Later, when our deco team gathered in Gymnasium B to start decorating for prom (Gymnasium A and Gymnasium C being used for basketball and volleyball practices, and Gymnasium D being used as an auxiliary space), both Trey and Wes showed up.

It was weird to see two jocks among all the theater and arts&crafts kids, so to say that they looked out of place would have been an understatement. The two of them seemed eager to be there, though, even if it wasn't exactly their crowd.

Our theme this year was going to be Rapture—officially. Unofficially, though—it was the End of Days. It being 1999, the year already marked by the widespread anxiety over the new millennium, fueled by Y2K and other apocalyptic fears, and sprinkled on top with condemning astrological predictions and doomsday UFO theories. So—surely, we wanted to make it our theme. Our principal, of course, would have never allowed it, unless it was wrapped into something as deeply rooted in Christian eschatology as Rapture, with underlying irony and our tongue-in-cheek nod to the millennium's doomsday hype going straight over her head. She had her sights set on celestial motifs, a.k.a. clouds, cherubs, and angels. But we managed to convince her in the end to change her mind in favor of a more dramatic decor.

So, whether or not the world was actually going to end before the year was out—we were going to have our end-of-the-world party.

Cardboard cutouts from here to eternity littered the floor of the gymnasium, making it look like we were in the middle of a cardboard trainwreck, or a cardboard spaceship crash site, or a cardboard battlefield (or what have you), there were so many. And our job today was to paint them all so that they could be used for decoration later. Every extra pair of hands was going to count. Nobody was going to mind Trey and Wes helping us. The small folk were mostly friendly if a little baffled by their presence.

Being our class president, Nia called the shots. Everyone looked to her for directives and explanations.

“Listen up, y’all,” she shouted, calling for attention. “We have these cutouts thanks to Lisa’s dad, who has a CNC machine in his office. We have paint buckets thanks to Olivia's parents, who own the one and only Main Street Brushes and Paint Emporium. And today we're gonna be having two extra pairs of hands, thanks to our football team volunteers.” She acknowledged the two with a curt nod. “We have all the ingredients to make this project a success. This is our prom, people. Let's make it fancy! Now pair up, and let's paint these suckers.”

There was a commotion in the crowd; people took pairing up very seriously. I could relate. Trey literally jumped in front of Nia, before anyone else could take his place, with such gusto that he nearly startled her. But he did manage to secure a spot closest to her in like 0.5 seconds (no wonder he was on the football team).

“I wanna do it with you, honeybun,” he proclaimed, with his usual offhanded delivery. “I’ll die of sadness shall you turn me down, I warn you.”

Trey was known around school for his buffoonery. None of it was mean, though. Some of it was fun. So nobody discouraged it.

Nia stared him down. He stared back, holding his own. People around were beginning to stare too, curious about her reaction.

“Now hold on for just a minute, hotshot. You wanna do it with me, I have to know you're actually good with your brush,” she said. A few kids in the crowd giggled, catching the double-entendre.

“I'm terribly inexperienced, I’ll cop to that. My brush’s been all over the place lately,” Trey said, without missing a beat. “But I feel like you’re exactly the type of girl to show me what I've been doing wrong with it. I submit myself to your teachings, if you'll have me.”

I cocked my head to the side. If he was saying what I think he was saying, it was as much of a compliment as it was an insult, and I wasn't sure how Nia was going to react. Everyone's eyes were on the two of them now. It got so silent in the room, you could have heard a pin drop.

She narrowed her eyes at him slowly, considering what he just said. He adopted the most innocent-looking expression he could master, I think, as he waited for the verdict.

A moment later, she jabbed her index finger at him, “You, behave! Or you’ll be replaced.”

Trey bowed his head graciously and then beamed at her, flashing his pearly whites, seemingly pleased with her decision. Well, good for him! Nia was big and beautiful. I think she was a catch. But I was really not an expert on the matter.

As the two of them sauntered away (Trey trailing closely behind Nia), I realized I lost my usual partner, again . . . and was now left alone. Everyone else had already partnered up, apparently. But, luckily, that was when Wes showed up.

“You cool if we worked together?” he asked. And he actually looked as if he was legitimately afraid I was gonna say no.

I gave him a half smile. “I didn't expect we were gonna be working on another project together . . . But we might as well, I guess.”

“Awesome!” he said and beamed. He actually seemed as pleased with me saying yes as Trey was just now with Nia. I didn't know what to think of that.

“As a matter of fact, I didn't expect to see you here at all.”

His smile faded, and he shrugged sort of apologetically. “I know. It wasn't my idea. Trey wanted to come, and he made me tag along.”

I looked at him questioningly, and he hurried to explain, “He has a thing for her! Honestly, he'd been pining over her for weeks now, looking for an opportunity to hang out with her. It was all he could talk about. And it was very annoying.”

I chuckled. It must have been. Trey seemed like a good guy. If he really liked Nia, I guess I was okay with that. And what a lucky coincidence, Wes was his best friend.

“So, what are we painting?” Wes asked when a lull in the conversation seemed a little too long.

“All of this,” I said, making a sweeping gesture around me. Cardboard flame cutouts, each about a foot and a half tall and a foot wide, numbering in the hundreds, lay strewn across the floor. Nia had already painted one to serve as an example, so we could copy her style and paint the rest. She, meanwhile, was going to tackle a large Lucifer cutout (eight by four feet), since, out of all of us, she was the most experienced artist. With Trey’s help, hopefully. And us underqualified folk were going to paint the flames.

