Gabe’s fist throbbed, the pain flashing red with every beat of his heart. Crimson blood seeped from his knuckles. A fist-shaped dent cratered the wall right next to where he was lying on his back on the upper bunk.
Staring at the hole, Gabe put his knuckles to his mouth and licked them. His mom hardly ever came in here anymore, not since Eldon had moved in. With luck, it would be a long time before she even noticed it. Still, that had been pretty stupid, punching the wall. He hadn’t even decided to do it. He had just done it.
It felt like there was a pit inside his chest, and it was getting wider and deeper. Or maybe he was already inside the pit, having fallen in.
Eldon had gone down a little earlier to fix himself breakfast, so for once Gabe was alone in the room. The room that was supposed to be his. Now the only thing in this room that was his and his alone was this upper bunk. A three-by-six-foot piece of real estate.
The rest of his room was now shared with Eldon. Eldon who had fifty pounds on him, easy. Even now, even after the steroids had given Gabe the body he always wanted. Pretty soon it would disappear, and it would be back to being more like an eighty-pound difference between them.
Once that happened, how would it look when they walked down the halls at school? Probably like Gabe was some little dwarf capering in a giant’s shadow.
People had remarked on his weight gain, his new muscles. They would surely comment when he dwindled back to nothing. Back to being the boy who wasn’t much bigger than a sixth grader. Girls would roll their eyes when he tried to talk to him, the way they had before.
But that’s what his mom and Charlie were dooming him to. They wanted him to go back to looking like the little kid they treated him like. His thoughts circled and looped the way they had all morning.
Five minutes ago, when Gabe thought about what had happened yesterday, about how his mom had snooped through his things, hot anger had surged up in him. Before he realized what he was doing, he had hit the wall with his fist. Now he flexed his hand, hoping he hadn’t broken anything. The way his mom had looked at him, her mouth twisted as if he had just betrayed her. He had wanted to curl up so tight that he would just disappear.
Last night she had told him that she loved him, that she would always love him, but the words had sounded rote. Stripped of all pride, of all joy. It was pretty clear she figured that she had to love him. Love as a burden. Love as shame.
He blinked away the sudden spark of tears and tried to find the anger again. His mom was always after him, saying that he was the man of the house. But now that he looked like a man, she wasn’t happy. But wasn’t that what she had wanted? Wasn’t it?
And what did Charlie think about him now? Did he think he was a loser? An idiot? A jerk? A few weeks back, Charlie had been talking about the two of them taking in a Seahawks game. Clearly, that would no longer be part of the picture.
Was Charlie right about what steroids could do to you? His mom could be counted on to get freaked out, to go all worst-case-scenario, but Charlie not so much. So if Charlie had said those things, maybe they were true. Or true-ish. Rolling over, Gabe slid off the bunk and headed into the bathroom, hoping that for once he would be left in peace for a few minutes. His mom had a bathroom all to herself, but between him, Eldon, and Brooke, it felt like someone was always waiting.
In the bathroom, he locked the door, then took off his shirt. His pecs were so much bigger now. But could some of it be because he was actually developing breasts? He poked at them, and they seemed firm. But did that mean anything?
He picked up a hand mirror and tried to see the back of his head. It took a lot of contorting and working the angles to get it right. Did he have less hair? Maybe? Yes? No? Between spiky brown strands, he could see tiny spots of white skin, but it was hard to know if that was new, since he couldn’t remember ever looking at the back of his head before.
Still, even if his body was changing in a few hardly noticeable ways, it was a small price to pay, wasn’t it? Not when he could see the respect in people’s eyes when he walked down the halls at school. Not when he could challenge himself to do nearly anything physically, and his body would respond like a machine, only one made of muscles and tendons.
He slid his T-shirt back on. When his head popped out of the hole, for a disorienting second Gabe thought he saw his dad staring back at him from the mirror. Like he was back from the dead.
Was it wrong that a big part of him still loved his dad, given that he had been such a jerk? Gabe wasn’t supposed to know what his dad had done, but he did anyway. How many of the commandments had his dad broken? Nearly every one except for “Thou shalt not kill.”
Instead, his father was the one who had been killed.
When he was little, Gabe had wanted to be his dad. His mom had an old scrapbook, and in it was a photo of Gabe wearing nothing but a diaper, his dad’s big shoes, and a grin.
He had his own memories from when he was a little older. His dad showing him how to build a birdhouse. Teaching him how to play guitar. Playing catch with baseballs and footballs and Frisbees. Pride had flooded his chest when his dad nodded or smiled at some achievement or accomplishment. His mom was all about words, while his dad hadn’t been big on talking. Still, you could tell when he approved.
The last year before his dad died, his parents had fought a lot. Even though Gabe hadn’t really known what it was about, he had been angry at his mom. She was such a nag.
Now he realized she had been desperately trying to turn his dad around before he crashed. And it hadn’t worked.
Was that what she was trying to do with Gabe? Turn him around before he crashed?
With a sigh, he unlocked the bathroom door. When he opened the door, he started back. Eldon was hanging out in the hall, clearly waiting for him to leave, although he hadn’t made a sound to let Gabe know he was there.
Gabe just hoped he hadn’t been muttering to himself. He went back to their room and sat at the desk. He wasn’t planning on doing any homework until this evening, not until the last possible minute, but he still didn’t want Eldon taking up one more spot that was actually supposed to be his.
When Eldon came into the room, Gabe blurted out, “My mom found my supplies yesterday.”
Eldon’s eyes went wide and he swore under his breath. “What happened? How did she find them?”
“She was going through my stuff and she found my kit. She threw away the needles and flushed the drugs down the drain.”
“Are you serious, man?” Eldon winced. “Does she think I was taking them too?”
Gabe’s face got hot. Guilt by association. The idea made him feel even lower. “No worries. She knows you’re just naturally a big dude.”
“You must be in a lot of trouble.”
“She even had that cop she works with, Charlie Carlson, yell at me.”
Eldon’s eyes got even bigger. “Did he arrest you?”
“No. I wouldn’t be sitting here if he had.” Gabe’s sarcastic tone covered up a sudden jab of fear. He hadn’t even thought about that, about how Charlie was a cop. Taking steroids had never seemed illegal, exactly. More like a secret.
“So what are you going to do?”
Gabe started to say that he had promised his mom that he wouldn’t take them, but then he realized that didn’t mean much. After all, he had been using them before, knowing full well that his mother wouldn’t approve.
“I’m thinking about stopping.” As he said the words, he realized he might mean them. Maybe. “At least for now. Mom will be giving the evil eye, so I won’t be able to get away with anything.”
Eldon bit his lip, then said in a rush, “Maybe that’s a good idea. Since you started taking them, you’ve changed.”
“Of course I’ve changed. I can do stuff I never did before.”
Eldon gave him a look. “I mean, you seem like you’re angry all the time.”
“No, I’m not. That’s ridiculous.”
And then Gabe followed Eldon’s gaze to his hands, which had become fists again without his even noticing.