Wrestling Against Myself by Katie Leone Read Free Book Online Page B

and simply store everything he needed in his car. For now he was interested in his neighbor and wanted to get there before she had time to leave.
     
    Though he was greeted by a lot of people with “Hey Tiny,” and “What's up man,” it wasn’t as bad as the first day of school. At least people were getting use to his new physique.
     
    Tiny made his way into building B-2. He looked towards his locker, no one else was around.
     
    The chubby kid who got bulldozed the day before was kneeling by his locker struggling to get his large history text book out from under several other books.
     
    “Hey,” Antonio said as he leaned on the wall next to the locker.
     
    The kid glanced up. “Hi,” he said with uncertainty in his voice.
     
    Tony was amused. Freshmen were in awe when interacting with seniors. “You got a name?”
     
    “Andrew,” he said as he rotated a book in the locker, but was having some difficulty.
     
    “So? Do you go by Andy, or Drew or anything like that?”
     
    Andrew started to pull some of the books from the top of the pile out of the locker and place them on the hallway floor. “No, just Andrew.”
     
    “I see. So, those two guys bother you again from yesterday?”
     
    “Nah,” he said as he finally got the book he wanted out of his locker and proceeded to put the other stuff back in. “They found someone else to pick on.”
     
    Antonio frowned. “Too bad. I mean too bad they're picking on someone, not too bad that their not picking on you.”
     
    The kid gave a faint smile.
     
    “Do you play any sports?”
     
    “Not really. I was thinking about going to the JV football meeting on Friday, that could be cool.”
     
    “It could be. Have you thought about wrestling?” Tony never let an opportunity pass to add to the roster.
     
    “Not really.”
     
    “You should,” Tony knew he was going to have to make a sales pitch. “Much better than football.”
     
    Andrew eyed Tony with suspicion. “How so?”
     
    “In football, if one person messes up then everyone suffers. In wrestling you control your own destiny.”
     
    “I probably wouldn't be any good.”
     
    Tony frowned. “Perhaps not at first, but you would have an advantage over every other freshman heavyweight in the whole state.”
     
    “Really?” the kid perked up. “What advantage?”
     
    “You would have me training you,” Antonio said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He knew he sounded egotistical and wish he hadn't, but he didn't know any other way to sell someone new onto the sport. “Wrestling practice doesn’t start until October, after JV football is over anyway. At least think about it?”
     
    “Okay,” the kid said.
     
    Even though there was no commitment made, Antonio figured he could sidestep that aspect of life. “Great, can't wait to see you there.”
     
    Tony looked down the hall and saw that Courtney had just entered the crowded, noisy hall. He watched as she shuffled her feet and kept her eyes on the floor. “Catch you later,” he told the kid who had already shut his locker and was about to leave anyway.
     
    Antonio made his way towards his locker, but kept his eye on the small girl. She wasn't wearing a dress like he thought when he saw her across the field that morning. She was wearing a pink cotton jumper with a white tee underneath. The jumper had a skirt, and though he would have classified it as a dress a year ago, Tracy explained the difference.
     
    There was a whirlwind of activity around her, and it made her slow movements more out of place. The fear was evident, but the cause eluded him. He looked through the hall to see if there was someone that might look menacing, but it didn't appear as if any one person was the cause for the girl's terror.
     
    Tony made his way to his locker and made sure he stood off to the side in order to not impede the girl.
    That's when he saw it. To an untrained eye, one that might not have been use to the activities of a high