Fireball by Tyler Keevil

planned. I mean, going from start to finish isn’t the only way to tell a story.
    There’s at least sixty different ways.

    18

    â€˜Promise. Promise me you won’t get in any fights tonight.’
    â€˜What if somebody starts shit?’
    Karen put her hands on Chris’s waist and looked him in the eyes. The three of us were standing in front of my house, sharing a beer, waiting for Julian to come pick us up.
    â€˜Just promise. Please?’
    â€˜Okay. I promise.’
    She had no idea how big a favour she was asking of him. Neither did we at the time. We just knew that we were going to some party near Caulfield, in West Van. Somehow, Jules had roped us into it. This was a few days after he’d cried in front of Karen on the way home from the Avalon, and I think he was trying to compensate for it. He wanted to be the big slick for a night, and me and Chris were forced to come along for the ride. Karen didn’t make it any easier on us. Her and her promises. To Chris, promises were sacred. He never broke a promise in his life.
    â€˜How do I look?’
    Karen twirled around, balancing on her toe like a ballerina.
    â€˜Good,’ I said.
    â€˜Yeah. You look hot.’
    She did, too. She’d picked out a black skirt, low heels, and this burgundy top. Sexy, but classy. Jules had told us all to dress up. For Karen, that wasn’t a problem. For us, on the other hand, it was a huge problem. In the end I borrowed a pair of old cords and this V-neck sweater from my dad, which made me look like a cop from some seventies TV show. Chris didn’t even bother. He just wore his jeans – the ones he’d sliced up for Halloween – and a t-shirt with the faded picture of a wildcat on the front. It was supposed to look like Native art but you could tell it had been painted by some shitty white person. Neither of us was going to win any kind of best dressed award for the evening.
    â€˜There he is!’ Karen shouted.
    She ran onto the street, waving her hand like somebody trying to hail a cab. Julian was driving his dad’s Lexus, not the Mercedes. It was twice as big as a normal car and only got about three miles to the gallon – but it looked awesome. He pulled up onto the curb, just to show he could, and we piled in. Karen took the front. The interior reeked of leather polish and Julian’s cologne. He’d really dolled himself up. He’d lathered gel in his hair and worn this Calvin Klein polo shirt, unbuttoned at the top so you could see his silver chain. I had to admit he looked pretty good. He knew it, too.
    â€˜You guys ready to lock and load?’
    â€˜You got it, Richard Gere.’
    â€˜Yeah – put it in gear, gearbox.’
    I could tell that pissed him off, because he floored it before we’d even shut the door. Straight away, he cranked up his dance music and started careening around corners. The beat was so loud it felt as if the speakers were actually inside my skull. He was doing it on purpose, too. Chris and I couldn’t hear shit, which meant he had Karen all to himself in the front. Only snatches of the conversation reached me.
    â€˜â€¦ super nice house…’
    â€˜â€¦ cool guy…’
    â€˜â€¦ think I know him…’
    I leaned forward and shouted, ‘Hey!’
    â€˜What’s up?’
    â€˜Whose party is this, anyways?’
    Jules turned down the music to answer. ‘Tim Williams. He goes to Collingwood.’
    That’s the school with the graphite hockey sticks and super good tennis team.
    â€˜Sweet,’ Chris said, making it pretty obvious that it wasn’t sweet at all.
    Julian pretended not to notice. ‘Yeah – it should be.’
    Then he turned his music back up and kept talking to Karen. The two of them were ridiculously excited. Meanwhile, me and Chris brooded in the back, in the dark, nursing a mickey of his mom’s Smirnoff. We didn’t even have anything to