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Andrew had lived in Baltimore back when he lived with the Stevensons. Baltimore was an ugly city, full of run-down factories and towns that had bigger gangs than budgets, side by side with stadiums and news stations and hotels.
Gentrification, Andrew’s word of the week, was terribly appropriate here.
Gillian Stevenson was a teacher who thought strongly about everything. She was either with you or against you. Unfortunately for the school board, she wasn’t with them.
Andrew would head to her classroom once the dismissal bell rang, listen to her complain as he helped her clean up after her students, and hopefully be given a slice of whatever cake she was pairing with her wine to dull the agony of the impending parent-teacher conferences.
He liked Gill.
Markus Stevenson was a gym teacher Gill had met at one of her old teaching jobs. Markus had been a football player in college and seeing a borderline malnourished child on his doorstep made him want to encourage Andrew to find a passion in sports.
He supposed Markus could be worse.
He imagined what might happen if they adopted him. They wouldn’t, of course, Gill and Markus were the type of couple who wanted practice having a kid. Andrew figured, as a poster problem child of the foster system, he could give them more than enough of that.
“Hey AJ,” Gill sighed as he slipped into her room. “I’ve got a meeting today, you okay with Mark taking you home instead?” Gill said “meeting” like Markus said “Jets” and Andrew said “asparagus.”
He nodded, making to go out where the rest of the pick-ups met with their parents.
“Wait!” Gill called, getting up and shaking a shoe box decorated with multiple different patterns of duct tape. “You want to pick some candy before you go?”
Andrew left the classroom with every single smartie he could find in the prize box and a few Hershey kisses.
“Share some with Mark!” Gill’s warm voice carried down the hallway. Andrew felt his lips quirk up into a smile.
He’d finished off the last of the kisses by the time he climbed into Markus’s sudan. “Save any for me?” he asked jokingly.
Andrew stared at him in favor of responding, popping a smartie into his mouth.
“That’s what I thought.” The man chuckled. “We’re gonna head to the park before we can make our way home, okay? I’ve got some games to coach tonight.”
Gill and Markus were heavily involved in their community, helping out at bake sales and food kitchens. Andrew wasn’t sure if he wanted to turn his head up at that kind of plebian lifestyle or allow himself to want to be a part of it. His life was interesting, but an interesting life was never a good thing.
Mark nudged the small blonde. “If you’re good, I’ll let you buy something from the concession stand!”
“Okay.” Andrew nodded, though he had no choice in the matter. The park was boring unless the tire swing was free, which it never was in any park he’d ever been to over the years. The concession stand, however, might make an hour or so of boredom worth it.
Andrew was quickly proven wrong. Markus couldn’t be worse.
“You should watch the game.” Markus grinned, “Maybe you’ll see something you like.”
Baseball was, in Andrews’s professional opinion, the Americanized version of Chinese water torture. Why it was so popular was beyond him. The only interesting thing to happen so far was a batter getting deadballed hard enough to bowl over, and they were already in the sixth inning.
“Ugh.” The boy next to Andrew echoed his sentiments, sipping a large soda. He was obviously a few years younger than him, but disgust was ageless. He focused his icy blue eyes on the blonde, “You wanna go check if the tire swing’s open?”
Andrew shrugged, “Anything’s better than this.”
“Too true.” The boy nodded as they made their way off of the bleachers. “I’m Abram.”
“Andrew.” He didn’t hold out his hand to shake and neither did the other boy.
“Why were you watching it, if you hated it so much?” Abram asked.
“Why were you?” Andrew countered, to which Abram shrugged. It was a good point.
“Dunno,” Abram said in between sips. “You were there, weren’t you?”
Andrew didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything at all. Abram smiled over his straw. Silence wasn’t a bad thing.
By the time they made it to the tire swing, Abram was sipping at ice, though he still made a valiant attempt to suck up any last trace of soda. Andrew, spotting a garbage can, snatched it out of his hands and threw it in.
“Hey!” Abram protested, but it was already gone. He sighed. “You could’ve put it into the recycling, at least.”
“Our planet is dying.” Andrew deadpanned. He focused his gaze on the swing instead. It was empty.
