The first Monday back at Jefferson Middle School, Alex almost didn't make it past the front doors. He stood on the cracked sidewalk, backpack straps digging into his shoulders, staring at the double doors like they might bite. The late-September sun was already hot, bouncing off the asphalt, making the air shimmer. Kids streamed around him laughing, shoving, yelling about Fortnite and some girl named Kayla. Nobody looked at him. Not yet.
He took one step. Then another. The doors whooshed open, and the smell hit him floor wax, cafeteria grease, and that sour tang of too many bodies in one place. His stomach flipped. He kept his head down, hood up even though the dress code said no, and aimed for homeroom.
That's when the whispers started.
First it was just a hiss, like air leaking from a tire. Then words.
*"That's him."*
*"Dead boxer's kid."*
*"Saw it on TV. Blood everywhere."*
Alex's sneakers squeaked on the linoleum. He walked faster. Lockers slammed like gunshots. Someone's elbow clipped his arm. He didn't look up.
By the second period, the stares were bolder. In the hallway between algebra and English, a cluster of eighth-grade girls stopped talking when he passed. One whispered loud enough: *"His dad got spit on. Like, actually spit on."* Another giggled, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
Alex's fists curled inside his sleeves. He kept moving.
Lunch was the worst.
He carried his tray of soggy pizza, tater tots swimming in grease, chocolate milk he went toward the usual table in the corner. The one where he and Miguel used to sit and trade Pokémon cards. Miguel wasn't there. Hadn't been since the funeral. Alex heard he transferred to St. Pius.
He sat anyway. Alone.
The cafeteria buzzed. Then it didn't.
Heads turned. Phones came out. Someone zoomed in. A table of football kids,guys who used to high-five him after Pop Warner leaned in, whispering. One mimed a punch, slow-motion, then flopped his head like he had been knocked out. His buddies cracked up.
Alex stared at his pizza. The cheese had congealed into a rubbery sheet. He poked it with a plastic fork. It didn't move.
*"Yo, Ramirez!"* A voice from two tables over. *"You gonna cry again like that on TV?"*
Laughter. Loud. Sharp.
Alex stood up so fast his chair screeched backward and tipped over. The cafeteria went quieter, like someone hit mute. He grabbed his tray, knuckles white.
"WHAT ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT, IDIOTS?" His voice cracked on the last word, but it carried. "MIND YOUR BUSINESS, HUH?"
He shoved the tray forward. Pizza slid off, splattered on the floor. Chocolate milk arced through the air and exploded against a kid's sneakers. Gasps. Someone yelled *"Fight!"* A lunch lady started wading through the tables, apron flapping.
Alex didn't wait. He stormed out, boots stomping grease and pepperoni into the tile. The cafeteria doors banged open. He didn't look back.
He made it to the bathroom on the second floor, the one nobody used because the lock on the stall was broken. He locked himself in anyway, sat on the toilet lid fully clothed, and pressed his forehead to his knees. His breath came in short, hot bursts. The tears came too silent, angry, burning. He punched his own thigh until it went numb.
The door creaked open. Footsteps. A knock on the stall.
"Alex? It's Mr. Delgado."
The principal. Great.
Alex wiped his face on his sleeve, unlocked the door. Mr. Delgado stood there in his usual wrinkled button-down, tie with tiny chili peppers on it. He didn't look mad. Just tired.
"Come on," he said. "Let's walk."
Alex followed him out, past the trophy cases and the mural of the school mascot—a badly painted roadrunner with one eye bigger than the other. They didn't speak until they were outside, circling the track behind the gym. The sun beat down. Cicadas screamed in the cottonwoods.
"You know why I pulled you in," Mr. Delgado said.
"They were staring."
"Yeah. They were." He kicked a pebble. It skittered across the red rubber. "Kids are cruel. Doesn't make it right."
Alex shrugged. "Whatever."
Mr. Delgado stopped walking. He leaned against the chain-link fence, hands in his pockets.
"Have you ever heard how my dad died?"
Alex glanced up. Mr. Delgado never talked about himself. Ever.
"I was thirteen," the principal said. "Same as you. Worked in the coal mines up in Madrid. Cave-in. Took three days to dig him out. They found him curled up like he was sleeping, but…" He trailed off. "No open casket. No goodbye. Just a box and a hole."
Alex stared at the ground. A lizard skittered across the track.
"I came back to school after," Mr. Delgado went on. "Kids stared. Some asked if he screamed. One kid said he probably deserved it for working a dangerous job. I punched him in the mouth. Got suspended. My mom cried for a week."
Alex swallowed. "So what'd you do?"
"Got mad. Stayed mad. Then I got smart." Mr. Delgado pushed off the fence.
"I started running. Every morning. Five miles before the bus. Joined the debate team. Made honor roll. Graduated top ten. Went to college on a scholarship. Every time someone looked at me like I was broken, I ran harder. Spoke louder. Studied longer."
He turned to Alex. "You're not broken, Alex. You're pissed. And that's okay. But don't waste it yelling at idiots in a cafeteria. Use it. Fight for your place."
Alex looked at the school building,faded bricks, cracked windows, the flag hanging limp in the heat. He thought of the garage. The heavy bag. Dad's voice in his head: *Elbows in, mijo. Chin down.*
"I don't want their pity," he said.
"You don't have to take it." Mr. Delgado started walking again.
"But you do have to come back tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. One foot in front of the other. That's how you win."
They finished the lap in silence. When they reached the gym doors, Mr. Delgado stopped.
"No detention," he said.
"But you're cleaning the cafeteria floor. With a toothbrush. After school."
