Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

44. Don't Tell Anyone

Don't tell anyone... Toshka's voice echoed clearly in Volya's memory. They had just written the finals in grade seven. The summer stretched before Volya, one of those seemingly endless summers of childhood that nothing could spoil. Plus, there was a soccer game to kick-start the summer break.

Outpacing the knot of sweating bodies, Volya kicked the ball. It sailed through the air, but he lost his footing and plowed a furrow through the schoolyard. As soon as he hit the ground, Volya flipped over to see the ball make it past the goalie's arms.

Yes! One more for him!

Shaking a pound of dust from the front of his t-shirt, and slapping the random hands that landed on his back, Volya jogged back to his expected position. His glance swept the strip of grass that served as spectators' benches. His bright mood darkened. No way...

He looked again: nope, he didn't miss anything. Toshka no longer crouched on the sidelines. Damn it. Toshka wouldn't have run away just like that. He wouldn't miss seeing Volya score for a trifle.

"Volya!" someone shouted, "stop preening!"

"Need a breather," he replied automatically, limping off the field, clutching his stomach, and surveying the yard at the same time for signs of trouble. The Bruiser menaced mid-field, hoarding the ball. The lesser pests were all accounted for as well.

So, did Toshka actually leave?

Volya chewed his lip. It was a perfectly normal thing to do. Washroom breaks, you know, plus this wasn't the World Cup Final. He should dash back into the fray, but he had a bad feeling about it. Like, if they were losing, then Toshka had every reason to scoot. Losing was boring. But they were winning, so something had to be wrong.

Volya waved to one of his mates to step in and limped away. The school building muted the booing that followed his retreat. Yeah, yeah, he had a tender gut, sod off.

His frustration spiked after the shouting had died down. There he was, sticky with sweat, a stitch in his side, doing God knows what. Toshka was probably hiding somewhere, sitting out one of his moods. It wasn't Volya's job to babysit him every second of every day. But after rushing away from the game, he couldn't saunter back onto the field either.

They would win, probably thanks to him, but who'd remember it with him sitting the last of it out?

The Bruiser, not exactly a gracious loser, would taunt him. It would just end badly. No way he was going to get into a fight on the first day of summer.

He stalked toward the dorms, because he had nowhere else to go. The afternoon lost its glow.

Idiot, he upbraided himself, you're such a bloody idiot.

Then his ears caught a reedy whimper and he exhaled a sigh of relief. It wasn't like he was glad that Toshka was crying. He absolutely hated it when anyone cried, because it was the most pointless thing in the universe, but on this particular occasion it meant that he didn't cut the game for nothing. They wouldn't know it, but his stint wasn't for nothing, and that was what mattered.

Volya plopped on the floor next to Toshka in the corner of the dorm-room.

"What's wrong, mate?"

"Nothing."

"Right." Boys who cried for no reason didn't have easy lives. "What's wrong?"

A touch of his hand and a solicitous voice was all it took for Toshka to crumble. "Gonna fail," he wailed. "Will be held back a grade... never get out of this place..."

With any other guy, Volya would have tsk'd, but with Toshka, he toughed it out and extracted the tale.

"Okay..." He scratched his neck wondering when it was safe to tell Toshka that his fears were pure rubbish. Nobody was going to hold him back a year. Last time that had happened in their establishment, it was in 1987 or something equally ancient. The teachers pushed the Bruiser through grades to get rid of him faster.