“Oh my god.” He heard Abram whisper. His eyes were wide in shock. The only thing better than this would be someone to push them.
There was another group of kids walking towards the miraculously empty swing. The two boys walked a little faster. The group saw them and did the same. The two sped up a bit more. One of the kids, a brunette boy, broke off into a sprint towards it.
“Oh hell no,” Abram said in his fury, before throwing himself into a race. Andrew watched as Abram, a boy with a smaller stride than Andrew himself, managed to beat someone older and taller than Andrew and him both, launching himself onto the base of the swing and spreading out so he covered all of it.
“Ha!” Abram grinned. “It’s ours now!”
The group of kids walked away in the shame of their defeat and Abram turned his grin on Andrew. “Take turns pushing?”
Andrew was loath to admit that it was actually the most fun he’d had in awhile. The unpleasant lurch in his stomach at the height was countered by Abram’s smile and the joking attitude that had quickly developed between the two.
With Andrew, people were hit or miss. Abram was a solid hit as far as he could tell, the heroic save of the tire swing was doing him favors.
“AJ!” he heard Markus call. “Where are you?”
Andrew turned his head to the voice, disappointed, and slowed in his pushing.
“Your dad?” Abram guessed.
“No,” Andrew said. Abram didn’t seem phased.
“I’ll walk you to the door!” Abram joked, hopping off the still-moving swing to join him.
Andrew raised an eyebrow but didn’t protest as the small boy walked happily beside him.
“My dad’s not picking me up either,” Abram said. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Did you run away?” Andrew had done that once when he was seven. It hadn’t ended well.
“Nope.” Abram shook his head, “Not really. My Mom wanted to meet someone here and she told me to just do whatever.”
“Is she cheating?” That never ended well in Andrew’s experience.
“I don’t know.” Abram shrugged. “Dad is though, he probably deserves it.”
“AJ,” Markus sighed with relief when he saw them. “Who’s your friend?”
Andrew wrinkled his nose at the title given to a kid he barely knew, but introduced him anyway. “This is Abram.”
The blue-eyed boy waved shyly at the man, shuffling his feet.
Markus bent down a bit so that he was eye-level with the boy, holding out his hand. “Hey, Abram. I’m Markus, nice to meet you.”
Abram shook it like the man’s hand was a hot stove-top, retreating quickly.
“Well,” Markus brushed off Abram’s reaction with a smile that wasn’t nearly as comforting as it should have been on the large man. “We’d best be going then.”
Andrew lagged behind as Markus walked off, letting Abram catch up to him. The boy ran a hand through his auburn hair, the falling sun turning it a fiery red.
“Will I see you here again?” Abram asked, eyes full of hope.
“Maybe.” The blonde shrugged before following Markus to the concession stand.
He did, several more times in fact. Abram was always waiting at the bleachers and Andrew was always shocked to see him there.
“Do you not like me anymore?” Gill teased him. “You go out with Mark all the time now, it’s like I never see you anymore.”
“I don’t go for him.” Andrew wrinkled his nose.
Gill laughed. “So I’m still your favorite then?”
“You give me candy,” he said, gesturing to the prize box.
“So I do.” Gill smiled. “Do you go for your friend?”
“I don’t have friends.” Andrew’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you sure? Then who is this Abram Mark’s been telling me about?” Gill teased.
“No one,” Andrew said defensively. Abram was like a badly-kept secret, something the whole world and no one knew, but he was Andrew’s badly kept secret. He wanted to keep him close and hidden forever.
“Okay,” Gill shook her head fondly. “But you can take extra candy for him, if you want.”
When Andrew climbed onto the bleachers with an armful of candy wrappers and chocolate staining the corner of his mouth, Abram almost keeled over laughing.
They didn’t always get the swing, but they always left to check it. More often than not, they’d run around in the forest area behind the playground. Abram was a self-proclaimed professional tag player and Andrew was quite adept at hide and seek.
Andrew liked sitting around on the grass best. Sometimes he would bring a book and read it to Abram, who was struggling through third-grade English.
“I hate this language,” Abram pouted, glaring at the printed words of Andrew’s new favorite book; The Giver. “It’s so stupid.”
“What would you rather speak?” Andrew prodded.
