Beauty Into Breakdown

Unexpected love upends a young man’s life forever

Chapter 1

The monotony of summertime in Iowa’s countryside fringes was broken only for a weekend. For at least one fleeting moment, the county fair — maybe the sole thing making the Midwest tolerable — lightened up the lives of everyone who was anyone, and luckily for Charles, everyone else as well. If ever there was a walking stereotype, it was him and the strangely angsty teenage introvert. Acne dominated his face. That fated adolescent growth spurt had yet to hit him. A diet of copious granola bars and sugary cereals left him noticeably pudgy. A sense of style that consisted of striped shirts, cringe-worthy sunglasses and the khakis of a thirty-something burnout didn’t help his case.

Still, he didn’t much mind the dismal cards that youth had dealt him. Really, he hardly realized, for, like many kids his age with time and the Internet on their hands, he’d developed much too rich an internal world for his own good. he kid was a king; a king without a kingdom, of course, or subjects, army, sword, or queen, but a king nonetheless. Without a doubt, at the least, he was king of lofty dreams, grandiose fantasies and impractical ambitions, for surely there was no other guy alive more invested in his own senseless inner thoughts. And so, like a king, he walked with an entourage; just hidden in its middle so he didn’t have to face the scores of scary strangers who his buddy Bradley seemed to know by name and date of birth.