Prologue:

The Beginning

I guess it's a really weird feeling when someone who is supposed to be completely and totally in love with you is in love with your mom.

No. Okay, that's a bit of an understatement.

But there's no way I can hate my mom for it.

Most of the kids at my school find they really can, you know, hate their mothers. With a white hot passion I, personally, find disturbing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact they can't remember their lives, with perfect clarity, since the day they were born. I can. I remember my mother's expression of total relief, mangled and broken though she was, when she saw me, the ultimate love she felt for me, how it would never falter.

So I can't hate my mom the same way she can't hate me.

Even for this.

Annoyed, well yeah, I guess there's that. That's there a lot. Annoyance at the way my guy looks at my mother, annoyance at how mom and dad keep me up all night most Saturdays with the thump-thump-thumping coming from their room (if you think it's disgusting when you hear your parents doing it, you try having super hearing), annoyance at how she's got eyesight so good she can almost spot microscopics but she never actually sees anything.

So you're wondering how I know, huh?

Know about this whole unrequited love thing, how it stabs Jake in the heart every time he thinks about it.

Well, I guess I'm not using an awful cliche when I say I've got all the time in the world to tell you.

So lets get started.