Abram hummed. “I don’t know what it’s called,” he admitted. “Mom taught it to me a long time ago though, it’s so much easier.”
“You can speak another language and you don’t even know what it’s called?” Andrew raised his eyebrows.
“She didn’t tell me what it was called!” Abram protested. “Just that dad can’t speak it.”
Andrew nodded. “I can speak a little Korean, I’m better at writing it though.”
Abram beamed. “That’s so cool!” He was practically bouncing, eyes alight with happiness. “Can you teach me?”
“If you teach me how to speak your mystery language,” Andrew countered.
“It’s a deal!” Abram stuck out his hand and Andrew shook it without hesitation. Andrew had never known anyone to keep their promises, but Abram had more to gain from this deal than he did, if his boundless excitement was anything to go by.
Andrew checked out some Korean books from the library next, which Abram made a face at.
“Do I really need to read?” he whined.
“Yes,” Andrew ordered. “It’s how I learned.”
Abram made a sound of disgust. “That’s not how you learn languages at all!”
“I told you I only spoke a little,” Andrew pointed out.
“Well, what can you say?” the boy pestered. Andrew sighed and gave in.
They took turns teaching, Abram learning much faster than Andrew how to say everything. After Andrew had no more left to teach, he started learning more from the library computers, sounding out the words on the car ride to the park.
Andrew, having way too much time on his hands on days that Markus had no games, discovered what Abram’s mystery language was.
“Tagalog,” Andrew said in favor of any greeting.
“What?” Abram nearly spit out his soda.
“That’s the language,” he explained.
“Oh.” Abram blinked. “And that’s from?”
“The Philippines,” the blonde answered. “Is that where your mom’s from?”
The younger boy shrugged. “Mom never talks about what happened before she moved to London.”
“Well, now you know something at least.” Andrew took a bite out of a chocolate bar.
“Yeah, I guess.” Abram hopped off the bleachers. “You coming?”
Andrew didn’t realize his world revolved around the time spent with Abram until he suddenly wasn’t there.
Rationally, Andrew thought as he stared at the empty space on the bleachers, Abram could just be sick or out with his family. He could be late or just somewhere else in the park. But Abram had always been there on Thursdays like clockwork, no matter what.
He couldn’t help but wonder if Abram had finally gotten tired of him after all.
This time, Andrew sat and watched the game, but he wasn’t paying attention to any of it.
The following Tuesday Abram was back, if a bit worse for wear.
“My dad signed me up for exy,” he explained. “They don’t bother to hide the bruises.”
Andrew accepted that with a knowledge of what had so often been expertly placed on his own skin, hidden by clothes and well-crafted lies.
They didn’t have Thursdays anymore, but Andrew held on to the gradually declining time they had with an iron grip. Fuck exy and fuck Abram’s father, this was something he wanted to keep.
“You’d probably be good at it,” Abram mused.
“Good at what?” he asked around the ice-cream cone Markus had bought for him.
“Exy,” Abram answered.
Andrew narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“Why not?” Abram pouted. “We could play together!”
“No,” he repeated, stronger this time. He wouldn’t be any part of the sport that was taking Abram away from him, even if it meant he’d get to see him more.
“Fine.” Abram huffed, but he never stayed mad at Andrew long. “Did you learn any new words?”
It wasn’t until a month later that he stopped coming altogether.
“I’m going to West Virginia next week to play exy in Evermore!” Abram practically squealed, jumping up and down.
“Will you be back in time to come here?” Andrew asked.
“Well, no.” Abram sighed. “But I’ll be back right after! Maybe I’ll get my mom to teach me something new!”
“What, like German?” Andrew arched a brow.
“I dunno,” Abram shrugged. “She knows a lot of things. She might know German too.”
“I doubt it.” The blonde boy scoffed.
Abram stuck his tongue out at him. “Next time you’ll see me, I’ll know how to speak German, and I won’t teach you any of it!”
“We’ll see.” Andrew hid his grin with another candy, watching as the other boy practically exploded into a tantrum before getting distracted by something or another.
Abram didn’t come all of the next week, which was expected, but his seat on the bleachers was empty for months afterwards. Eventually, Andrew stopped expecting him to be there. It wasn’t as if he would’ve been able to keep him anyway.