Chapter 25 is posted (updated with DVD extra)

You can read it here.

Updated, 9/22:  I'm starting to sketch out a little of the next chapter.  Moving on from the last one is hard.  Click through for a deleted scene and some director's commentary.

When I organized this chapter, I'd planned to include a cousin who was a couple of years younger than Chris.  He would have antagonized Chris and eventually get high with Chris and Joe.  Joe thought he was hilarious and crushed on him slightly.  The cousin would have reappeared at a much, much later point in this story -- maybe he still will, who knows.

I had to eliminate him because I'd already thrown in so many people and dynamics.  He basically would have been comic relief.  Plus, I wanted Chris and Joe to focus on each other.  The cousin would have been a distraction.  He wouldn't work.

That said, I still liked how I introduced him, and there's some version of this world where Chris and Charlie have been bickering since elementary school.  I thought I'd post the passage I wrote about him, because I still like it, and otherwise it would live unseen forever somewhere on my hard drive.

Charlie and his family arrived while the old men were out golfing.  Charlie was the son of a much older first cousin to Chris; Charlie was nineteen and about to start sophomore year of college at some school I’ve never heard of -- something like Northern Great Lakes State, Peninsula State.  He was hot, and as soon as he spoke, I heard a clearly stupid person without a care in the world.

“Aunt Barb!” he said, his Michigan-Midwesty accent a higher tin than Chris or his family.  “Check out my tattoo!”

He lifted the sleeve of his T-shirt to show an inner tricep and strands of golden pit-hair, revealing a tattoo of Asian characters.

“Charlie!” Barbara said.  “What did you do to yourself?”

“It says peaceful prince,” Charlie said.

“Peaceful prince?”  Chris said, pinched with contempt and impatience.  “You’re not a prince, idiot.  You’re definitely not peaceful.”

“Says you,” said Charlie.

“Definitely says me.”

“Chris,” said Barbara.

“That is without a doubt the dumbest tattoo I’ve ever seen or heard about,” Chris said.  “These people with Chinese tattoos, it’s ridiculous anyway, but ‘peaceful prince?’”

“Ha!”  Charlie said.  “Shows what you know!  It’s Japanese, not Chinese!”

“You don’t even know,” Chris said.  “It probably reads, ‘Smells like penis breath.’”

“Chris!”

“Well you would know,” said Charlie.

“That’s a great comeback,” said Chris.

“Hey,” I said, putting out my hand, “I’m Joe.  Chris and I are housemates at school.”

“Great to meet you!” said Charlie, putting out his hand, my eyes stuck on his controversial tattoo and inner arm.  “I want to stay in the lakehouse with you guys,” he said to Chris.

“Okay, well, we should wait and see,” Chris said.  “Remember the last time we tried that?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you reacted that way.  Anyway, we’re older now.  More mature.”

“One of us is,” Chris said.

Charlie looked like a narrower, tighter Chris -- about 5’10 with slimmer hips and shoulders; longer face; longer, sharper nose; a more pronounced forehead and browline.  Chris’s eyes were a deeper shade than Charlie’s.  But you could put them side-by-side and recognize them as cousins, possibly even mistake Charlie as Chris’s younger brother.

He grew up in a small town a couple hours away (“middle of the woods”) where his dad -- Glen’s first cousin -- was a dentist.  

“Charlie’s just a dope,” Chris said.  “A buffoon with A-D-D.  He annoyed me when we were little and he annoys me now.”

“He seems high energy,” I said.

“That’s just the adderall,” he said.  “He’s just stupid.  He almost lit a bottlerocket in my face when he was in seventh grade.  It was a total accident, but still.”

Barking, Handsome chased Charlie, who ran over the lawn in long tie-dyed board shorts.  He did a cannonball from the end of the dock.

“Let’s go swimming!” he shouted when he popped up, dripping.