Chapter 8: Jake

That unchildlike depth of thinking was one of the many things that kept him at arm's length from the rest of his peers.

Another reason? The way he looked growing up.

Until junior high, he was short—even shorter than most girls. Then came the growth spurt. By sophomore year, he'd shot up to six-two, but his weight didn't catch up. He was lanky, all elbows and knees, his body stretched out like a scarecrow's skeleton. The jocks—those high school demigods of cruelty—dubbed him "Bonerack." And like all nicknames forged in the fiery hell of adolescence, it stuck.

The cheerleaders picked it up. Then the rest of the school. Eventually, no one even remembered his real name.

And honestly? Most people just didn't talk to him at all.

He was the kid you forgot existed the moment he left your line of sight.

It was the stoners who finally gave him something like acceptance.

They didn't care what you looked like, so long as you liked to get high and occasionally threw in on a dime bag or eighth. Jake, who'd first discovered weed at thirteen by raiding his dad's stash, was more than happy to fit that mold. He embraced the lifestyle—cut class, hit the pipe, laughed at dumb cartoons, and talked deep nonsense while blitzed out of his skull.

But even there, he didn't quite belong.

He wasn't a burnout. He never let himself slide off the edge like some of the others. He'd skip school, sure, but never enough to flunk. He'd drink and toke, but stayed clear of the sketchier stuff—PCP, acid, speed. He had this weird internal compass that told him where the limit was. Most of the stoners didn't.

Even high, Jake still overthought everything. His big brain didn't turn off. He'd start rambling about politics, about how the world was rigged for the rich, or why religion was just a form of social control. The other stoners would nod and laugh, but most of it went over their heads. They started calling him a "spacecase" or "the professor."

And the stoner girls?

They didn't hate him. But they sure as hell weren't lining up to hop into his backseat either. To them, he was Bonerack: the awkward, soft-spoken dude who only talked when he was blazed and usually said something weird.

He wasn't cool.

He wasn't hot.

He wasn't even mysterious.

But that all changed at Salinas Bend.

Tom and Mary Kingsley weren't surprised their kids were musical. It was basically baked into the DNA.

Mary had the voice of an angel and could make a violin weep. She'd joined the Heritage Symphony Orchestra at nineteen and never left. She also played saxophone, flute, and piano, and taught Jake most of what he knew about harmony and melody. She'd even introduced him to Bill's mom, Lorraine Archer, her best friend and fellow orchestra member.

Tom, meanwhile, had been more of a blues guy. He could sing, had a wicked hand on the guitar, and for a while, he'd even chased the rock star dream—until he traded in his amp for a law degree and became a civil rights attorney for the ACLU.

Their firstborn, Pauline, had dutifully taken piano and violin lessons. She was good. Not exceptional, but passable. Music was something she enjoyed—something to fill the background of her overachiever life.

Jake, though?

Jake was different.

Jake sang before he talked. Literally.

He'd hum and coo along to songs on the radio while still crawling around in diapers. No words, just perfect mimicry of tone and rhythm. As a toddler, he'd sit quietly with his ear pressed to the stereo, soaking in every note like it was gospel.

By four, he was plucking at his mom's violin and his dad's harmonica like they were toys, figuring out basic tunes by ear. His parents didn't need to push him. Music pulled him in like gravity. They taught him scales, time signatures, and notation right alongside the ABCs.

By ten, he could play every instrument in the house: piano, violin, guitar, harmonica. But his favorite—by far—was his dad's beat-up acoustic guitar. Jake would spend hours picking at it, trying to recreate whatever he'd heard on the radio. And eventually, he started composing his own melodies.

By fourteen, he was writing lyrics. Crude, angsty, hormonal, sure—but they were his.

His parents could only take him so far, especially when it came to voice. So at nine, they enrolled him with professional singing instructors. He ate that up too. The breathing drills. The pitch training. The exercises where you had to hum scales until your throat burned.

He loved it.

There was a moment of fear when puberty hit—his parents worried his voice might crack and vanish into the void, like it did for so many other boys.

But puberty only made it stronger.

His tone deepened, matured. His range expanded. He could still hit the high notes, but now he had this rich lower register too. His voice wasn't just good. It was special.

But outside of the house, nobody knew.

Jake was too shy to show it off. He'd sing at home, sure, and sometimes for his teachers. But family reunions? School talent shows? Choir tryouts?

Hell no.

Stage lights? People watching?

Forget it.

So his talent stayed hidden. No one at school had any clue that "Bonerack," the awkward stoner with the too-big brain and the bad haircut, was secretly a musical prodigy.

That is… until that kegger at Salinas Bend.