Until a year ago, I was a pretty ordinary kid. I was seventeen. I lived in a house in Spring Hill with my mom and dad and my annoying older sister, Amy. I went to high school during the week. I went to church on Sunday. My secret ambition was to join the air force and become a fighter pilot, which I thought would be a cool way to serve my country. I wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but I wasn’t an untouchable or anything either. I had some good friends: Josh Lerner, who was kind of a geek, and Rick Donnelly and Kevin “Miler” Miles, who were both athletes. I was a pretty decent athlete myself. My sport was karate. I was good at it. I had earned my black belt. What else do you need to know? There was a girl. Beth Summers. I liked her. A lot. A guy I knew named Alex Hauser liked her too. He used to be my best friend, but he’d gotten into some bad stuff after his parents got divorced. We’d kind of grown apart and I guess you could say we’d become rivals for Beth’s affection.
