Fighting Silence (On the Ropes #1)(46)

“Hey. You want to go somewhere with me?” Eliza asked Quarry.

“Where?” he replied brokenly.

“Just come on.”

I wanted the best vantage point to see how she was going to handle this. I had failed earlier as I’d tried to work the results of the genetic testing into a casual conversation. I hadn’t known what else to do though. Eliza usually would have helped me with something like that. She would have known exactly how to tell Quarry that he going to go deaf and warmly assure Flint that he wasn’t.

I quickly jogged back up the stairs, fully expecting her to take him back to her apartment, but Eliza surprised me as she guided him around the side of the building.

I leaned over the railing and watched her stop at the edge of the flowerbed.

“Welcome to purgatory.”

“Um. Purga-what?”

“Purgatory. You know . . . the suffering point halfway between heaven”—she pointed to her window then out into the space in front of them—“and hell.”

“Till made this up, didn’t he?”

Eliza laughed. “What gave it away?”

“No one else is weird enough to consider your window heaven.”

“This is true,” she softly giggled.

I bit my lip and shook my head to keep from joining her.

“Come on. Sit down,” she told him. “In purgatory, you can cuss as much as you want.”

I lost them as they sat, and their voices became muffled from my position in the breezeway. I quietly snuck down the stairs and settled on the cold concrete beside Eliza’s front door—only a corner divided me from joining them.

“I don’t want to know that I’m not going to be able to hear one day. It’s not f*cking fair! Why did he have to tell me? He’s such a dick!” Quarry shouted.

“So, you’re pissed at Till for telling you?”

“Damn right!”

“Q, he didn’t have a choice. You’re going to have doctor’s appointments and treatments and all that stuff. Was he supposed to lie you? This is kinda need-to-know information.”

“No! I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He’s not going to lie to you. And I know for a fact you wouldn’t want that.”

“You don’t f*cking know what I want!” he yelled, but then they fell silent. A few seconds later, his voice returned on a whine. “Eliza, I don’t want to go deaf.”

It broke me. I didn’t want that either. I should have been the only one. I’d gladly bear that burden alone.

“I know. It f*cking blows!” She exaggerated the curse for his benefit.

I was sure his eyes lit and hers watered.

“But it’s not Till’s fault. He loves you, Q. I know the old ‘misery loves company’ saying, but I can guarantee that he would way rather face this on his own.”

Fucking mind reader.

God, I missed her.

God, I loved her.

“A couple of weeks ago, I sat right here in purgatory with Till. He was a mess, freaking out when he found out that it might be genetic.”

“I wasn’t freaking out,” I mumbled to myself.

“You were freaking out,” she replied, making my eyes go wide.

“What?” Quarry questioned.

“I mean, um, earlier,” she said, covering up our conversation. “You were freaking out . . . just like your brother. You know, you and Till have a lot in common. Maybe, instead of being pissed at him, you should talk to him. There’s no magical solution for this, but it can’t hurt to have your big brother beside you on this journey.” She spoke the truth. She always did. Even when I was too stupid to recognize it.

Since I had been busted, there was no use hiding anymore. I walked around the corner of the building to find Quarry facing away from me. His head was resting in her lap, his hands awkwardly holding the sketchpad I had left on her window. It was a position I had perfected years earlier.

She was drawing long, fast strokes I immediately recognized as eyelashes. She didn’t look up as she lifted the hand that was buried in his hair and waved me away. I stood still for a second, reliving the moment when I first found out about my diagnosis. Eliza was the only thing that had held me together then too—and honestly, every day after that. It was only the promise of Eliza that kept the world from falling apart when, every single day, I was faced with overwhelming adversity.

I can’t lose that.

I knew what she wanted, because it was the exact same thing I’d have killed to have with her. But there are few things in life that trump the fear of losing your soul mate. I wouldn’t allow the desire to consume her to be one of them.

We were good at friends. We could leave it at that.

We had to.

I sulked back around the corner and listened to the two of them talk some more. As the intensity of the conversation decreased, so did the volume of their voices until I eventually lost purchase on their words.

I was content with the knowledge that she was still with him though. If there were one person in the world who could mend Quarry’s wounds, it was her.

Always her.

It must have been at least an hour later when they rounded that corner. I immediately found my feet. Quarry was startled to see me, and while Eliza sucked in a deep breath, it wasn’t from surprise.