Editorial Note: To allay any confusion vis-a-vis Grades and ages, note that the characters at the time the action takes place are all 18 plus.
CHAPTER 1: THE INTRODUCTION
I remember the day that jackass moved here… the summer before our 8th grade year. When school started, everybody thought he was the shit. I couldn’t stand it. And one of those people who thought that Jared Williams was hot shit happened to be my best friend, Dawson Allen. Well nothing really exciting happened for another 3 years, so let’s fast forward to there. The end of our junior year… School was just about to be out and Dawson and I were already making our plans for the summer. We were going to spend a lot of time together at each other’s houses, spend a great amount of time at the lake, and most importantly, make the best of our summer before our Senior Year!
The day we were making all of these plans, Jared Williams happened to be sitting behind Dawson and I and heard a lot of our plans. Jared and I could NOT stand each other AT ALL. Even though Jared and Dawson were best friends and me and Dawson were best friends, Jared and I DESPISED each other. I’m really not sure why. I was never rude to him. He just really annoyed the hell out of me and I couldn’t stomach to be around him. Well anyways, after Jared heard the two of us making our summer plans, he decided to see how much he could wreck it.
“Hey, Dawson,’ Jared started. “Why don’t you and me start our own summer business, man? It’d be the shit!”
I turned around in my chair and shot one go to hell look at Jared. But clearly Dawson didn’t catch it because he said, “Hell yeah, man. That would be awesome! What do you have in mind?”
“Well,” Jared paused. “What about a mowing business?”
“That would be bad ass,” Dawson responded.
FUCK! That was the only thing that I could think. Who the hell was this douchebag taking MY best friend away from me during the summer. Go back to wherever the hell it was that you cam from. Those were all of the things that I wanted to say to Jared Son of A Bitch Williams, but I couldn’t risk Dawson getting mad at me and the two of us ruining our friendship that we had since we were 2 years old!!
“Hey, Lane,” Dawson said to me. “Why don’t you join us and we could make some serious bank this summer.”
I just stared at him, rolled my eyes, and got up and left the classroom.
The only manual labor that I know is my weekly chore. Take the trash to the road. I come from a pretty wealthy family. My mom is a dermatologist, step-dad is an attorney, step mom is a neurologist, and my dad is cardiologist. So, needless to say, we have “people” to do all the work around both houses. I also am an only child, so that means that I don’t have to do ANYTHING anywhere, but I am not what one would call a spoiled brat. I am just spoiled, but I know the value of money and don’t do a lot, if any, bragging at all.
But anyways, that period had ended and it was time for lunch. The table I sat at was a table where we were all friends. Well, almost everybody. Jared was the only at the table of 7 that I didn’t like. There wasn’t hardly any talk going on during lunch.. just the normal chit chat. Other than the fact that I could stop glaring at Jared, everything was just peachy at our table. Then the bell rang and before I knew it, it was time to leave.
Before I knew what was going on, my junior year was over and it was already time for summer. And that meant that it was time for Jared and Dawson’s mowing business to start and it took off like a rocket. One yard in particular that they mowed was my mom’s house and dad’s lake house. I was happy for Dawson getting a lot of customers, but was all but thrilled for Jared to be around.