the matt book

 For those of you that have read One More Sad Song (the number of which grew quite a bit in February, when I experimented with Amazon ads using OMSS), and those of you that have read books following OMSS, you know Matt. Matt is, at least for the published part of the Aughts Boys universe, the only consistent thread running through them. He's in OMSS as the new kid who is a douche, he's in The Horror at Camp New Woods as the big guy that survives, and without Matt the main plot of Right or Wrong would not have happened. And, of course, Hit or Miss being a direct sequel to OMSS, and following Ashton, so having a lot to do with hockey, involves Matt. 

Book five in the Aughts Boys series is the Matt book. I wrote the opener to it last night. Pasted below--spoilers for the first four Aughts Boys books, most particularly Hit or Miss.

CHAPTER ONE

            Matt Klein stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the school. He looked up because he didn’t want to look down and see bloodstains. If he didn’t have to, he wouldn’t have been back in that building for anything. The blood and the screams and, worst of all, the smell had reminded him of New Woods. Everyone’s faces afterward had reminded him of Brian Henderson. Without realizing it, Matt’s hand went to the scab at his wrist and started worrying it open. The scab was from a splinter that had gotten shot off the door when Zeke Williams had gotten shot; Zeke, with Matt’s hand over his mouth, though he didn’t end up making a single goddam noise anyway, like some kind of superhero or something. If Matt had left it alone, it would have been long healed. But he kept drifting off. These last few weeks had been spent in a sort of restless delirium. Everyone had auto-passed, finals had been cancelled.

            The reason Matt was at the school was the guidance counselor.

            Someone had gotten it into their head that Matt needed to be saved. That was the only explanation Matt could think of for this. The reason they’d called him a couple of days ago to set up an appointment was because they didn’t want another kid “falling through the cracks.” And yeah, Matt had been in the process of falling through the cracks. After he’d gotten kicked off the hockey team, he’d had to call every college that had talked to him and explain to them that he’d gotten kicked for violent behaviors. And then, if he was really lucky, they’d bring up sophomore year when the same thing had happened, and that brought up the question of if he was really able to be part of a team, if half of his high school hockey career had ended in getting kicked off the team (if they were real diggers, they’d end up digging up shit about junior year, too, where he hadn’t gotten kicked but had been on Thin Fucking Ice), and every single phone call had ended with him wanting to throw up. But he’d had to pick up the phone and do it again. And again.

            Over and over with Coach watching him. Matt hadn’t been able to tell what was behind his eyes—if it was disappointment, which was bad, or pity, which was worse.

            The worst thing was, Matt couldn’t even really remember why he’d beat Oliver up so bad. In his head, it felt like when he’d beaten up Benji Holmes. He’d seen him walking, used him as a mental stand-in for who he really wanted to beat the shit out of (for Benji, that had been Luke; for Oliver, Ashton), and the next thing he knew the kid was in the hospital. And now these people wanted to talk to him about his future, like he wasn’t about to graduate in four days, like if he had a future he’d have it figured out by now, and he didn’t want to go inside. He didn’t want to step over the big bloodstain that he now knew was where Kyle had gotten shot. He didn’t want to walk past the gym where Hayden had gotten killed. He didn’t want to remember the whispered argument with Zeke that had ended when they’d heard gunshots coming closer; Matt had slapped a hand over Zeke’s mouth and crossed the other one over his chest, holding him still so he didn’t run out like Rambo or something, and then he’d closed his eyes and waited. He’d felt Zeke flinch, hard, when the bullet smacked him in the arm, and he’d felt Zeke go a little limp. He’d thought that the dude was dead, for a second, but then he stirred, and the gunshots moved farther away, and Zeke hissed, through gritted teeth, “I think that broke my arm.”

            He didn’t want any of that.

Obviously this is pre-final edits; this is just the opener as of right now, but that's what we're looking at. Unfortunately, the Aughts Boys books are now a series you have to read in order. If you want to skip book two, you definitely can, but it does inform us a little bit of Matt's character; here, he mentions it. He will continue to mention it. But the days of going through and picking one, or two, or three, are past--this book starts the same day Hit or Miss ends. While Ashton is in the hospital talking to [REDACTED], Matt is waiting to meet with the guidance counselor.

I'm excited. I know I should be working on plowing through the finish of Bandit Born, but the Aughts Boys books are just. So much more fun. Man. If I know myself, this will be out before Tinon#3.