PROLOGUE
Six year old Sebastian Abel stood tall and straight-faced as a single tear slid down his face. His mother, Elaine, leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Don’t let him see you cry. This could be the last time we see him and all he needs to see is our love and support.”
Sebastian wiped the tear away just in time. His father stopped at the foot of the plane’s stairs and turned around. Sebastian smiled and dutifully waved to his father.
“It’ll be okay, Seb,” his best friend, Birch Stratton, said, putting his arm around Sebastian’s shoulder. “Our dads will be back by Christmas.”
The two boys stood shoulder to shoulder with their mothers flanking them, with fiercely determined smiles on their faces as they waved their husbands off to defend the United States. It had been like that since Sebastian had been born. His father hadn’t been there for his birth, but Birch and his mother had been. Birch was a couple of years older than Sebastian, but that didn’t stop them from being so close they were like brothers. Their mothers were the same, so close they were practically sisters.
They didn’t move from their place beside the runway until the plane was out of sight. Then, with a rush of air as if they’d been holding it back the entire time, their mothers let the tears come. They hugged each other tightly while whispering that it would be all right to each other. Less than a minute later their tears were dry and they smiled down at the boys. “Ice cream?”
It was their tradition. Ice cream at their favorite shop after their fathers left for another tour of duty. Sebastian’s mother was a firm believer that ice cream fixed everything. Sebastian nodded and he and Birch ran for the station wagon they’d all driven over in.
“Get off of me,” ten year old Sebastian tried to yell, but his lip quivered with fear as the bullies shoved him into his locker.
“Who’s going to stop us? Your daddy? The one who doesn’t exist,” Brandon, the leader of the pack, taunted. “Aw, look. Are you going to cry, Sebastian? Are you a little cry baby?” Brandon and his pack laughed and Sebastian wished, not for the first time, that his father was here to teach him how to fight.
Sebastian might be small and he might be crying as they punched him, but he would never give up. He tried to kick. He tried to punch. He just tried but the fight went out of him as his lip split and he tasted his own blood.
“Not again,” his mother sighed, her face full of pity and anger, as she cleaned his split lip. “I’m so sorry, Sebastian. I’ll call the school again and this time I’ll also call their mothers. Maybe it’s time to take this into my own hands.”
“No! Don’t do that, Mom,” Sebastian yelled, yanking away from her soft hand gently cleaning off the blood from his lip and chin. “That will only make it worse.”
His mother stared down at him, but finally relented. “Okay, but if this happens one more time, I’m stepping in.” His mother took a deep breath and pasted on a smile. “Come on, let’s get ice cream. Mint chocolate chip?”
“Of course. Is there any other flavor?” Sebastian asked as he slid from the countertop.
“My chocolate peanut butter cup beats your mint any day.” Sebastian made a gross face as they grabbed the car keys and headed out.
Sebastian knew after that day things would change. And they did. He would never again tell his mother when he’d been bullied. His mother had enough to worry about. With his father always away, it was up to his mom to keep things running at home. He saw how hard she worked at the base’s post exchange, basically the “big box store” of the base, to help put extra money in her pocket to send Sebastian to the private school near the base. He’d tested off the charts and the local school didn’t know what to do with him and had suggested the private school—one that cost more than his mother could afford.
“The best gift I can ever give you is the gift of an education,” his mother always told him when she gave him only one birthday gift and one Christmas gift each year. It was all she could afford. She’d grown up poor, in a rural part of California that wasn’t even categorized as a town. She and Sebastian’s father had started dating when they were thirteen and got married the second they both turned eighteen. They’d both dropped out of their senior year of high school to get married and with no job prospects, his father enlisted. Years later, Sebastian’s mother had a better life for herself but was determined to make an even better one for her only child.
Sebastian pretended not to have seen his mother begging the principal of the small private school to allow her to make monthly payments instead of paying for each semester in full. He didn’t want her to feel bad when she’d come out of the office with a triumphant smile on her face. She’d smiled and said that he was going to go to the best school around and that someday her son would make a name for himself. They’d celebrated with ice cream that night.
Sebastian also never said anything when he heard his mother slip from the house in the middle of the night to pick up extra shifts stocking shelves.
After the day she cleaned his lip, Sebastian never told her of the bullying again. Instead he blamed the broken nose on a fall from the swing. He blamed the black eye on the tetherball hitting him in the face. Instead, he focused on how his mother was the first to leap up from her seat and clap at all of his assemblies. How she was the only mother to cheer at his chess matches. How she always hugged him when he got home from school each day and kissed his forehead each night. And how she told him not to worry about his small size because someday he’d grow into a strong man, but most importantly into a smart man.
“You can be the biggest, baddest athlete of them all,” his mother would tell him when he felt left out for not being athletic enough to play sports, “but one injury and you’re done. Your whole career is over. That’s not true when you flex your biggest muscle—your brain.” Sebastian listened and studied during recess to avoid the bullies. He studied after school instead of playing sports. He studied when he sat at home alone most nights because his mom was working. And he wished that one day he might be smart enough to get a good enough job that he could help pay the bills so his mother wouldn’t have to work so much.
The sound of gunfire sent a shiver down Sebastian’s body. He didn’t cry. He didn’t move with the next round of shots. Instead, he stared blankly at the flag-covered coffin that held his father.
Birch stood rigidly next to him as Birch’s mother held Sebastian’s mother while she cried with each of the twenty-one shots.
At thirteen, Sebastian was now the man of the house. Now it was his job to take care of his mother. The bruised ribs from Brandon’s punch just two days ago reminded Sebastian of his place in life. He was four inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter than Brandon, but that couldn’t be an excuse any more. He was a man now and men dealt with their problems.
“I’ll never be weak again,” Sebastian whispered as the last shot echoed across the military cemetery.
“What did you say?” Birch whispered back.
Sebastian turned to his friend who stood a foot taller and was never bullied. No one messed with Birch Stratton. “Can I work out with you?”