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what was to come.He won a spot in pizza commercial three weeks later,and beat out 1,000 kids for a small voiceover role in an animated film.
        Carter opened up little by little about his former life in Seattle throughout our time together. He confessedthat he never had many friends, and it was hard to keep the few he had due to his hectic schedule. But there was one detail I was still uncertain about: his father. Carter said his dad was tying up loose ends in Seattle and was coming to California soon. Whenever I brought up the topic of his dad, he quickly changed the subject. The word around town was that the Storm familyhadmoved to Orange County because Carter’s mother was in the process of separating from his father. Allegations of domestic abuse had come up, supposedly the main reason why Mary decided to pack up and move her two sons to another state. Usually a father as innocent as he claims would do everything in his power to get custody of his two boys, but Carter’s father continued to remain AWOL.
     
    ***
     
        Dad and I sat on the patioone evening, enjoying the warm weather while Mom cleaned up after dinner. When she wasn’t looking, Dad pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He’d been smoking heavily since he was a teenager, sometimes two packs a day. Now time caught up with him, and it was affecting his health. No matter what we tried to do to get Dad to break the habit, he refused to quit so we had a new rule in the house: He was never allowed to smoke in her presence. If Mom caught him, there’d be hell to pay. This was a hard rule for Dad to abide by. He couldn’t go without a cigarette for more than an hour; hence why he snuck behind her back at that moment. As much as I hated watching him deceive Mom and blacken his lungs, he was the adult, and I was the kid.When his mind was set to something I couldn’t do anything to change it.
        A milky haze of cigarette smoke hovered over Dad's head as he spoke. “I understand you and Carter have become fast friends,” he said, crushing the cigarette out into an ashtray on the patio table.
        I waved the pungent smoke away from my face and said, “Yeah, he’s really nice.”
        “I have Labor day weekend off.” He snaked his hand through his gray-streaked hair and gazed toward the sky. “How about we go down to Del Mar and spend the day at the beach or something? You, me, your mom, and Carter?”
        “Really?”  I asked. “You mean it?”
        His smile widened, carving out the dimples in his cheeks. “Sure. I don't see why not. We’ll make a day of it.”
        This was an offer I couldn’t refuse. “That would be awesome, Dad.”
        He held up the green and white cigarette pack. “Oh, and I promise I won’t bring these things with me,” he said, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the bushes.
        We did make a day of it, but without Carter. According to Mary, he had too many auditions that weekend. She dismissed the whole trip with a wave of her hand, stating she couldn’t run the risk of him missing out on something important. She might have sounded convincing to my parents, but I could see right through her. Mary didn't bother to hide the way she felt about me hanging around her son. If she let him go with us, she’d have no control over him like the way she wanted to.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3:
    The Boy Next Door
     
     
     
    1994
     
     
        I made the transition from junior high to high school more easily than expected.High school was as easy as standing on my own two feetcompared to what the first year of junior high was like.Of course, my outlook on life would have had a totally different meaning if I had not met Carter. The way that boy carried himself fascinated me. He knew who he was and didn’t seek approval from others. Although, a part of me waited for the day he would blow me off just as Lindsay