"How to win him over?" Sal asked himself. Gifts had no effect. Building muscle took too much effort. Looking nice wasn't enough. He had complimented him though. Sal thought about that a lot. Maybe he should dress up more often. Then, he remembered Brad's comments, Tyler's suspicions, and his forgotten lunch. No, dressing up wasn't worth the risk. But what if I dressed down? It couldn't hurt. So one morning, he put on sweatpants and an old T-shirt, neglecting his hair. He looked in the mirror. Beautiful. This time, he would win Russell over through casual dress and bed-head. If only he could do something about his hideous, brown eyes. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and opened the front door to find Brenda on the other side of it. Despite appearing tired from her usual night-shift at the hotel she worked at, she noticed Sal's attire immediately.
"What are you doing, going to school dressed like that?"
"It's casual Friday," Sal said with a shrug.
"Go upstairs and put on something decent." Brenda made her way inside. "And it's Wednesday," she called as Sal rushed back upstairs.
He traded his sweatpants for a pair of jeans and combed his fingers through his tangled hair. So much for that idea.
Sal was so deep in thought that he didn't even notice Russell until a crowd of students pushed him into him.
"Watch it." Russell brightened when he saw it was Sal. "Hey, where are you going?"
Sal blinked. "Home."
"I'll walk partway with you," Russell said. "We haven't talked much lately."
"Yeah." Sal stared at the Geology textbook in his arms. "We could spend time talking during lunch, but you always want to eat alone for some mysterious reason you refuse to discuss."
"Sal..."
"What? Is this about me finding peanut butter sandwiches superior to jelly? Which is true, by the way."
"No, it's not about sandwich preference. I... don't know what to do." Russell fiddled with the coffin on his necklace as they walked on.
"You don't know how to eat lunch?"
"No. I don't know where to sit. There's no one I'm close to, so I don't want to intrude on acquaintances. If I eat alone, I'll look like a loser. Plus, people might come and ask me why I'm eating alone. And then, if I tell them why, they might invite me to eat with them. And I wouldn't know if it's genuine or if they feel sorry for me." Russell chewed at his thumbnail, gaze lowered.
Sal couldn't believe the amount of thought Russell had put into something as simple as lunch time. "You could always sit with me."
Russell yanked his thumb out of his mouth. "Gosh no! I don't want to be seen eating with you. What would people think?"
"I doubt anyone other than Stewart would notice, and he wouldn't mind."
"I'm not doing it."
"Why can't we eat alone together in your spot?"
"Because I can't eat with you around. You make me nervous." Russell chewed his thumbnail again.
Sal blushed, and shifted his backpack to his other shoulder. "Since you don't want to see me during lunch, do you want to come over to my house and continue our zoo?"
"I would, but my parents want to meet you before our relationship progresses."
Sal's heart skipped a beat at his last three words, and struggled to keep his voice nonchalant. "So, we're entering a relationship then?"
"Huh?" Russell stopped in his tracks to stare at him, with an expression Sal couldn't read.
"You said our relationship. 'Before our relationship progresses.'"
Russell chewed his thumbnail and continued walking. "I said friendship, not relationship."
"Oh."
"Anyways, wanna come over to my house this weekend to meet my parents?"
"Of course," Sal said. "But only if we can spend our lunches together."
"Only if it'll shut you up."
Saturday evening, Russell picked up Sal and drove him to his house. It was one-story, clean, and smelled like chicken. But that was probably because they were cooking chicken.
Russell introduced him to his parents, John and Elizabeth. John was tall, with dark hair. Elizabeth was more on the short side, and blonde. Sal figured Russell got most of his looks from his dad, but had his mother's eyes.
"I see where Russell gets his eyes from," Sal said, after shaking Elizabeth's hand.
"Oh yes," Elizabeth said, waving her hand in an elegant manner. "We hear that all the time."
"Yeah." Sal shifted uncomfortably.
"We're going to go hang out in my room now," Russell said, saving Sal from having to say something else.
"Okay," Elizabeth said. "Dinner will be ready soon."
Russell shut the door to his room while Sal took the sight in. The room was smaller than his. There was a twin bed and bookshelves, along with typical bedroom furniture. Sky blue walls matched the bedspread. Russell's tidy desk had only a pencil cup, an open, outdated-looking laptop, and a figurine of a wolf.
"Cool wolf." Sal touched the laptop's trackpad, which triggered it to turn on. It went straight to the desktop, no password needed. And it was about as tidy as the rest of Russell's room. Only a handful of icons were lined up on the left side. Including an image thumbnail. A very familiar image thumbnail. Sal leaned forward, squinting at it. Surely it wasn't... He hovered the mouse over it and-
Russell slammed the lid of the laptop shut. "Don't snoop!"
