Preface

His favorite food was chocolate. Not that buttery milk chocolate from a Hershey’s kiss or that wanna-be white chocolate that is really just (as he puts it) “sugar and a heart attack in a half” in disguise. No. It was pure dark chocolate. The most bitter you could find. So bitter it tasted like dirt or black coffee. The grittier, the better.

Chocolate was his daily vitamin. One piece before school, one piece for lunch, and one piece right before bed. 

I told him one day chocolate would be the death of him. He would get swallowed up by this great big chocolate monster that would look vaguely like Ms. Fallon our math teacher, chocolate wrinkles and all. 

That was the only lie I ever told him in our six months of dating. And never once do I want to take it back. What I do want to take back is that our last day, wishing I knew it was our last day. What I do want to take back are the last words I said to him. It’s not like those words were words of hate or cruelty or bitterness. They were words of love. But…

If I had a chance to redo my last moments with him, I would’ve maybe kissed him a little harder, held him a little tighter, said “I love you” and not “love ya.” Small things like that. Like maybe I would have finally told him that I had always noticed him. Maybe I would have told him that I remembered his name, the faint birthmark hidden beneath his lower lashes, and the way his eyes would change color depending on what he was wearing since the first grade. Maybe I would have told him that I was afraid he didn’t know who I was even though everyone knows who I am. Maybe I would have asked him to marry me right then and there. To have children with him and grow old together and travel to France, and England, and Thailand, and Vietnam, and Portugal, and Cambodia. Or maybe we would just stay here in bumblefuck New Jersey where the only fun things to do are either going to our local coffee shop or going to the beach where we have to spend money doing both of them. 

But I wouldn’t have cared. Not at all. Blue himself was an adventure.

I kneel by his grave. Two glasses, a bottle of champagne, and a dark chocolate bar in my hand. I split the bar and lay his half on a bouquet of sunflowers. (He hated sunflowers. They were always too big and basic and bold for him.) I pour half the bottle of champagne on top of the flowers and chocolate (how depressingly romantic) and watch it soak into the petals and the bar. Watch it make swirls and puddles on each leaf as it touches the ground, soaking the dirt. 

I’d like to think it reached him. I’d like to think he’s drunk on his chocolate champagne right now, his bones shaking with laughter. He’d always been a lightweight. Barely at a reasonable weight for a boy his age. 

But nobody ever tells you how heavy a dead body is.

“Happy one year anniversary, baby,” I whisper.

Chapter 1: Jeffrey

Coach is right in my face, yelling instructions at the team at a volume that will one day rupture both of my eardrums. We have five minutes left of the game and I’m trying to get the adrenaline going. I haven’t been on my A-game. Coach knows that. The team knows that. Christ, even my mother knows that. I can see her praying with her rosary beads across the field. Sam is rubbing soothing circles on her back, giving me a thumbs-up and a huge grin. (My girl.) Dad is giving me this stern look like I’m the reason we’re losing and why Mom is on her tenth Hail Mary. Which I guess is somewhat true.

After all, I’m Jeff Blaze. Number One on my jersey and Number One on the team. But I’m playing like I’m Number Nine, like I’m someone’s waterboy. 

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The game is two to two. Some teams would be thrilled with a tie, especially going against the Bulls, our rival school. But they haven’t beaten us since I joined my freshman year. Coach thought I was so good, he had me going right to varsity. This isn’t me bragging. This is the truth that everyone voices at Ridges High. I’ve become a verb at the school instead of a person. I hear people shouting in the hallways, “You just got Blazed!” or “You Blazin’!” or “You pullin’ a Blaze.” 

“Are you boys Dogs or Wolves?” shouts Coach. I see his Adam’s apple bobbing and his veins are bulging, pushing through the skin of his fleshy neck.

“Wolves!” we crow.

“You sound like fucking pussies! Try it one more time, boys. ARE YOU DOGS OR WOLVES?”

“WOLVES!” we cry. We’ve gone through this routine more times than I can count. I try to get my heart into it.

“Blaze!”

I whip my head towards Coach.

“Sir?” I blink.

“Get your fucking head out of the gutter and get a goddamn haircut. I don’t know how you can see with it in your face all the time.”

“Yes, sir.” But we both know that if I do get a haircut, it’ll be a trim and then it will grow back out to this length in a week or two. I like my hair way too much to cut it or shave it or do that stupid initiation shit like the team made me do freshman year. I went home crying to my mom. Not one of my proudest moments, but it’s the reason Coach doesn’t push me too hard to get my hair cut. Word got around that Jeff Blaze is a fag because he cried over losing his pretty curls.

After my first game, though, nobody called me a fag ever again.

The clock starts again. I’m playing forward instead of mid. Coach does this when he’s desperate for another goal. The team knows I’m their best shot (pun intended). 

Little passes the ball to Santorini who passes it on to Michaels who tries to pass it on to me. But then Bridges is there and it looks like the game is going to go to shit.

“Prick,” I huff. Then louder, I shout, “Bridges, I’m open!” 

But he ignores me, keeps dribbling the ball to the goal, trying to prove he’s not Number Two but Number One.

“What the fuck are you doing, Bridges!” screams Coach. “This isn’t a one-man show, primadonna! Pass the fucking ball!”

I jog to the goal, ready to watch him fail and prepare myself to save his ass (again). 

The ball goes sailing to the goal. It hits the post and starts somersaulting in the air towards me. And that’s when I pray I don’t get another concussion as I jump and hit the soccer ball with my head as hard as I can.

I save the game with less than thirty seconds to spare. I should feel elated, ecstatic. Instead, I’m wishing we’d lost. Just so the attention is not on me.

And maybe so I can watch Bridges get screamed at for fucking us over completely. I would need a bag of popcorn for that drama. It’d win a motherfucking Oscar.

The guys are jumping on top of me, burying me alive. People are shouting my name across the field, chanting it like I’m some rockstar about to go on stage. Like I’m fucking Freddie Mercury. 

But unlike Freddie Mercury, I’ve got no bodyguards, no security, no stage to hide from the fans.

Until my saving grace, Sam, runs across the field. I can hear her slight southern twang that she accidentally lets slip every now and then. “Outta here boys! I need to see my man!”

They oblige, sliding off my body like little worms, like parasites.

“Hi, baby,” she says as her way of greeting, wrapping her arms around my neck. I nuzzle her with my nose and kiss her freckled cheeks. “You killed it. As always.”

I smile at her but it’s strained. “I almost fucked us over.”

Sam huffs. She can be such a mother hen. “No. Bridges almost fucked us over.”

I nod my head so she’s satisfied. “Still, I can’t choke with college scouts coming soon. Notre Dame’s coming to check me out in a couple of weeks.”

Notre Dame. My dream school. Dad’s dream school for me.

“And you’ll blow their fucking minds,” she says with unwavering confidence. “But Notre Dame or no Notre Dame, you’re still Jeff Blaze. You’re still my man, my superstar, and my occasional asshole.”

I throw my head back and laugh, curls flopping. But my heart skips a beat for a second at her words. 

My man.