The Writers' Circle

Chapter 1

The summer had been a weird one.  Things were changing at a faster rate than he expected.  Strange dreams, changes to his body and the new way in which others began to interact with him.  Moments before the alarm was due to go off, Aeden lay in his bed ready to begin high school.  He lay there reminiscing on all the changes that occurred over the summer.  The move from Roswell, NM to Midland, TX, the new foster parents he and his little sister Veronika were living with.  Their uncle had arranged for them to "leave town for a while" since they were beginning to attract a little too much attention to themselves.  Uncle "E" as they called him, said they needed both a mother and father and he just couldn't give them what they required.
Waiting for the last possible second, Aeden jumped out of bed and made his way to the bathroom hoping he wouldn't run into his little sister.  

Even though football practice was first on the agenda, he liked to take long hot showers because they were so relaxing.  As he spread the soap over his body, he noticed how his muscles were beginning to be larger and more defined.  They weren't the large type of muscles associated with weight lifters, but more like those of a track athlete.  He had been warned by his uncle to not stand out, so he always coasted in the weight lifting department when working out with his peers.
His foster mom Mary, had him a nice warm breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon waiting for him when he got out of the shower.  He wolfed them down in just a few bites and then they were out the door headed for Lee Freshman school.  Aeden didn't really like it much.  It was located way out in the boonies on the east side of Midland.   The small single story construction was podunk at best and it was just old and run down.  When football season was over, he would have to ride the bus forever and a day because the school was so far away from his house.  Veronika had it much easier, she was going into the 7th grade at Alamo Jr high and would be able to walk instead.
After shutting the car door, Aeden ran to catch up with his friends Chris and Bud.  Chris was trying out for center and Bud wanted to play receiver, but the coach was renown for running the ball so he wasn't sure if that was a wise choice.  Peyton, the running back wanna be,  arrived a few minutes later to join in the conversation.   With their practice uniforms on, the foursome walked out onto the practice field to warm up.  This was the first day of full pads and they were excited to get the season started.  Aeden carried a ball since they were early and he knew there wouldn't be one out there yet.   Just like they had done most of the summer, Aeden lined up in the shotgun formation and Bud and Peyton took turns running routes.  The one thing neither of his friends really noticed was his ability to throw a football both right and left handed with equal power and precision, they were too occupied with catching the ball.   
The coaches began to make their way out onto the field when the head coach, coach  Stevens made them stop and watch.  By this time, Aeden was throwing 40 yard slant passes that were hitting his receivers in stride every time.  Coach Stevens turned to his coaches and said "There aren't very many 6'2" kids with an arm like that running around our schools."  "Yeah, but I won't be convinced until I see him playing with a full squad.  The kid we have slated as the starter can throw just as good" replied coach Miller, "Besides, we're a running team.  It don't matter how well they can throw."  Stevens just rolled his eyes because he knew his good friend often spoke directly from the heart without thinking.  The reason they were a running team was because they were always loaded at running back and seldom had a quarterback with the skills necessary to base an offense around.
At 7am on the dot, coach Stevens blew his whistle and the players gathered around. "Men, today we try out for positions.  Not everyone will get what they want, but you'll have chances to try out for secondary positions, too.  Each player will be required to play both an offensive and defensive position.  Good luck."   After guiding the players to where they needed to be, coach Steven made sure Aeden ended up with the quarterbacks and stayed to watch.  He had been under pressure to make the offense a bit more modern by the varsity coach.  The new kid just might be the answer to his problem.
There were 7 players trying out for QB, but when 4 of them couldn't hit simple crossing patterns so they were moved on down the food chain to another position.  Casey Jones had been the starter in 8th grade and the projected starter for 9th.  His dad was a well connected businessman and Casey always seemed to come out on top when there was competition.  When it became obvious that Aeden was going to be a serious threat, he started trying to get into his mind.  "Where do you come from, pretty boy?" he said.  "New Mexico, and you?" replied Aeden trying to keep it friendly.
In an effort to break the tie, coach Stevens brought over some defensive backs to cover the more able receivers.   "Hey pretty boy, don't mess up.  Remember to throw to our guys, not the other ones" Casey hissed.  Coach Miller made sure to match up LeRoy Brown with Aeden every time.  LeRoy was their best DB and he didn't want to see his boy Casey look bad.  Casey easily completed his first pass and then it was Aeden's turn.  When the ball was snapped, the receiver faked an out and came back across the field on a slant.  Aeden threw a perfect pass to the chest of the receiver which was knocked down at the last second by LeRoy.  "You gotta lead your receivers more than that at this level, pretty boy" sniped Casey.  Casey's next pass was tipped and went off the receivers fingertips.  "Like that?" Aeden jousted back.
Le Roy was back on coverage but Aeden had seen several of his moves by now and knew how to beat him.  For the next 10 passes, he took Le Roy apart.  The receiver didn't catch every ball, but they were perfect passes thrown to the spot where only the receiver had a chance to catch it.  Le Roy came off the field saying "Sheeeeit,  that MF'ing QB kept getting that ball past me by inches every time!  The coaches had seen enough and it was time to move on.  Remembering what his uncle had said, Aeden was only doing enough to edge by his opponent rather than just destroy him outright.
While they were showering up, there was a lot friendly banter going around the locker room.  Aeden and his buddies were talking about their individual adventures when Casey walked in literally walked through Aeden, knocking him to the side.  "Watch where you're going, pretty boy."  Aeden took an aggressive step towards Casey, but he was grabbed by 3 of Casey's buddies.  Keeping his calm, Casey motioned for his friend to not intervene.  He walked right up to Aeden saying "I don't know where you came from pretty boy, but you have no place on this team.  I call the shots around here and the sooner you learn that, the better."  Jeez, what a prick though Aeden.  This isn't going to be easy to fix without busting some heads.