"Was that my BeFriend profile picture?" Sal asked.
"What are you talking about?"
"The image saved on your desktop. It looked like my BeFriend profile picture." A grin spread across Sal's face. "Have you been stalking my BeFriend?"
"What? Of course not. I don't even know what BeFriend is."
"You should know, given you have one."
"Have one?" Russell's grin matched Sal's. "How do you know I have one?"
Sal clamped his mouth shut.
"Have you been stalking me on there or something?"
"Pfft, no. Why would I waste my time cyber-stalking you? You are so full of yourself."
Russell picked up his laptop, sat on his bed, and opened it. By the time Sal flopped next to him, he had BeFriend pulled up.
"What are you doing?" Sal asked, as Russell logged in.
"If you're not stalking me..." Russell clicked on his notifications page. "Explain this!"
There was but one new notification on the page, from 2 days ago: "Sal Rondello viewed your profile." And another notification from 1 week ago that said the same thing. And 1 month ago.
Sal swallowed, and let out a forced chuckle. "Weird. There's another Sal Rondello in the world who checks your profile regularly. Maybe you should update it with new pictures."
Russell clicked "Sal Rondello" and it took him to Sal's profile, with Sal's picture.
"Whoa, how'd he get that picture of me?" Sal asked.
Russell raised an eyebrow at him.
"You know what? I bet it's actually Brad. He must be pulling a prank on us."
"I strongly doubt that."
"Regardless, at least I don't have any pictures of you saved."
"I don't either," Russell insisted.
"Then what was that picture on your desktop?"
"Porn," Russell said quickly.
"Ew, you look at porn?"
"And you don't." Russell shoved him, and got up to return his laptop to his desk.
"Hell no." Sal turned his focus onto Russell's two bookshelves, almost tall enough to hit the ceiling. Rows upon rows of books were lined up neatly on it, filling every space. Knowing Russell, he probably spent an obscene amount of time alphabetizing them all. "That's a lot of books."
"Yeah."
"You could open your own library with those."
"I wish." Russell sat back down next to Sal. "If I'm ever lucky enough to have a house, I want a personal one." He showed a sudden interest in his thumbnail, and started chewing it.
Guess I'll have to sacrifice a room in our future home to that then, Sal thought, eyes on Russell. "So, what do you wanna do?"
Russell shrugged. "Whatever you want. I don't care."
"I don't know what I want to do." Sal looked around the room again, but the laptop was the only source of entertainment he could see. "What do you usually do when you have friends over?"
"I never have friends over." Russell lowered his head, rubbing at his neck. "I mean... I've had Terry over a couple times, but my parents don't care for them."
"I don't blame them," Sal said.
Russell put his arm back down. "Why do you hate Terry so much?"
"Because they were mean to me and pushed me into the lockers which made my shoulder hurt." Sal rubbed his shoulder, leaving out the part where Terry invited Russell to eat lunch, which nagged at him.
"You insulted their gender."
"But I don't even understand their gender."
"They're agender. They're neither a boy or girl. That's all there is to it."
Sal still had a million questions in regards to being agender, but he had other concerns. "Why do you like Terry so much?"
"We've been friends since freshmen year. They sat next to me in math, and we both hated the class. Things took off from there."
"You hated a class?"
"Yes. Believe it or not, it's possible to get good grades in classes you hate."
"Easy for you to say. Teachers adore you."
"That's because I come to class prepared, keep my mouth shut, and do all the assignments." Russell slumped forward. "And I'm not that big of a goody-goody. I do bad things. Sometimes."
"What? Read books by flashlight when you should be sleeping?"
The two boys sat next to each other at the dinner table while John and Elizabeth sat across from them. Sal felt awkward when everyone prayed. He wasn't religious, but he closed his eyes and folded his hands along with them.
"Are you a Christian?" Elizabeth asked Sal.
Sal looked up at Elizabeth with a mouth full of chicken. "Mrmph-"
"Yes, of course he's Christian," Russell said.
Elizabeth smiled. "That's great to hear. Which church do you go to?"
Sal shoved another chunk of chicken into his mouth, to buy for time. He furrowed his brow. Wasn't there a church near his house he walked by everyday, on his way to school? He struggled to think of the name. Church of Sci-ology? Scienceology? Scientology! Sal swallowed his chicken but before he could say "Church of Scientology," Russell butted in.
"It was the one on Tenth Street, right?" Russell asked him. "St. Mary's?"
