known Gerard, Mikey, and Joe since the Belleville Public Library Primary reading contest-Frank had won, but all of them participated. Except for Mikey. They weren't friends. Gerard was the kind of person who blushed when the teacher called on him in class. Mikey, who was now tugging on the waistband of his, slightly too-small black denim jeans, never seemed comfortable with himself. And Joe-well, it looked like Joe was wearing a poncho today. Frank was pretty sure joe's only friends where imaginary.
"Uh, nothing," Mikey shot back.
"Yeah, nothing," Joe said, looking suspiciously at all of them. Gerard shrugged.
"What are you doing?" Patrick asked Frank.
Frank sighed. It was obvious they where here for the same reason. Two afternoons ago, Belleville Day, the elite prep school they attended, had announced the kickoff of its much-anticipated Time Capsule game. Each year, Principle Appleton cut a bright blue Belleville Day flag into many pieces, upperclassmen hid them around town, and the teachers posted scavenger hunt-style clues to the whereabouts of each piece in the upper- and lower-school lobbies. Whoever found a piece got to decorate it how ever he, she, they, it, or ze wanted, and once every piece was found, the staff sewed the pieces together, held a big assembly honoring the winners, and buried it in a time capsule behind the soccer fields. The person who found the time capsule pieces were legends-their legacies lived on forever.
It was hard to stand out at a school like Belleville Day, and is was even harder to snag a piece of the Time Capsule Flag. Only one loophole gave everyone hope: the stealing clause, which stated that it was legal to steal a piece from someone, right up until the piece's time of burial. Two days ago, a certain handsome somebody had bragged that one of the pieces was as good as his. Now, four nobodies were hoping to take advantage of the stealing clause when he least expected it.
Frank glared at the three other boys. "I was here first. That flag's mine." "I was here before you," Patrick whispered. "I saw you come out of your house only a few minuets ago." Joe stomped his purple sued shoes, gawking at Patrick. "You just got here too. I was here before both of you." Patrick squared his shoulders and looked at Joe's messy hair and very colorful poncho. "And who's gonna believe you?"
"Guys." Gerard jutterd his pointy chin towards the iero's house and help a finger to his lips. There where voices coming from the kitchen.
"Don't." It sounded like Tyler. The boys tensed.
"Don't," imitated a second high-pitched voice.
"Stop it!" Tyler screamed.
"Stop it!" The second voice echoed.
Gerard winced. His older cousin, Chuck, used to squeakily imitate Gerard's voice the same exact way, and Gerard hated it. He wondered if the second voice belonged to Tyler's older brother, Zack, a junior at Belleville high. "Enough!" Called a deeper voice. There was a wall-shacking thud then shattering glass. Seconds later, the patio door opened, and Zack stormed out, his seweatshirt flapping open, shoes untied, his cheeks flushed.
"Shit," Frank whispered. The boys scurried behind the bushes. Zack walked diagonally across the yard toward the woods, then stopped, noticing something to his left. An enraged expression slowly slithered across his face. The girls followed his gaze. Zack was looking into Frank's backyard. Frank's older sister Mellisa, and her new boyfriend, Pete Wetz, were sitting on the edge of iero's hot tub. When they saw Zack staring they dropped hands. A few pregnant seconds crept by. Two days before, right after Tyler had bragged about the flag he was about to find, Pete and Zack had gotten into a fight infront of the entire sixth-grade. maybe the fight hadn't ended.
Zack pivoted stiffly and marched into the the woods. The patio door slammed again, and the boys ducked. Tyler stood on the deck, looking around. His short drown hair messily laid on his head, his bright-white shirt made his skin look extra pale.
"You can come out," Tyler yelled.
Gerard windened his hazel eyes. Joe ducked down further. Frank and Patrick clamped their mouths shut. "Seriously." Tyler walked down the deck steps, balancing perfectly on one foot. "I know someone's there. But if you've come for my flag. It's gone someone already stole it." Frank pushed through the bushes, unable to contain his curiosity. "What? Who?" Joe emerged next. Gerard and Patrick followed. Someone else had gotten to Tyler before they did?
Tyler sighed and plopped down on the stone bench next to the family's small koi pond. The boys hesitated, but Tyler gestured them over. Up close, he smelled like vanilla hand soap and had the longest eyelashes any of them had ever seen. Tyler slid off his shoes and sank his petite feet into the soft green grass. "I don't know who," Tyler answered. "One minuet, the piece was in my bag. The next minuet, it was gone. I'd decorated it already and everything. I drew this really cool manga frog, the channel logo, and a girl playing field hockey. And I worked forever on the Billie Joe Armstrong inititials. I got it perfect." He pouted at them, his emerald green eyes round. "The loser who took it is going to ruin it, I just know it."
The boys murmured their condolences, each suddenly grateful that he hadn't been the one to steal it. Then they would be the loser he was complaining about.
"Tyler?"
Everyone whipped around. Mrs. Johspeh stepped out onto the deck. she looked as if she was on her way to a fancy brunch, dressed in gray Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress and heels. Her gaze lingered on the boys for a moment, confused. It wasn't as if they'd ever been in Tyler's backyard before. "We're going now, okay?"
"Okay." Tyler said, smiling sweetly and waving. "Bye!" Mrs. Joseph paused, as if she wanted to say something else.