The Troubled Youth

By Anthony Miner

Jackson and Samantha live modestly in a small apartment in Upstate New York when tragedy strikes Jackson's family back in his hometown of Lake Joy, Massachusetts. Now the couple, along with their two cats, pack up their lives to take care of the family he left behind years ago. 
The Troubled Youth is a novel about the two of the most drastic parts of life; heartache and love. For Jackson, it follows his journey back to a place he long forgot with the added pressure of grieving over the loss of a loved one. And for Samantha, the story shows growth and pain of adjusting to a new life. As a couple, they will struggle and mature. But the more they seem to learn from each other, the more their past mistakes will come back to push them away. 
Regular everyday life rarely offers a clear cut good and evil. There is just opinions mixed with choices. Read the story of this fiction and follow a realistic story of a young couple that make plenty of mistakes along their path to understanding the losses of loved ones and finding a life they never expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Miner
• Release date: Apr 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386935094

Book preview

Part One

Chapter 1

JACKSON-

I couldn’t sleep that night. I wasn’t really surprised. Insomnia was a common occurrence for me as a kid. I remember tossing and turning in my twin size bed, thinking about the science project due the next day that I hadn’t touched. Or it could have been one of the babies in the house crying all night that kept me up. A crying baby was one of the many possible deterrents for sleep in my old home stuffed with six people.

But that night, that one night, it felt different. The lack of sleep was brought on by a different annoyance. And the most infuriating part of it was not being able to put my finger on the agitator. Narrowing down the suspects, for starters, the worries of a child, like the overwhelming dark cloud of a procrastinated science project, don’t tend to bother the mind of a 21-year-old. I wasn’t drunk or high like I had been so many times at this hour during my youth. When I was sixteen, midnight was early for me and the gang of hoodlums I used to run with. Not always under the influence, but most of the time, and always out. Usually it was just long walks around the neighborhood where we grew up in Lake Joy, Massachusetts. Never really causing trouble, but just talking about life. Not so much current life, but the life we all wished to have someday. For my best friend Ed, it was to become a big-time songwriter.

I’m no good at singing. And I’m just okay at playing guitar. But I promise you, the greatest song on earth doesn’t exist because I haven’t written it yet, he used to say behind the cloud of cigarette smoke and the flames of peppermint schnapps rolling off his breath. When it was my turn to say what I wanted to be when I grew up, I’d just say a writer. Everyone always asked me what kind of writer, and I’d simply reply, All kinds. Because to me it didn’t matter, I just wanted to write. I could’ve traveled and written for some newspaper or I could have been a sports blogger or maybe written my own books.

Looking back now, I realize the words spilling out of a young mouth are filled with hope and passion. But they are also plagued with the oblivious belief that you can become something just by saying it. Maybe that’s why I was up. I was thinking about my friends and where we all are now. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t it. Also, I wasn’t out somewhere. I was in bed, lying next to my fiancée, Samantha. Usually if I was up that late with no signs of sleep, I’d be leaning over her body with my chest against her back, both of us lying on our sides. I’d be staring at her long fiery red hair and kissing her tattoos on her shoulders all the way down to her wrists. And I’d be running my hand on the thick curve of her upper thigh, hoping to wake her or that she was just pretending to be asleep.

But, again, that night differed from most nights of sleeplessness. I was staring at the ceiling, lying on my back with my hands intertwined together resting on my chest. Sam, with her back to me like usual, awaiting my arm to reach around her shoulder and grab her hand, and my head to rest next to hers on the pillow. This time, the sounds of her heavy breathing and light snoring told me she wasn’t faking sleep, nor could I wake her up for the night. But that didn’t stop me from looking her up and down. Samantha was a beautiful woman. The dyed red hair and all the tattoos were an expression of attitude and being different. Those things made her really sexy. But what I found attractive was everything that was natural. Mostly, her body. I loved to rest my head on her shoulder while she was lying on her side facing away from me and look down to her toes. She had thin legs, not like sickly thin but natural and toned, like the rest of her body. Her legs ran into her thighs and hips, which was my favorite part of her physical appearance. I loved how she had wide hips. She wasn’t heavy by any means, but it was just the way she was built that I found so attractive. Then running up her body, her thin torso, then again to her wide shoulders. Her height of 5’7 was a good match for my 6’1, because it kept me from bending over to kiss her.