History Class
Aeden was seated in history class and was checking out the girls as they walked into the classroom.  It was his first time to see many of them and it was like unwrapping a Christmas present each time a hottie walked into the room.   One particularly cutie with shoulder length strawberry blond hair came in and sat next to him.  She had a blue shirt and tight jeans and was just cute.  Nothing extraordinary about her.  Just cute.  In his most debonair voice, he leaned over and said "Hi,  I'm Aeden, what's yours?"  
"Stephanie" she replied.  Her body language told him she was interested, but she wouldn't make eye contact for more than a second at a time.  
"I see you're new here, where are you from?" she asked.  
"Roswell, NM."   
"Ooh, the place where the space ship crashed?  How cool!"  
"Yeah, that place.  Have you always lived here?"  
"Yes.  I went to Bonham Elementary and then Alamo Jr high."   
"Really?  We live real close to Alamo."  
"That's cool" she said, "maybe we could hang out sometime."   Their conversation was interrupted by the teacher when class began.

Rest of the Day
The rest of Aeden's day went pretty much like history.  He came across Casey a few times and did his best to nonchalantly avoid him.  In class, he sat around watching the girls walk into the classroom and payed attention to who they hung out with and how they acted.  In each class a different girl would sit next to him and strike up a conversation.  In algebra it was Penny, in English it was Gwen, Amanda was in Physics,  Maria in Spanish and blond haired Tyler was in woodworking.  None of the girls were extraordinary in any way and it turned out they were all athletes.  Maria was on the cross country team, Gwen, Amanda, Stephanie and Tyler were all friends on the same volleyball team.

Picked Up
Since athletics was in the mornings, athletes had to ride the bus home in the afternoon unless they had an event.  Aeden got on his bus and noticed Casey sitting in the back with his goon squad.  He picked an empty seat about 1/3 of the way back and sat down.  Before long Stephanie, Tyler and Gwen boarded the bus together and their faces lit up when they saw Aeden sitting there.  All three girls made a bee-line towards him.  Stephanie sat next to him and Tyler and Gwen sat one seat to the front.  They were engaged in conversation when Casey began to taunt Gwen from the back of the bus.  "Hey Gwen, it looks like you're finally growing a pair.  Come back here and let us check 'em out!"  All the guys in the back started laughing obnoxiously loud.  Upon hearing her name, she quickly looked up and when it registered what they said, a frown spread across her face and she withdrew from the conversation and was quiet.  Aeden turned to say something but Tyler reached out and grabbed him "Don't say anything,  It will just encourage him more."   
"I won't let him get away with that!" 
"He's Mr. Big-shot around here.  He can do no wrong and never gets in trouble.  You can't win so don't try."

	A few stops before Aeden was to get off, Casey and a few of his buddies exited the bus.  While they walked by, Aeden slyly stuck his foot out and tripped Casey as he walked by.  Grabbing the seats, Casey avoided falling but managed to sneer a warning out "We'll settle this on the field tomorrow morning, pretty boy."

Veronika
It sucked big time getting home around 5pm because of the long bus ride.  The smell of food was emanating throughout the house as he walked in the front door.  His foster mom, Mary always made sure there was a hot meal waiting for them in the evening.  Mary was putting the last of supper on the table when he seated himself. Veronika joined them almost immediately so they could begin to eat.  Aeden was famished and gulped down the food.  His foster parents had introduced them to chicken fried steak and he loved it.  The cream gravy and mashed potatoes rounded things out perfectly.  
Veronika had a good day as well.   "Hey big bro, guess what?  I'm going to try out for the volleyball team.  The coaches are going to work with us for 2 weeks and then we'll have tryouts.  Isn't that exciting????"  He had to smile because of her little girl charm. "Yeah, I guess it is little sis."  "I finally get to play a sport like you!!" she giggled out.  "Will you help me practice after school? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!"  "OK, little sis.  OK"

After dinner it was off to study the playbook since there was little to no homework this early in the year.  He felt a little guilty about escaping the 100 questions Mary had about his day.  She was excited and happy for them, too.  The sun was still fairly high in the sky at 7:30, so Aeden took a break from the playbook and walked over to a nearby park.  He didn't know what the name was, everyone just called it 'the park'.  Midland water was renown for its horrible taste, but he got a drink from the fountain, anyways.  He had an involuntary shiver as he forced the warm water down.  It didn't seem so bad on those hot days when he was thirsty, but this wasn't one of those times.  The swing set was off to his left so he wandered over and plopped down on a swing.  Several minutes later, he was startled to hear a familiar female voice from behind.  "Hey, ya.  Whatcha up to?"  Aeden spun his head around and quickly recognized Stephanie from his history class.  "Not much, and you?  How'd you sneak up on me?" "I live right over there" she said while pointing to a house that bordered the park.  "I saw you walk up so I thought I'd come out.  I've seen you out here a lot, but I didn't know you then."  They made small talk as teenagers do for nearly 30 minutes before Stephanie had to leave.  "My parents make me come home at dusk.  They don't like me out after dark.  See you tomorrow in history."  He watched her as she walked home, trying his best not to leer at her.  The t-shirt and soccer shorts she wore certainly complimented her physical form.   Girls his own age that were 5'10" tall were not a common occurrence!