“This is gonna take hours, isn't it?” Wes asked, sizing up the scope of the task.

I nodded, absolutely positive. “Looking on the bright side, whoever paints the most cutouts at the end gets a Main Street Sweets and Treats gift card,” I said. It was a twenty-dollar gift card. Still, it was something.

“A competition, huh? I like that. I like to compete,” Wes said, brightening up.

I looked him up and down. “Yeah, I can tell,” I said, adopting a mock diminutive tone. He punched me in the shoulder jokingly.

“Let’s get cracking,” I said. “We've got our work cut out for us.”

Wes laughed at the pun. He had a beautiful, soft-ish laugh. Then he flexed his biceps and pretended to roar, indicating the game was on. “Let's get jiggy with it!”

Having found a spot for ourselves that seemed comfortable (and less crowded), we proceeded with the job. It really wasn’t rocket science. With Nia's already finished sample, we just had to try our best monkey-see-monkey-do of it.

We worked in silence at first, both of us focused on painting. Then Wes started talking about games again, as per his usual, getting me involved in yet another sports conversation. I complied, just to make him feel good. To his credit, he really tried to seem grateful.

“You're like super into sports, did anyone ever tell you that?” I asked. “This is not healthy.”

Obviously, being into sports did good for him. I mean, just look at him. But he smiled at the joke, thank God. Then his forehead creased as he seemed to ponder over it, for real this time. This puzzled me. If someone joked that I was super into science, nothing about it would have troubled me. Because I was. Wes, though, seemed to have reacted to it differently.

“I just . . . seem to be good at it. And I'd like to make a career out of it. Make a name for myself in sports, you know? I want to be somebody,” he said, sounding very serious suddenly.

“What are you talking about? You’re Weston Brooks! Your parents are ones of the richest people in town. You are somebody,” I countered.

He frowned. This seemed to have made him even more upset. “I want nothing to do with their money. I want to have my own,” he said, getting defensive suddenly. “It's not even my parents’ money. It's my brother's.”

I was surprised to hear this. I didn't know.

“Zenith shutting down would have wrecked us, same as everyone else, if it wasn't for my brother. He scored big time that year with his invention, some microchip component, I never understood what it was exactly. But he got rich in the blink of an eye. He’s the reason my family’s wealthy. It's all his money.”

This sparked recognition in my head suddenly. “Wait, what's brother's name again?” I asked.

“Danny. Daniel. He's my parents’ pride and joy. Always have been, even before the invention.”

“Your brother is Daniel Brooks? The hardware engineer I read about in Wired? The one who invented the high-efficiency texture mapping unit and licensed it to ATI?” I asked, unable to believe this. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined it was Wes’s brother. I aspired to be like that man. Make an incredible invention or discovery. Make a name for myself in the world of science. Get the recognition I thought I deserved. Get the hell out of Eureka Springs and make a life for myself somewhere decent.

“Yep, that's the one,” Wes said, casting his eyes down. He suddenly seemed very miserable. I bit my tongue not to ask him any more questions, even though I really wanted to. But I felt like he'd clam up even more if I pushed too hard. I suppose my admiration for his brother was written on my face. And it must have hurt him when people looked at him that way, not as interested in him as they were in his brother.

He wouldn't look at me. My smile faded. I realized that his entire life, Wes must have lived in the shadow of his older brother, a big shadow, too. It must have sucked so much. Suddenly, I felt really bad for him.

Realizing he must have been coming off bitter and jealous, Wes started, “I mean, don't get me wrong, he’s my brother, and I love him and everything.” He still wasn't looking up, his eyes on the brush in his hand, swirling over the surface of the cutout. “He got me this top-of-the-line BMW for my birthday. And it's really cool, but . . . Sometimes I just wish—”

“That you weren't living in your brother's shadow?” I tried. “I can definitely see why. People must be comparing the two of you all the time. This totally blows, I'm sorry.”

Now he looked up at me. He looked surprised. Was it something I said? I thought I was making a rather obvious observation. But somehow, he looked at me as though I was the only one who got him. Must have been hard for him—being misunderstood like that—despite the perks money can bring.

He nodded lightly, keeping eye contact.

“I mean, yeah, but it’s fine, I’ll survive,” he said. “Don’t feel sorry for the poor rich kid. I just want to do something with my life, prove that I'm not just a discount version of my brother. Make my parents proud, you know?”

I nodded, though I really didn’t. I was the only child. And to make my parents proud, I’d have to become a lawyer, because that was where their aspirations for me lay. They were both Zenith lawyers, before 1992. Before, they were almost privy to the rich kind of life. After, it was destitute-ville all the way for both of them, their aspirations and dreams forgotten. They had to take menial jobs, and I don't think they ever recovered. Now they were placing their adjudicative hopes on me, imagining me as a successful lawyer, which I'd rather die, honestly. And I told them so. But they kept pestering me.

I got used to it, I think. I didn't mind being a disappointment. As long as they left me alone and let me do my own thing. But I suppose it was different for Wes. He actually cared about what his parents thought of his life choices.

I let him talk as we painted and tell me his life story. He actually liked to talk, unlike me. I think you could go as far as to say that he needed it, for someone to listen and approve of him. There was a lot on his mind, too (besides sports). And as we painted and talked, I felt the bond starting to form between us, strengthening what we had. And I didn't know if it was good or bad—because I didn't think I could accept him being just a friend any longer.