On good clear nights when the moon shined bright, Sam’s body made the perfect silhouette of an hour glass. She always told me she had a very long awkward stage as a teenager. She said, I have the type of body that I had to grow into. But to me it didn’t matter what she looked like then. I just got to sit back and enjoy what she looked like now. But her body still wasn’t the most attractive part of her. For me, that was her personality. Sam was kind and warm-hearted but there was something really tough about her. She stood up for what she believed in. Most people just say that’s how they are, but only a special few really are that brave. And my fiancée was one of them. I remember one time, when we were first dating, we got into a legitimate argument because she was convinced she knew more about 80s movies than I did. Her intensity came from knowing she was right and needing to prove it, and mine came from the enjoyment I was having seeing her get so flustered.

I tossed and turned, moving my hands from my chest to by my sides. Then finally, with one hand behind my head and the other on my stomach, I found some comfort. Calming my body was much simpler than calming my brain, which constantly questioned, Did I leave a light on? or, What was that noise? But the answers to those questions weren’t very hard to find in our 500-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment. With an easy turn of my head and look down the hallway, I could see a small glimpse of every room. As for the noise, it could have been either of our two cats, Gus and Stitch. Or maybe our drug dealing downstairs neighbor. It could have also been the house in general.

We lived on the second floor of a converted old house in the city of Albany, New York. So between the house and the city, it could have been any annoyance that kept me wide awake. But it wasn’t. I had a feeling. I was awake because I felt something. I couldn’t put my finger on it but it almost felt like I was expecting something. Like a kid on Christmas Eve who’s supposed to be asleep. At that point you still believe in Santa so you don’t really know what to expect for presents, but you stay awake in your bed, filled with anticipation of the unknown.

Eventually, by some time in the middle of the night, I turned the side opposite of Samantha and reached down toward the floor where I kept my phone next to our queen size bed. When I have nights of little to no sleep, I usually go on my phone, look at YouTube videos or Instagram until my eyes start to get heavy. But as my fingers made contact with my cell, it lit up with a shine so bright, it induced a sharp panic deep in my brain. As I focused my eyes to know what caused it, all I could see was a once loving name taking up the center of my phone: Hannah.

Chapter 2

SAMANTHA-

The deep, rugged voice of my future husband woke me up. And as I turned over to see what was going on, all I saw was Jackson’s back and the light of his cell phone bouncing off his right ear. I didn’t know if it was the uneasiness of his voice, or the sleep still fogging my brain that caused me to stop and admire Jackson’s wide back and shoulders before further investigating the reason for my sudden consciousness. Jackson was tall, which first drew me to him, but there was something else that kept me next to him every night. Besides all the gushy stuff like making me laugh or being there for me, Jackson’s look was something I was proud of. Any woman or man that tells you that looks aren’t important is full of shit. Because looks are the first thing. It’s the handsomeness of a man that first draws you in, then you learn all the other stuff that makes the person special to you. But if someone’s not attractive, and you decide not to talk to them, then you’ll never get to learn the other things.

For my fiancé, I was an example of that rule. He was a kid when we met, and he still kind of  was now, even though he talked about himself like an old man. But the change in him over the last four years made me kind of look at him as an old man too. His hands, once soft and untouched, were now callused with each crack representing each forty-hour work week of picking boxes at the warehouse where he worked. His tattoos covering his left arm, back, and right forearm, once fresh ink of his favorite Gaslight Anthem song, were now slightly more faded, showing the lingering scars of a life left behind. His body, once rippled with muscles, was now less defined, earned at work instead of the gym. His wide shoulders, his face, and his smile, even if sometimes faked, all remained the same, though.

Jackson’s attractiveness was what drew me in but the thing that kept me close was his laugh. Making him laugh was always my number one goal. For mere seconds of laughter, his face grew soft and young like a child’s. And his eyes grew big and innocent like there was no pain in them anymore. Hearing that chuckle gave me glimpses into what we used to be. What he used to be. But by the way my fiancé talked sternly on the phone, I could tell I would not be seeing those glimpses of light anytime soon.

Chapter 3

JACKSON

They’re dead! Hannah’s fragile voice said, on the verge of fully breaking. My oldest sister wasn’t one to just come out and say something. Being a high school senior and the class president, she had mastered the art of small talk. Nothing was outright or emotional. It was all calculated. This is why my mind hesitated over the two words she just said with a tremble in her voice.

What’s wrong? I replied.

They’re fucking dead Jax. Did you not fucking hear me? My sister never swore unless she was talking to me. It actually made me proud that she trusted me enough to curse, at me or with me.

Calm down. Who? Who’s dead? I asked, my heart starting to pump blood faster to my confused brain, like it knew something I didn’t.

