Thomas and Niko in the City of Trees

Chapter 1 - Part 1

Let me warn you now that I'm pretty bad at introductions. If you want to get a sense of me from a paragraph or two, good luck. It's not that I think I'm complicated or anything. Not compared to anyone else, anyway. But if there's one thing I've learned after eighteen years on the planet, it's that nobody—and I mean nobody—can be figured out in two paragraphs. There's a rhythm to these things, a certain dosage of time and circumstance spent with someone before you start to get familiar. And even then, whether you really capital-K-Know them is anybody's guess.

I figure a story has to start somewhere, so the day I turn eighteen might as well be it. Here's the thing nobody told me about turning eighteen: Everything stays the same. I guess I should have known. Granted, there are plenty of things you can do when you're eighteen that you couldn't before, but unless some life-altering event coincides with your birthday, you're probably going to feel the same way you always did.

I could see that being a double-edged sword for many people. It certainly is for me. There are plenty of bullshit facts about my life that I wish I could change. I'll admit that. But there are just as many things I wouldn't give up in a million years—take my friendship with Thomas Chu for example.

Thomas Chu is my best friend. He turned eighteen exactly one month before me. He bought a pack of cigarettes with six dollars and the law on his side. We stood at the edge of school grounds where it's almost allowed and smoked four of them. I asked him whether it was illegal for me to smoke, since I was still seventeen at the time. Thomas said you only have to be eighteen to buy them. You can smoke them at any age you want. That sounded like utter bullshit to me and I went to look it up on my phone, but my favorite teacher Ms. Nolan told my English class a few days earlier that she missed the time when we couldn't look everything up every minute of our dumb lives. She said it was more peaceful back then. That got me thinking a lot for some reason. So I had been trying not to use my phone as much for looking things up.

I remember Thomas turning to me just as I slipped it back into my pocket. The breeze caught his straight black hair and sent it kind of twirling in a way that made me hold my breath for half a second.

"That's right, put it back," he said. His voice is kind of hoarse because he's always using it up. Thomas yells like a maniac no matter what game he's playing. Last fall it was football. You should see him—we used to play on the same team in junior high and his voice would just be going full-force the entire time, no matter what the hell was happening out there. I didn't really make the cut for football once we got to high school. Thomas likes to say my heart was no longer in the game, and you know what? He's probably right. Anyway, I decided track and field was a better fit. I went out for it last fall, and this spring.

"Nobody can see us here," I complained. "Everybody left already."

"What difference does it make?"

"I want to be seen smoking a cigarette," was what I said. That's the kind of thought I would normally keep to myself, not say out loud. But with Thomas, I'm usually more open about the stuff I'm thinking. Usually.

I've been thinking a lot recently about vanity. I believe myself to be a vain person. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about it, because I would wager that a majority of people around me are also vain. Vain people like me want to be seen smoking cigarettes. I'll explain why: In this dumb school, even if only five people saw us smoking at the edge of the parking lot, word would get around about it, and then we would be the two boys who smoke on school grounds. Who the hell cares what side of the chain fence we were actually standing on? And then I would get asked in the hall, "Do you smoke? I heard you and Chu smoked on school grounds." And I would say, "Not as a habit," and just walk away. I don't need to tell you what kind of a badass statement that would make. Think of it like this: I'm repping a particular brand of person—one who occasionally shrugs off the rules. I find it's not all that hard to stay on-brand, and besides, it really pays to curate your public image in a place like this.

Anyway, all that happened a month ago, and now I'm the one who's just reached legal age. Thomas asks if I want a ride to go buy cigarettes after school and I tell him it would be a waste since he still has sixteen left in his pack.

"Oh yeah," he says. "I don't know where I put them, though."

"They're in your glovebox."

"Oh yeah," he says.

Thomas drives his dad's old maroon Lexus, which sounds pretty nice until you see it. It's from 1990, a year that was covered in the third-to-last chapter of our US History textbook. That's right: Two entire chapters' worth of historical shit has gone down since that bag of bones rolled off the line. I guess it must have been nice back in the day. Nowadays it's pretty run-down, and the engine sounds like a jet and a meat grinder had a baby whenever he gets on it.

People always make fun of Thomas and me for spending so much time together. There are plenty of rumors that we're into each other, which isn't true. It doesn't get to me much, but it bothers Thomas quite a bit. I've told him before that he should just ignore it. I've warned him that making a big thing about it will only fuel the fire. He understands the concept, but he just can't seem to get himself under control.

"It fucking annoys me so much," he'll say. One time, he said the following: "If I were a fag, fine. I'd march around and fly the flag. But I'm not."

We were in his messy bedroom, just lying on his bed, looking up at the ceiling fan.

I grabbed him by the shirt. I made him look me in the eyes. "I don't know where that word came from," I said, "but you can't go off saying it."

"I'm only saying it to you," was his reply, as if that made it better somehow.

"Well I don't want to hear it."

He got really quiet for a while after that. I think I confused him a little.

He worries too much about the whole thing. Both of us have girlfriends. Mine's name is Lexie and she's in all AP classes. We had a moment when we met. Most people in this school already know who they're going to know by the beginning of senior year. But Lexie and me, we'd both somehow missed the fact that the other existed until that first day in McClellan's class. I remember it clearly. For some reason our desks were so close you could hardly drop an eraser between them. Lexie cracked jokes that I'll admit went a little over my head, and she could twirl three pens at once, all the way around her finger and back again. Both of these things impressed me a great deal. I'm not too sure what the hell she saw in me, but anyway, things really clicked between us. It made sense that we should get together. So after a while, that's what we did. She and I hang out a lot after school, and the best part is, she gets along well with Thomas's girlfriend, whose name is Madison. They've become pretty good friends since we all started hanging out together.

This is exactly what I was saying—how I have a lot of good things going on in my life. But it doesn't stop me from constantly devising plans to get out of this dumb town. Thomas and I used to talk about what city we would run off to if we could. Seattle or Portland are the default edgy answers if you're from the area. Everybody who believes themselves to be edgy wants to go to one or the other, even though few people have made actual plans. Many will stay in-state and go to the university up north. Even more will stick around town.

Two types of people will stay here: the people who are too afraid to leave, and the die-hards. Madison is a die-hard. She'll say, "Boise actually has a lot going on. Everyone's talking about it these days. Even the Seattle Times posted this story about how it's growing up as a city and..." She'll go on forever like this if you don't change the subject. Lexie and I always share a look when she talks this way.

Madison will stay here, for sure. I'm actually worried Thomas will stay because of her. He has a football scholarship to U-Dub all lined up, if he wants it. There's money on the table if he stays here, too. I don't know what he'll do. Both schools want him so bad, they let him keep thinking it over way past the deadline. His indecisiveness is getting ridiculous at this point, if you ask me. Every time I think about him staying here, I start getting really, really sad all of a sudden. I'm not sure why, except that we've spent so much time over the past couple years talking about getting out.

That's the thing. I am getting out, and Portland and Seattle weren't good enough for me. I'm headed north. Vancouver. I'm just that edgy. The university up there called my name and I have the grades for it. That might be all I have, but it's enough.