The Locker Room (2 page)

The woman looked at him with a half smile on her face, like she

understood what it was like to be young and growing, and then

something in his own expression made hers change.

“He"s welcome, Chris. But we need a name first, okay?”

“Xander,” he mumbled, so desperate for whatever that smell was

that he probably would have done any matter of terrible, illegal,

disgusting things, just to have a bite. The sweat and adrenaline and joy of

the game had faded, and all that was left was pewter-gray nausea and

dancing spots in his vision that came from being young, growing, and

literally starving to death.

“Xander,” the woman said softly, “I"m Christian"s mom, Andi.

C"mon with us, and we"ll feed you, okay?”

Xander nodded, and lured by the smell of chicken and by Chris"s

triumphant smile, tucked his basketball under his arm and followed the

two of them as they walked home.

The suburb where Xander lived was a curious mix of older houses

and apartment buildings, the kind where you moved in without having to

give first and last month"s rent. Xander lived in an apartment house

about a block away from the high school, which was mainly why he

went to school—it was close, and he got a free lunch, because he had

filled out the paperwork and forged his mother"s signature at the

beginning of the year.

Chris lived in one of the older houses, the kind with the two stories

and the big yard with, from the sound of it, a dog in the back. As Xander

followed Chris and Andi through the door (and even now, Xander was

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Amy Lane

getting the habit of ducking a little at doorways) Xander saw that the

inside of the house was even better than the outside.

It was cluttered—there were books all over the coffee table and end

table and whole shelves for them in the living room—and the couches

were worn and a little threadbare on the arms. There was a girl who

looked just like Christian lying on her stomach with her feet in the air,

poring over a history book, and a grown man doing the dishes over by

the kitchen, which opened into the living room on the far side of the

house from the entryway.

“Jeez, Andi, I thought we were eating out because it was quicker

than cooking!” the man called, and Chris"s mom walked up to the guy—

he was about Xander"s height, with brown hair and glasses and a small,

“pretty” face—and kissed him on the cheek with only a little reach. In

the light, she had blond, curly hair, and slightly wide hips and a blowzy

chest under jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, and she laughed at her

husband (Xander assumed) and set the food down on the (crowded)

kitchen table so she could give him a hug.

“You would not be
lieve
the line at the KFC, seriously. Just

miserable. And Chris went to the park while I was there, and we brought

home a stray.”

Xander felt himself the victim of a cheerful once-over.

“Holy God. Feeding you must be a full-time job.”

Xander smiled greenly and wondered if the light really was that

dim or if it was the whole “haven"t eaten” thing. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

“I"d like it to be.”

That earned him a laugh, and his next smile had a little more

strength behind it. Then Chris said, “C"mon, let"s clear off the table,

Xander, and we can eat.”

“Never mind that,” Chris"s (Step-dad? Mother"s boyfriend? What

was the guy?) said. “We"ll eat in the living room. It"s getting late, and

we need to wrap dinner up and get to homework.”

“Aces.” Chris grimaced, all sarcasm. “Way to suck the joy out of

dinner, Dad.”

“Just doing my part,” said Chris"s “Dad,” and Xander tried not to

boggle. He"d thought those were an urban legend.

The Locker Room

7

It didn"t take long before Xander was seated quietly, balancing a

plate of chicken with fixins on his lap, and listening to the family banter

back and forth. By the time dinner was over, he"d learned that Penny,

Chris"s sister, was in all of the advanced classes, Chris was struggling

with Algebra, Andi was a lawyer from the teacher"s union, who couldn"t

talk about her work but made a lot of eye rolls when certain subjects

from school were brought up, and Jed was Chris"s father, and he taught

Junior High math in another district.

He could sit there and listen to them talk for hours.

He didn"t say anything himself, of course, but he did look up

gratefully when Andi put two more pieces of chicken on his plate after

he finished off the two he started with. When those were gone, he found

that Jed had given him the last of the potatoes and gravy, and he ate that

gratefully too. And then, like there always is, he found that there was a

price for the good, because he was the center of attention when Jed asked

him how he was doing in school.

He actually felt the sweat break out under his loose T-shirt collar.

“I sleep a lot,” he mumbled. Well, school was clean, it was safe, no

loud noises, no one having sex or getting high—how was he not

supposed to sleep?

“You can"t sleep through your classes!” Chris said, with so much

suppressed passion that Xander blushed more and wished for a quick

death under the beat-up, comfortable couch. “If you sleep through your

classes, how are you going to try out for the team?”

“The team?” Xander said blankly.

“Yeah! The basketball team! They start playing in a month. You

can still try out, but you have to get your grades up!”

Xander looked at him helplessly. “You think I could make the

team?” Oh God. He loved basketball—he did. He would sneak into the

local sports bars or restaurants, just to watch the games on television. He

would walk three miles and hover in the shadows of the Arco Arena on

game day, just to watch Vlade Divac and Peja Stojakovic walk in the

back for practice. But staying awake for class? Christ….

He looked at Chris"s face then, expectant, anticipating, excited.

No, not Christ. Christian. He"d do it for Christian.

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Amy Lane

“I"ll talk to my teachers,” he said through a dry mouth, although he

wasn"t sure if he remembered their names. “I"ll talk to them tomorrow.

Maybe I can fix it.”
Maybe I can move mountains, change the color of

the sky and tilt the center of the world, just to play basketball, just to see

you look at me like I can do anything, just so I don"t let you down.

Eventually dinner was over, and he"d helped clean up, and even he

could see that this nice family would be wrapping it up. Eventually he

told his first lie, one about going home to sleep, and he left. Before he

went, tucking his basketball under his arm securely, he told Chris that

he"d meet him at the cross street so they could walk to school together.

He did go home. His mother and whoever were both sprawled on

the couch, stoned and out of it, and he had time to look at her through

eyes that had just seen a functional little family, and he felt a surge of

anger. Goddammit, all he"d ever asked for was some food and a little

attention, but even before the drugs, that hadn"t really been in the cards,

had it? But he didn"t stay long, not this time. Instead, he took a quick

shower and changed his clothes, then got a blanket and a pillow and

snuck out to the stairwell behind the laundry room. The dryer usually ran

all night, and this way, he could stay warm.

LATER on, he figured out that his teachers had been rooting for him all

along. They had let him sleep because he needed it, and when he asked

for his work, they gave it to him. His English teacher gave him

notebooks for free, and had a bucket of pens for the taking. His math

teacher let him clean desks during lunch for extra credit. His French

teacher told him that there were usually leftovers from the Asian club

meetings after lunch, and made sure to have some wrapped in foil for

him after he got his free lunch at the kiosk. His basketball coach tutored

him in history, because that was the subject he taught when he wasn"t

coaching.

Chris gave him an “old” backpack—the same “old” backpack that

Xander would forever remember him having as they walked to school

that first day after he"d dined on KFC and mashed potatoes.

That started a tradition of the two of them walking to school. It

gave them time to talk about their classes, about basketball tryouts (both

The Locker Room

9

of them were shoo-ins from the start), about pretty much anything they

wanted to talk about, and the tradition continued until they were

sophomores, the next year.

They"d spent the summer practicing, because they loved it, and

getting Xander a job, because he needed one, and he was tired of not

eating. His plan was to spend his late evenings loading boxes at

Walmart, pretending he was sixteen, his early mornings doing

homework, sitting on the bus bench waiting for Chris, his days in school,

and his afternoons in basketball practice, where he felt he belonged.

He told Chris he needed the job but not why, exactly, and until that

day in late September, Chris never realized how bad that need truly was.

“What"s with the shades?” Chris had grown four inches during his

freshman year in high school, but Xander had grown four as well.

Together they still managed to walk comfortably, and Xander never felt

like he towered over his friend, which was nice, since he towered over

nearly everyone else.

“S"bright,” Xander mumbled, and Chris stopped and looked at him,

square and irritated.

“It"s the same bright every other day. And those look… Jesus, Xan,

you"ve still got the tag on the front of them, and they"re hella

expensive….” Chris"s eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head dangerously,

looking both betrayed and furious at the same time.

“Xander, did you steal those?”

Behind the sunglasses, one of Xander"s eyes went wide. The other

one was swollen shut.

“I had to,” he rasped. “I"m… I"m sorry, Chris. I… I just fucking

needed them, okay!” He tried to make his voice angry, but Chris looked

so hurt. His own voice ended up breaking, and he turned his face away,

so he could run away from it, all of it, but before he could take his first

step, Chris"s hand came up and snatched the shades away.

“Fuck.”

“Your mother know you talk like that?” Xander snapped, taking the

shades back and shoving them down on his face. His eye was swollen

shut and his nose was just swollen, and now that Chris could see his

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Amy Lane

whole
face, he could probably see that what looked like a
chapped
lip

was really a
split
lip.

“Xan… Xander! Wait! Goddammit, wait!” Chris broke into a run

next to him, and the cool fall morning was clouded by the spatter of his

feet on the green-shaded sidewalk. Chris"s hand came down on his

shoulder and whirled him around, and Xander, who could face an

opponent on the court without flinching, cringed from that touch on his

arm like a child would cringe from a smacked bottom.

Xander found himself hunched and backing up toward the hedge

that separated the residences from the thoroughfare, and trying to escape

his best friend like a shy field spider would escape a screaming girl.

But Christian didn"t scream.

“What happened?” he asked quietly.

Xander shrugged. “Don"t want to talk about it,” he muttered.

“Too goddamned bad. You tell me, and tell me now, or I turn

around and go home and phone my dad, and he
has
to report abuse, it"s

the goddamned law, and that"ll be a big fucking mess. Talk to me,

Xander.” Chris had fair skin—beautiful, star-pale skin that set off his

night-dark eyes—and now it was blotchy and red, and his chin was

quivering and his eyes were too bright and rimmed with pink. Xander

had an urge to just hold that quivering chin and smooth his thumb over

Chris"s plump lower lip, and tell him not to cry.

Don"t cry, Christian. I"m okay. I"m here with you.

“Mom"s boyfriend.” Xander didn"t even know this one"s name.

“He wanted my uniform money for basketball. I told him no.”

Chris"s eyes got really big then, and he looked around wildly.

“Where is he? Jesus, did he get that money? Xander, we"re playing

varsity
this year. You can"t not sign up for ball!” Sophomores in varsity,