Mom and Dad! Mom and Dad are dead! she yelled. I couldn’t believe it. I was in so much disbelief that I hung up. I hung up on my own sister telling me that my parents were dead. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. Or if I was even thinking at all. I hung up and I laid back down and shut my eyes. Maybe I actually had fallen asleep and this was nightmare. My heart was now beating so hard that it took all my focus to calm down. That was probably why I didn’t feel Sam’s soft hand on my chest or her voice asking me what was wrong.

I was so dialed in to the news I just heard that I didn’t hear my phone buzzing or see the fiery light painting the walls and ceiling of our bedroom from Hannah’s multiple calls and texts. In times of panic, it’s natural instinct to want to shut the world off for just a few seconds so you can get your wits back. And that was all I wanted. I wanted the room to stop spinning. I wanted it all to be quiet

Babe, what is it? Who was that? Sam asked. I hated when she asked me anything personal, actually. I didn’t mind explaining myself when the opportunity did arise. But I felt like when it came time to dish out personal information, especially about my family, all I ever had to give her was bad news. And I knew the less Sam asked me, the more I could protect her from the deepest pain I wanted to hide.

Hannah, I said abruptly, pretending to be calm. I ignored her next question and decided my only way to get out of her questioning was to answer the next call or text Hannah had sent out. Which I could assume wouldn’t be long, as she’d tried to contact me thirteen times in the two and a half minutes since I unexpectedly ended our conversation. And then the phone rang.

As I reached down to pick up my cell phone, I pretended, that when I answered, my sister would tell me something different. She wouldn’t tell me my parents were gone. She wouldn’t tell me how it happened. She would talk about something different. In a situation like this one, as a man with three siblings and a future wife putting you in the spotlight of the current dilemma, you hope you would be ready to put the weight of the problems on your back. But I wasn’t. I just wanted to run. Run far away from this news. Far away from my mediocre life.

I picked up the phone with my shaking hands to hear Hannah’s voice say, Jackson! What the fuck? Did you just hang up on me?

No, I lost reception, I said sheepishly.

Right, Hannah replied, cutting through the lie I just told her. Did you hear me the first time? Mom and Dad are dead.

This time I was actually able to take in the words. I also became aware of the fact that Hannah, while noticeably shaken, wasn’t crying. Between the six of us, four kids and my parents, we all had our extreme differences, but we also shared similar traits, like not really showing emotion. At the news of our parents’ death, though, I would have thought my seventeen-year-old sister would show more age-appropriate sadness. But at this point, I didn’t know how long she’d known about the news. She could have been cried out or gone through all the stages of shock. All I knew was at this moment, my kid sister was taking charge. The position I thought I would instinctively take, she had already established.

What do you mean? I asked, already knowing what reply waited for me on the other end of the line.

What do you mean, what do I mean? Hannah said. They’re dead! Fucking wake up!

Okay Hannah, relax, and stop swearing at me! Just give me a freaking second, I said, trying to establish some authority. Hannah, knowing the position I was in with our parents, probably didn’t have the same curiosity about my lack of emotion I had with her. Now sitting up straight, my feet on the ground beside our bed, I put my phone on the top of my thigh, face down. Still gripping it in my hand, I took two or three deep breaths with my eyes closed, still hoping that this was a dream or that my sister had misspoken. Anything to get me out of this spot.

I put the phone back up to my ear and said, Okay. How did this happen? I didn’t really care how it happened. It did happen. It was real. And that was going to trump the cause no matter what it was.

Car accident, Hannah said, now with an agitation deep in her voice.

When? I asked, again not really caring for the answer.

I don’t know. Like a couple hours ago. But I found out maybe a half hour before I called you, Hannah replied.

Okay. Are you alright? And do the kids know? I ask, failing at my intention to not question my little sister too much.

I’m okay, I guess. Good as I can be. And no, the kids are asleep. I was watching them tonight. Mom and Dad went out. A cop came to the door, pulled me outside, and told me. Kids stayed asleep the whole time. The annoyance in Hannah’s voice started to turn its target off me and toward the cop who had made her come outside in fifty-degree weather in the middle of September. Knowing my sister, she was probably up that late studying when the police arrived. Not drinking or sneaking out of the house, like I would have been at that age.

Okay, I said. Is someone there with you?

Yeah. Gram is.

Okay. We’re on our way. Driving to Massachusetts wasn’t something I wanted to do. Not really ever but especially not like this.

We? Hannah said, confused. Are you bringing your girlfriend?

Yeah, I said, not correcting the term she used to describe the woman lying next to me. It wasn’t until I said my goodbyes and love yous to Hannah