Page 20 of The Locker Room

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wanted to tell the world.

“Don"t leave me, okay?” he said before he could stop himself.

Christian look puzzled. “Okay, big guy. I thought the point was

that you wouldn"t leaveme, right?”

Xander shrugged, and shivered, and gave Chris"s lips one last

brush with his thumb. “Either way, it would be bad.”

Chris nodded, caught his hand and released it. “Gotcha, okay?

We"re together. It"s good. We"re gonna be late, though, okay? We need

to make up that quiz in Algebra this morning.”

Xander nodded, and they both listened carefully, and then walked

to the edge of the divide between the hedge and the road. Xander came

out first, looking around, and then said, “C"mon. We"re clear.”

Chris rounded the corner, too, and then they both shouldered their

backpacks and broke into a trot, trying to get to school before the

masses.

18

Amy Lane

Life in a Garbage Bag

THEY managed to get the apartment, but barely. Chris had to steal his

mother"s credit card, and then replace it in her purse before she knew

about it. Xander had to find someone to get him a fake ID that made him

eighteen instead of fifteen. In the end, they had a small, unfurnished

apartment about two blocks from the high school, in the opposite

direction as Xander"s mother. Xander figured his mother wouldn"t care,

and one night he simply stopped showing up at her place and took a

blanket and a pillow and a garbage bag full of clothes to his.

They were the only furnishings in the place.

Chris managed to find a couch that had been left outside for free,

and the two of them hauled it a mile and a half after school one day, and

then up the rickety flight of stairs so that Xander would have some place

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