M J Downing

The Best I Got M J Downing

In 1970, huge and hulking Drew Skolnick, seventeen, with an abusive father, deals with his Asperger's issues by living in a quiet, predictable world of weights and books. The people of Louisville, Ky, do not know much about his condition and think him just odd and ugly. Drew thinks that this is true and accepts it. For the most part, he is found in his garage, embracing his routine of weights and reading. It staves off the tensions of dealing with people. When Kyle Jensen, a promising football player on Durrett High School's needy team, sees Drew in his routines, he finds a path to friendship with Drew through the books they share, a path Drew had never thought to walk. But when Kyle is stricken down on the football field by a mysterious illness, Drew finds that his friendship with Kyle goes deeper than even he has guessed: Drew is the only one who can hear Kyle's voice. Unexpectedly, Kyle's disembodied voice asks Drew to help him find the source of a dark threat to Mary Beth Sevenson, Kyle's girlfriend. Drew cares for Mary Beth and is drawn to her, though he is awkward in her presence. Now, Drew must learn to open to new friends, new experiences, and learn to trust himself, if he is to help Kyle. He faces his own inner demons, mostly in the form of abusive messages laid on him by his own father and aided by the conditions of his Asperger's. How much is too much for a boy like Drew, in the face of love and friendship? Drew learns that it is enough to break a person The Best I Got.