Page 93 of And They Were Roommates

Instantly, Blaze drops to the floor.

I freeze halfway up the bar, staring at his tangled limbs.

“I will not be defeated by those eight-legs,” Blaze mumbles face down, lifting the Ancestral Ring of Darkness on his thumb.

Xavier wiggles his stopwatch. “Keep going!”

To my left, Robby pulls himself up again. He’s going fast. Too fast.

I focus on channeling the correct amount of power. Xavier taught me how to conserve. By the time I hit three, Robby’s arms are shaking, and his forehead is drenched in sweat.

“Stop!”

I jump down. Blaze is still wheezing on the floor. Robby also doesn’t look good with how much he’s wiping his wet face with his shirt. I only feel warm.

Xavier points at Robby and Blaze, then the dumbbell shelvesby the long mirror. “Collect your breath over there. I’ll start you guys with something easier.”

Robby helps Blaze off the floor. They wander off in their downfall.

Xavier high-fives me. “Knew you’d crush them.”

Ididcrush them. “I’m surprised.”

“Why? You’ve been training for months.”

I want to be thrilled. But. “I thought they’d also reach three easily.”

“Robby’s been struggling to pull an A in his PE class. And Blaze rarely shows up to his, but he’s a Dixon. His family owns half the buildings on this campus. Must be why Ms. Nallos conveniently keeps him at an A-plus.”

All this time, I thought everyone else was stronger, and I had to work out every hour of every day to catch up.

“Something up, man?” Xavier asks. He must’ve noticed my inner spiral.

Ever since we started training, Xavier has never asked why I’ve been obsessed with my PE grade. I’ve appreciated that. But we know each other better now. Delilah even called us friends. “I never asked,” I say, disappointed in myself for not doing it sooner. “Why do you train so much?”

“Always have, I guess. In middle school, I was the lacrosse team captain.”

“Why’d you go to Valentine if there are no sports?”

Xavier bends over to grab his sports drink on the floor. It feels like a distraction. “My dad’s an ambassador for the UN. Needed to move to the UAE for the next four years. I could go with or enroll in a boarding school. This is the only one in New York that my parents ‘approved’ of.”

“You had to stay here?”

“Nah, but I can take a train into the city to see my old team this way. I’m doing that during winter break. Miss them mad bad.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah. Don’t really hear from the parents anymore. But sometimes you gotta choose.” He shakes his drink, watches the off-orange liquid swirl inside.

Even if Mom is sometimes disorganized and a bundle of nerves, at least she would never do this. Suddenly, her never mailing my single room fee check doesn’t sound as bad as it did a month ago. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool. I’ve talked to Ms. Nallos about getting a team going here. She’s down, at least. Just wish I could make it coed, but the guidelines are too uptight to let that happen. The fact that everyone has to be split up is so cringe. I mean, what year is it?”

So, Xavier also chafes against the guidelines. The first time I met him, all I could see was how tall and strong andgianthe was. I assumed he was like the other students who encapsulated the definition of tradition and could never relate to someone like me.

If even he feels this way, do others?

“You wanna join the team?” Xavier adds, showing a playful smirk. “I know you’re only here for your PE grade, but you got potential beyond that.”

---