Alex snorted. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. And you can join the boxing club. Coach brown, your uncle's old sparring partner runs it. Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can show up."
Alex opened his mouth , then closed it. Coach Brown. He hadn't seen him since the funeral. The guy had arms like bridge cables and a voice like gravel.
"Fine," Alex muttered.
Mr. Delgado clapped him on the shoulder. "Good. Now get to class. And Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"Your dad was a hell of a fighter. But you? You're just getting started."
The toothbrush thing was worse than it sounded. The janitor,Mr. Pete, who wore the same stained hoodie every day handed him a pink toothbrush with half the bristles missing and a bucket of gray water. Alex scrubbed dried cheese and ketchup off the tiles while the lunch ladies watched soap operas on a tiny TV in the corner. He didn't complain. Just scrubbed until his knuckles bled.
When he got home, Mom was asleep on the couch, still in her diner uniform. The TV flickered with some cooking show. Alex covered her with the afghan, then went to the garage.
The heavy bag hung there, still taped like a mummy. He unwrapped his hands slowly, carefully, the way Pops had shown him that one morning. The tape was dirty, frayed. He didn't care. He wrapped them anyway, tight, knuckles bulging.
He hit the bag. Once. Twice. Then harder. The chain rattled. Dust puffed off the canvas. He threw the combo Dad used to drill,jab, cross, hook, roll, hook again. His breath came in sharp bursts. Sweat stung his eyes.
He didn't stop until the streetlights buzzed on outside, casting long shadows through the window. His arms shook. His knuckles were raw. But the hollow place inside him? It was quieter.
Tuesday after school, he showed up to the boxing club.
The gym was in the old weight room,mirrors cracked, floor sticky, a single heavy bag hanging from a beam that looked ready to collapse. Coach Ramirez stood in the center, arms crossed, chewing a toothpick. He was shorter than Alex remembered, but wider. Like a refrigerator with legs.
"Alex," he grunted.
"Thought you'd be here sooner."
Alex dropped his backpack. "Principal wanted me."
Coach Ramirez spit the toothpick into a trash can.
"Don't care why you're here. Care what you do now." He tossed him a pair of gloves red, cracked, smelling like old pennies.
"Wrap up. Three rounds on the bag. Let's see if you inherited your old man's hands."
There were four other kids,two freshmen, a sophomore with a mohawk, and a girl with braids who hit harder than all of them. Alex wrapped his hands in silence, the ritual grounding him. When Coach barked *"Time!"* he attacked the bag like it had insulted his mother.
Jab. Cross. Hook. Roll. Hook. Again. Again. Again.
Coach watched, arms still crossed. After the third round, he nodded once.
"Not bad. But you're swinging wild. Your dad fought pretty. You fight angry. We'll fix that."
Alex wiped sweat from his brow. "I don't want pretty."
Coach Ramirez's eyes narrowed. "You want to win?"
Alex nodded.
"Then you'll learn both."
The weeks blurred. School. Garage. Boxing club. Home. Mom worked doubles at the diner, came home smelling like fryer oil and coffee. She left plates outside his door,enchiladas, beans, sometimes a tamale wrapped in foil. He ate standing up, leaning against the counter, watching the news for any mention of Victor. There was none. The champ was in Hollywood, filming some movie where he played a villain with a bad accent.
Alex didn't care. He had a new routine.
Mornings: run the old route Dad used to take past the arroyo, up the hill to the water tower, back down through the trailer park where the dogs barked but never bit. He ran until his lungs burned and the sun came up orange over the Sandias.
Afternoons: boxing club. Coach Ramirez was brutal. Made him spar the girl with braids,Luz until she split his lip with a jab he didn't see coming. He tasted blood and grinned.
"Again," he said.
Evenings: garage. He hung a jump rope from the rafter, skipped until his calves cramped. Did push-ups on the concrete until his arms gave out. Shadowboxed in the dark, Dad's robe hanging on a nail like a ghost watching.
One night in November, the first hard frost, he was wrapping his hands when the garage door creaked open. Mom stood there in her coat, breath fogging.
"You're gonna freeze," she said.
"I'm fine."
She stepped inside, closed the door behind her. The bulb overhead flickered. She looked at the bag, the jump rope, the sweat-stained concrete. Then at him taller now, shoulders filling out, eyes hard.
"Did you eat today?"
"Twice."
She nodded. Reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a small box. Wrapped in newspaper, tied with twine.
"Happy birthday," she said. "Fourteen."
He'd forgotten. October 12th had come and gone. He took the box, untied it slowly. Inside: Dad's old WBC contender's robe. Cleaned, patched, the gold trim gleaming under the light. THOMAS RAMIREZ stitched in faded script across the back.
Alex's throat closed.
"I've been working on it," Mom said. "Took the blood out with peroxide. Sewed the elbow, It's yours now."
He slipped it on. The sleeves hung past his hands, the hem dragged the floor. He looked like a kid playing dress-up in his father's suit. But it smelled like Tide and memory and something else,home.
Mom's eyes filled. She reached up, touched his cheek. "You look just like him."
Alex swallowed hard. "I'm gonna wear it in the ring."
She nodded. "I know."
She left him there, the door clicking shut behind her. Alex stood in the robe, fists clenched, staring at the heavy bag. The bulb flickered again, then steadied.
He hit the bag. Once. Twice. Then harder. The chain sang
. The robe flapped around his knees like wings.
Outside, the frost glittered under the streetlight. Inside, the garage was warm with sweat and purpose.
He was fourteen. And he was just getting started.