Chapter 1 - I punched my best friend in the face.

I laughed, I laughed, I laughed and then I punched him in the face. A genuine sucker punch. No way he could have seen it coming. He fell, crashing into their board game and sending the pieces scattering across the floor.

If you walked by the peaceful cottage there was no way that you could have guessed I had punched someone inside. The sun had finished it's two o'clock peak and the hot beach sand had cooled enough for our bare feet. I knew they would be waiting for me, towels ready, to head down to the water.

Curtis, Jill, and Omar. I had found them sitting on the floor playing Fortress. Omar scolded me for tracking sand into the room, Jill laughed, and Curtis stood and greeted me with one of his complicated handshakes. The four of us were pretending that everything was okay. Well now the game was over. After I sucker punched Curtis three things occured to me. The first was how easy it was to hit someone in the face. I mean, it wasn't even close. I was worried that he was going to dodge but, as it turns out, people don't really expect you to punch them in the face. Why doesn't this happen all of the time?

Secondly, I thought how proud Curtis should feel. He insisted on teaching all of us how to punch properly. I lined up my bones like a ram lowering it's head to charge. I aimed behind the target as if I was going to strike the wall when his face happened to get in the way. I really sent him reeling. He did a half spin and fell onto the board game, sending the pieces across the room in a dramatic finale. It was really something he would have appreciated, at least from my angle.

Finally, I had the distinct feeling of my victory melting into shame. It was like I had won the lottery, whooping and shouting, phoning my extended family, mentally spending my money on a dream house. Then I double checked my ticket and found that the eight was a three. I was a loser. I squeezed my eyes shut but when I opened them Curtis was still on the floor, stunned.

Omar didn't begin to patch things up and Jill didn't try a joke. I stood there for five years in silence. There was no way I could pretend that this did not happen. This was on the permanent record. Fine. I was glad. They were the first to break the pact. They were liars, all of them. I walked out of the cottage and headed down to the beach, alone. It was like Manni said, it can be painful but sometimes you outgrow your friends. I wasn't going to feel sorry.

I had never reached the end of the beach until that afternoon. It was anti-climactic it ends in rocks. By the time I got back to our cottage it was beginning to get dark. I wondered if any of my friends had come looking for me. Ex-friends. As I walked the final stretch of road toward home I saw a police car parked in front of our cottage. It wasn't local. It was the RCMP. I had bigger problems now.