Chapter Eight
Eight Years AgoThree restless days after seeing Auden at the Abbey, St. Sebastian kicked listlessly around his house, finally heading down to his favorite spot on the river for a swim. All the obvious haunts were frequented by a pack of boys from school he didn’t mess with—scowling, smoking lads who didn’t like him because he was smarter than them or because his skin was browner than theirs or because they knew he’d kissed Jared Kress behind the library last summer—or for all of those reasons put together. So far he’d managed to evade them by keeping to himself and staying out of their way—since they lived in the market town two miles down the road, it wasn’t always hard—but there was no guarantee his luck would hold, and he wasn’t interested in finding out what would happ
