Running Lean by Diana L. Sharples

living room—Calvin could guess who by the heavy thud of his footsteps.
    “What’s going on in here?” Dad asked.
    Calvin glared at Peyton and shook his head. “Don’t,” he whispered.
    Peyton sighed. She turned her head to speak over her shoulder. “I heard noises. Calvin was messing around on the computer.”
    “It’s almost two thirty. Both o’ y’all get to bed. We got church in the morning.”
    Calvin followed Peyton upstairs. At the door of the room she shared with Lizzie, Peyton whirled to face him. “Don’t think you can get away with it again.”
    “Oh, right. Yeah. I’ll remember that. Thanks,
Mom
.”
    “Calvin—”
    “Whatever. I didn’t do anything wrong.” He angled past her and headed up another flight of narrow, steep stairs to the partially finished attic room he’d shared with Michael. The plywood floor creaked beneath his feet and the bed thumped and rattled as he fell into it.
    Calvin stared at the roof joists, his eyeballs throbbing and his limbs trembling. As the minutes passed, marked by the chirruping of frogs outside, his anger faded but was replaced by fear. He was afraid to sleep, afraid to dream, afraid of nightmare visions of bones with Stacey’s face.

Chapter 7
    C alvin leaned toward the bathroom mirror as if a closer view would help him figure out what he was doing wrong. His tie never looked right when he knotted it himself. The cone-shaped part always ended up lopsided.
    He straightened and sighed at his reflection. Clean, presentable.
    Exhausted.
    Ghosts of his nightmares flitted before his eyes. Skinny girls with smiling mouths and hollow stomachs. Nothing even remotely pornographic about them. The images were scary, like staring at death with the flesh still on.
    Calvin swallowed a taste like sour milk.
    If Peyton had looked on for a half second longer, she would have known the truth. And she might be helping him, instead of holding an accusation like blackmail over his head.
    Sounds of his family getting ready for church filtered through the bathroom door. Lizzie’s whine could cut through a concrete wall.
    Calvin ran a comb under the faucet and slicked his curly hair back from his face. It wouldn’t stay that way, but at least Mom wouldn’t fuss at him for a while.
    Someone slapped the other side of the door. “Hurry up in there! I gotta go,” Zachary yelled.
    “Go in Mom and Dad’s bathroom.”
    “Cal-vi-i-in!”
    Envisioning the boy dancing from one foot to another and holding himself, Calvin groaned and gave up. His brother pushed past him before he had the door all the way open.
    Looking the best he could manage for the formal Easter Sunday service, Calvin carried his suit jacket and dress shoes downstairs. He plopped onto the sagging cushions of the living room couch, and then his eyes were drawn to the flag. Again. Strangely, though, the flag didn’t punch him in the gut this time. It felt … normal. It belonged. He understood it. Unlike the new burden on his heart that was flashing horror movie images into his brain. Could one problem make the other one fade?
    No, not right. Nothing would make him stop missing his brother.
    Calvin focused his mind on stringing new laces into his shoes, replacing the ones Scamp had chewed.
    Mom came out of her bedroom, the floral smell of her perfume advancing before her. She swung to the foot of the stairs. “Y’all hurry up. We are
not
going to be late for Easter service.”
    Peyton came downstairs with Lizzie two steps behind. “Ryan is on his way. I’m riding with him.”
    One problem solved. Ryan would distract Peyton during church.
    Lizzie dropped to the floor in front of Calvin and stuck her face under the coffee table. “Mo-om! Where are my sandals?”
    “Wherever you left them,” Mom said, rattling around in her purse for something. “Where in the world are my keys?”
    “Wherever you left them,” Lizzie muttered.
    Calvin grunted.
Good one, Lizzie
.
    His sister slapped the coffee table and stood.