More Than I Should

Chapter 1

April 2012

He woke up that morning and had a knowing that his life was going to change forever.

For nearly all his seventeen years, nine months and eleven days of living, Mark Chambers has been a dutiful son living under the orders of his business tycoon father, William D. Chambers. The senior Chambers owned the only supermarket in that town, home to at least two hundred people and some of the townsfolk survived on the salary and work benefits the Chambers family gave. William Chambers has always been a father who made sure his son had the best food on the table and got the best education.

All his life, he has lived in this small town. It was kind of a town where everyone knew everyone. The kind of town where a family such as his is pretty well-known for being the richest in town. His family owned the only mega supermarket where the townsfolk could buy practically anything from a mop to a bed. And not to mention the fancy diner where most of the college kids liked to hang out. His football buddies enjoyed major discounts and that didn't even hurt any of the family finances.

Mark, the captain of the Tigers football team was tall about .187 meters and broad shoulders. A stubble was beginning to grow in and he liked it. It made him feel more man and macho and liked how when he took of his sweat soaked jersey, the cheerleaders would smile, squeal and call out to him. Mark was never interested in any of those girls or even the other girls. They all grew up together and knew one another. Yet his teenage hormones weren't longing for a girlfriend yet.

The only girl he was close to was Faith Silva. When his father wasn't looking his way, he would pull out his bike and ride deep into the woods where his best friend, Faith had her tree house. A tree house she had built with her father. Mark would often smoke the cigarettes he got Faith to buy for him and the packs were hidden beneath the floorboards. A secret between the two childhood friends. But he would only smoke when she wasn't around in the tree house. She hated the cigarette smoke and the sight of cigarettes. Her father was the general manager of the Chambers' supermarket and Faith always knew where the cigarettes were. In fact, she knew where everything was kept as she often helped out at the supermarket under her dad's supervision. Mark saw one of his teammate, Bill, smoking in the boy's locker room. And just as he was about to take a puff to taste what it feels like, Coach Fitch had walked in and given Bill the visit to the principal's office. Mark being Mark Chambers was fairly given a warning to stay away from those cigarettes as his father would not have liked the idea. Mark had simply given Coach Fitch a shrug and muttered a, "sure."

He blew a circle of smoke in front of his face and watched it evaporate into thin air. Glancing at his watch on the right wrist, he shot up to his feet.

"S*hit!" He shouted as he dropped the last of the cigarette on the floor and stamped on it. He began to whisk his hands faster and faster as he tried to get the smoky air out of the tree house. He heard the ting of the cycle bell and rushed to the entrance.

"Smoke," he said as he watched her get down from the bike and park it next to his.

Faith with her wild chocolate curls was a skinny girl who mostly loved to wear t-shirts and jeans and tied up her hair in a plait. Mark and she had been friends since they both were eleven, when Faith made him face his defeat in basketball. Oh how they both loved basketball. And Mark loved how he had never had to deal with any girly whims and whines. He didn't have the patience and thought it was quite sickening and annoying when the girls around him would do that. But Faith was different. She was more like him. She loved bikes and the woods just like him and his buddies did.

"I know." She smiled and her green eyes shot him a playful look. "I'll wait."

"Sorry man." Mark climbed the last of the steps that served as the bridge and jumped onto the floor. With his long legs, he only needed to reach the first ten steps and the remaining five could be easily jumped over.