Free Asking for Trouble by Rosalind James

Wilson worked on his own turkey on whole wheat for a minute
before he began.
    “First of all,” he said, “I want to assure you that this is
just an idea. And if you aren’t interested, if it doesn’t sound good to you,
that’s fine. It’ll make no difference to how you do in my class. You’re the
best student I’ve ever had, and if that’s it, that’s plenty.”
      Joe stopped
chewing.
    “How long have you been in foster care?” Mr. Wilson asked now.
    Joe swallowed. “Two years.” This was either very good, or it
was very bad. “Almost.”
    “And how many foster homes?”
    “Five. Counting the short ones.”
    “And how many days have you been absent this semester?”
    Joe could feel himself turning red, but he looked back and
answered. “Six.”
    “Because?”
    “Things happened.”
    “Joe.” Mr. Wilson put his sandwich down. “I’ve got a reason
for asking. I won’t be passing along anything you say here. Because?”
    “Fights, mostly,” Joe said reluctantly. “Getting kicked
out.”
    Mr. Wilson nodded. “Did you start them? The fights?”
    “Well, yeah. If I had to. I mean, if something was
happening.” Like when he’d heard Lenny crying and pleading from the next room,
the last time, and had ended up breaking the door down. He’d been kicked out,
but so had Craig and Ronnie, Lenny’s tormentors. And Craig had left with a
broken nose, Ronnie with a black eye. And a few other problems, too.
    “Do you have to fight?” Mr. Wilson asked. “Do you need to?”
    “No.” He knew what Mr. Wilson meant. He’d known plenty of
people who enjoyed hurting other people. Starting with Dean, his mother’s
boyfriend, and going right on from there.
    Another nod. “What about alcohol? Marijuana?”
    The heat was rising again. “Yeah. Some.”
    “Willing to stop? Need help to stop?”
    “Uh . . . I don’t know. Yeah, willing to stop.” He’d like to
stop. But it helped. It took the edge off, and he had a lot of edge.
    “Need help to stop. Got it.”
    “Uh, sir? Is the school kicking me out? I mean, thinking
about it? Because I can stop. I can do better.” He clamped his mouth shut so he
couldn’t say any more. So he couldn’t beg. The Advanced Technologies Academy
didn’t just have the best test scores in Las Vegas. It had the best test scores
in the entire state, and it was his only ticket. If the day Joe had found out
that his dad was dead had been the worst day of his life, the day he’d got the
letter from A-Tech had been the best. It was all he had, and he’d screwed it
up. How could he have been so stupid?
    Mr. Wilson was holding up a hand now. “No. Wait. I’m asking
if you’d like another place to stay.” He laughed a little, looked down at his
sandwich. “Go figure, I’m nervous. I’m asking if you’d like a guardian until
you graduate from high school. We’d have to petition the court for it,” he warned
as Joe continued to stare, “and your mother could fight it. It is your mother,
isn’t it?”
    Joe swallowed. “Yeah. But she probably won’t. She probably
wouldn’t.”
    “Does she have an addiction?”
    How did he know so much? “Yeah,” Joe said desperately. Please don’t ask any more.
    “So what do you think? You’ve got a fine mind. You know what
they say, it’s a terrible thing to waste, and I don’t want to see you waste it.
It won’t be forever,” Mr. Wilson warned. “But we can get you through high
school. You stay on the right track, no reason you can’t get a great
scholarship, go on from there.”
    “You mean, with you?” Joe asked slowly, hardly daring to
believe. “At your house?”
    “Yes. And I should tell you,” Mr. Wilson said, stolid
himself now, “I’m gay. And that has nothing to do with this, but you should
know, in case it makes a difference.”
    “But this isn’t about . . .” Joe went ahead, because the
only way to deal with things was head-on. “It’s not about sex?” That was what
it had been about with Lenny,