Sal snapped his fingers, pointing at him. "That's the one."
"Wonderful." Elizabeth smiled again, and leaned towards him. "I have a friend who used to go to that one. Maybe you've met?"
"Probably not. I just started going there. I'm... new to the area."
"Really?" John asked. "Where are you from?"
"Watsonville." Sal prayed to a God he wasn't sure he believed in that they wouldn't ask further questions on the subject. He took another bite of chicken.
"Do you know what you want to do after high school?" Elizabeth asked.
Sal swallowed his bite of chicken before he had finished chewing it. Luckily it was a small bite, and he took a swig of water. How to answer that? He didn't plan on going to college. But of course, she would want to hear that he did. But if he lied now, what would she think when he didn't go to college? How would he explain himself? How could he get out of sounding like an unfit boyfriend without getting his ass bit in the future?
Russell came to his rescue once again. "He wants to be a freelance illustrator for children's books."
Sal shot Russell a look. One of the last things he ever saw himself doing was becoming a freelance illustrator for children's books. Russell shrugged at him.
"That sounds nice," Elizabeth said.
I guess I'm going to have to become a freelance illustrator for children's books now, Sal thought. I hope that doesn't involve college. It shouldn't require a degree. How would I get clients though? Will I have to network? I'd probably have to network. But I don't want to network. I just want to please Russell's parents...
Elizabeth interrupted his thoughts. "What do your parents do?"
"My mom died of cancer and my dad's in jail," Sal said monotonously.
"What!" Russell's mouth fell open. His parents gasped.
"Sorry, I meant..." Sal shook his head, cursing himself for letting the words slip out so casually. He had wanted to keep his foster kid status to himself. "My foster dad works at a company that sells electronic components. My foster mom works night shifts at a hotel." He shoveled the remaining bits of his chicken into his mouth.
Elizabeth pressed her lips flat. "Russell never mentioned you were a foster child," she said, squinting at Russell.
"I didn't know," Russell said. "He never mentioned it."
Elizabeth eyed Sal with suspicion. Russell eyed him with pity. John eyed him with curiosity.
Which was why he wanted to keep it to himself. Sal shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Do you know anything about freelancing," he asked Elizabeth.
"No, no I don't." Elizabeth didn't ask him anymore questions, and instead moved on to interrogating Russell on a school assignment she found in his backpack. It was appalling to Sal that she would even snoop through Russell's backpack, but Russell didn't seem to care. To him, it must've been a regular occurrence.
After dinner, Russell drove Sal home. Sal's thoughts were focused on the dinner fiasco, mainly Elizabeth's reaction to his upbringing. Like he had asked for his mother to die, to leave him alone with his raging alcoholic of a father.
"Do you think your parents like me?" Sal asked. "Your mom seemed like she did but got all weird when she found out I was a foster kid."
"Why didn't you ever tell me that?" Russell asked. "I had no idea."
"The subject never came up." Sal stared at the glovebox, swallowing. "What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is, my mom will think you're some kind of gang-banger," Russell said. "She's strict, over-protective, and closed-minded. Meaning that now, she probably won't want me seeing you anymore. If you had told me beforehand, I could have warned you to keep your mouth shut."
"I meant to keep my mouth shut. You think I want people going around feeling sorry for me? Or asking me personal questions I'm not comfortable talking about? It slipped out."
"I won't say anything to anyone, and I won't make you answer questions you're not comfortable with. But..." Russell paused for a moment. "If you ever want to talk, I'm here for you."
Sal looked out his window into the darkness, a tightening sensation filling his throat. He thought of the death of his mother. Of his father's abuse. The day a gym teacher had caught sight of his bruises, which led to an uncomfortable conversation and CPS getting involved. Sal closed his eyes. "I'll be fine."
An awkward silence hung in the air, broken by Russell. "Do you mind if I turn on some music?"
"Depends," Sal said. "What kind of music do you like?"
"Everything except rap and country."
"Shocking. Someone who likes all music except rap and country. I have never, ever, heard anyone say they like everything except rap and country. Especially coming from a teenager. You are the edgiest person I have ever met."
"Well, what kind of music do you like?" Russell asked with a hint of annoyance.
Sal raised his chin. "I only like rap and country."
"You're just saying that."
"No, it's true. Except I only like country music from the 2000's. Today's country sucks."
"Oh, I'm a 2000's kid and I only like things from the 2000's," Russell said mockingly. "And you say I'm the edgy one."
"The difference is, I'm right and you're wrong. Here's my house."
"I know where your house is," Russell grumbled.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
