Quiet and imaginative, Derek O'Reilly spends a lot of time watching a movie in his head. His fiancé Nathan wonders why Derek hasn't taken any interest in their wedding planning, and Aunt Fran -- his spiritual guru -- would like to know when her guilt-tripping nephew became a kept boy. When she drops Derek's childhood journal on his lap, he's forced to remember the name he's been trying to forget since he was twelve years old. Nicolai Lund. Nick was Derek's neighbor ... and first love. Weeks before Derek's engagement party, a chance meeting with Nick catapults Derek into the past. But Nick isn't that seventeen-year-old rebel anymore. He's a man hardened by invisible scars. A man struggling with grief. As Derek reads through his childhood diary, he realizes what Nick was to him, still is today, and yet might be ... NOTE: This edition has been expanded and substantially edited.

Split

Boone broke his arm. He was taking a nap and fell off his bunk bed. He says he was dreaming about punching Jonathan Dupuis in the mouth. Jonathan is the jock taking Kenya to the Valentine’s dance.


When it happened, I was in the living room, changing the shoelaces on my new running shoes. The ones that came with the shoes were white, so I was replacing them with the black ones from Dad’s old army boots. I’m tired of my clothes.


I look like the boy in the Sears catalog.


Wish we could go shopping somewhere else. Aunt Frannie bought me a new jogging suit. All white. But that’s not the worst part. No. She had Corey Hart’s face printed on the sweater. “Thought you liked him,” she said, flapping the sweater around like a flag. “You’re always running into the living roomwhenever they play his video.”


I wasn’t in a very good mood, lacing my new shoes.


Chapter 50