The Color of Darkness COMPLETE NOVEL

Phases

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years was the summer I started my first job: I mowed lawns. I woke up every day before 8:00, pulled out the older-than-dirt push mower out of the tool shed out back, and rolled it down the street to get most of the work done before it got hot. I was on a tight schedule: on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I mowed all the even-numbered houses in our country neighborhood, and did the odd-numbered houses on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Because everything is further apart in the middle of nowhere, I pushed that mower almost a mile in each direction to get all my houses. I earned thirty-five dollars a week and was very proud of the fact.

That same summer was also the summer that Nova got her first boyfriend.

Nova was one of those "early developers," one of the girls who grew into their curves just ahead enough of the other girls for every boy in the school to notice, especially me. I had always thought my friend was pretty, but that summer she went from "proportionally pleasing" to "freakin' hot, I guess" (Rick's words). On some days, on my way home from mowing lawns, I would see her stretched out in the grass in her front yard tanning. Her uncle Mike wouldn't stand to let his niece wear such an "indecent" outfit as a bikini in public, so she settled on a rather revealing halter top and a pair of cutoff jean shorts that didn't leave much to the imagination. I wasn't the only one who had noticed the changes. In just a few months, Nova went from being an outcast like me to being the focus of quite a few boys' attention. For a short while, the attention went to her head and she didn't seem to enjoy hanging out with the two of us as much as she used to. Rick didn't seem to mind that much. I on the other hand, was wounded deeply and began to resent this version of Nova I wasn't familiar with.

Nova's boyfriend was going to be a junior at Dale High School, a greasy haired "white-neck" named Chris Thomson. See, the difference between a "redneck" and a "white-neck" in our little town was defined by the actual amount of time each spent doing the back-woods kind of stuff they bragged about. Though Chris could go on all day about how "rough" he liked to live, he was actually the son of Dale's biggest (and only) real estate broker and lived in the fifteen-home gated community (Dale's only gated community) called The Charter. He drove a brand new Ford pick-up, wore brand new boots, and had Cabela's caps in just about every imaginable color, each one brand new, and stuck a big ol' bent fishhook in each one.

"I hate that asshole," Rick remarked one day (asshole was one of his new favorite words) as we watched Chris's too-clean F-150 pull into Nova's driveway and honk in the most irritating way possible. The two of us were sitting on my front porch with a can of Mountain Dew Code Red each, inactively seeking something to get rid of our mid-summer boredom. Nova emerged from the house a few seconds later, clearly dressed up for a date. Silently, I agreed with Rick, but I couldn't tell him that; he suspected my crush on her and I couldn't give him any reason to press any accusations.

"Yeah," was all I said.

"It's too hot out here," he complained, downing the rest of his soda and watching the truck disappear around the bend in the road. "Let's go play some video games," I mumbled in agreement, still half-angry at seeing Nova get in Chris's truck, and let him lead the way to my basement, where I kept one of my most prized possessions: my Xbox.

The thing was practically ancient, bought by my dad as a birthday present from a garage sale two years ago. I only owned three games, but Rick and I wasted hours away in front of the screen anyway, taking special delight in blowing each other heads off in gruesome and violent Alien Slayer death matches. Rick had always been far better at it than I was, but I enjoyed it anyway, even though "LOSER" appeared in big red letters four out of five times on my screen.

After three games (all of which I lost), Rick dropped his controller on my bed and complained that I wasn't into it enough. I really wasn't. The mental image of Nova getting into Chris's truck was lurking in the back of my mind and making me sick. I wished I could do something about it or that I could at least tell someone about it, but I was stuck.