Dawn of the Sun Wolf

Chapter One

As I walked home that day, I remember that I felt a strange tingle in the air, like a buzz of electricity. I looked up to see clouds starting to roll in, followed by the air starting to whip around. It was weird to get these storms in Maine this time of year; our town usually avoided this kind of weather. The town in question was Willow Grove, home to about 25,000 people. For ages our town had always been home to strange rumors of hauntings and disappearances; decades ago there was even a rumor of a vampire living a couple towns away on the coast. Most townsfolk don't believe such tales, except for the folk who play to the tourists looking to blow their cash on "Haunted Maine" ghost tours.

On that day I wasn't in a particular rush to get home, so I took the long way that led me past the handful of old mansions, filled with old people with old money, and along the edges of Willow Forest, thick and dark. Once or twice, just for a minute, I felt like something was watching me from behind a tree; it was probably just my nerves playing tricks on my mind. I moved my dirty blonde hair out of my face to look down at my phone and increase the volume on my music; Troye Sivan's "Talk Me Down", one of my two favorite songs, the other being "Say You Won't Let Go." Those songs were all that had kept me reasonably sane the past couple of weeks. I picked up the pace to avoid the coming storm, but then slowed down, debating whether it was going to be worse to face nature's wrath or the wrath I feared from my parents.

I had always known I was gay, or at least suspected it from a young age. I looked at other boys like most boys looked like girls. In middle school, I was ostracized for being a geek, and with that, gay rumors just kind of happened. I always had some friends that stuck up for me through all the rumors, none of them knowing the truth, though; they all thought it was stupid rumors from bullies. I was smart-- not top of my class, but pretty close. Otherwise, I was tall but not that tall, I wasn't fat, but I was certainly not muscular, at least not in my opinion. I was shy and pretty closed off, unless I was talking to Austin. He always told me I needed to have more confidence in myself.

Austin was my best friend, although practically my opposite in every way. He was tall, at just over 6'0, and was a tennis star at the school--singles champion. Like me, Austin was smart, but not top-of-your-class smart. Our friendship all started one day when Austin stopped two bully's named Thomas and Tracy from picking on me. Thomas had shoved me into the locker and started calling me a fag. Thomas raised an arm to punch me, but someone grabbed his hand, pushed him away from me, and made it clear I wasn't to be picked on. That was like the fifth grade; ever since then, we were practically tied at the hip. We did everything together and there was no one I trusted more. Austin was also like super-rich, he was descended from the town's founder, and his family-owned like half the town.

When I started high school, I had my first proper crush: his name was Logan Peterson. To me, he was perfect: he was tall, dirty blond hair, friendly, kind. There was one major problem: he always had a girlfriend. It also didn't help that I was so far in the closet I was with the Christmas presents of 2005. By the time we reached the beginning of sophomore year, this year, he had all the girls hanging off him, each one shallower and dumber than the last. So, I just tried to ignore my feelings--who would even want to go out with me, anyway?

My home life was at least what I thought was normal. We were like any normal middle-class family: my father, Paul, is a senior accountant at some firm in town. Mary, my mother, was a stay-at-home mom; she liked to remind us it was a full-time job. We were a pretty religious family: we went to church every Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. We said grace at every dinner (sometimes even in restaurants!). I had to say my Rosary and go to confessional at least once a month. I knew they didn't like gays in general, but they didn't really spew any hate or anything when they talked about them; in fact, my mother would always say something like "They just need to be brought back to Jesus to be set right, poor things!" I have an older brother, Nixon; we were close before he moved off to some private ivy league school south of here, so we don't really talk as much as we used to. I miss him, but it is what it is. People always tell me that he is the better-looking version of me, taller, more muscular, I tried to ignore it, but it made me also resent my brother a bit. Family game night was every Friday; we would get together in the dining room and play either Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride.