Page 11 of Forever We Fall

Today, I get to toss some guys around the mat. The wrestling season is still a few weeks from starting, but I overheard some of them chatter about rolling around before tryouts. So I asked them if I could join.

They probably only agreed for the chance to pin my ass to the pad. I don’t care. Let them try.

I crack my knuckles, stretch my neck, and grin for the first time since Mr. Judge scampered into my life. Before that guy, everything made sense. After him, I haven’t quite regained my balance.

“Heard you were going to help me up my riding time.”

The whisper comes from behind me a few seats to my right. He’s a year above me, as I discovered most are in this math class. The guy sports a full beard, neatly trimmed because of schoolstandards. He’s also huge. His British accent is different. It’s a little twangy, like rolling fields and a rusted-out utility truck.

“Hope you have more than hot air in your gas tank.” I shrug.

He smiles. It’s smug. “Conference champ two years in a row.”

“That so?” I grin. It’ll make tossing this guy on his back even better.

“I’m Nate.” He offers his hand.

“Hota.” I shake it.

“You’re not scared, are you?” Nate’s brow is up, and his smirk is in full effect.

I straighten in my seat with a smirk of my own.

“You should be.” There’s no malice in his tone. “I outclass you.”

“In weight.”

“And skill,” he adds.

“We’ll see,” I chuckle. The professor glares at me, and my small laugh turns into an all-out belter. He turns back to the board without saying a word.

Nate joins in. Another big guy on the far side of him does too.

A lightness I haven’t experienced in too long eases the breaths in and out of my chest, and then I self-destruct, as I have for the past ten weeks. My gaze slides left, and then down one row.

My laughter dies and then rots in my throat.

The brittle and bony guy I’d saved from getting his guts stomped out has been replaced with a wall of fucking muscle. He eats at all hours, bulking like it’s his job. He lifts every single day, adding weight each time, pushing harder than any of us, like his life depends on it. He seems to think it does.

I can’t say I don’t believe him. Still, he could have said thanks. He could have realized how much fucking guts it took for me to stand up to that demon made flesh.

But no.

He knocks me on my ass, scurries away, and doesn’t even look in my direction for ten fucking weeks…until now.

His gaze is locked on mine. There’s a crinkle in his brow that’s asking a question, but I don’t understand it. He won’t dare utter it. The entire school thinks he’s a mute.

Only I know better.

We share a fucking bathroom, and I haven’t seen or heard a peep out of him in seventy days in the tight confines of what is our only safe haven. Maybe that day was a fluke. A miracle that he spoke. It was also one of the worst days of my life.

Word of the new kid and his muteness traveled fast in these hollow halls. But no one fucks with him. It’s no fun when he can’t talk back.

I pull my gaze away and manage not to flip him the bird.

Fuck that guy.

The prof finally pulls down the second whiteboard and allows us to get to work. I’m the first one done every day. Every day my fucking suitemate is the second.

---