Broken Beautiful Hearts(84)

“What kind of mistake are we talking about? I’ve made lots of them.”

“The kind that involves dating a guy for seven months and finding out that he wasn’t the person you thought he was.” It feels good to finally say it out loud.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend for longer than a month, so that’s a no. But it sounds awful.” Grace is quiet for a moment. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure if I’ll ever know for sure. My ex, Reed, changed while we were together. I didn’t even notice at first. My dad died a little less than a year before Reed and I started dating, and I was still a mess. Reed helped me through it. He didn’t get upset when I was distant or preoccupied, which was most of the time.”

“He sounds really sweet.”

“That’s why it was so hard when he changed.” I rest my chin on my knees and try not to think about how much I’ve lost in the last year and a half. “Reed is an MMA fighter, like Owen.”

“No way.”

“Trust me. I know.” It still seems crazy when I think about it. “Reed is really serious about MMA. It’s his whole life. He’s a year older than me, and after he graduated last year, he started competing and training other fighters full-time. He was obsessed with making it into the UFC.”

“What’s the UFC?” Grace asks.

“It stands for Ultimate Fighting Championship. They organize most of the big pro fights on TV.”

“Your ex must be really good.”

“He is, but he was so obsessed with getting on the UFC’s radar and going pro that he started cheating.”

Grace twists her shiny black hair around her finger, hanging on every word. “Isn’t there a ref watching the fight the entire time?”

“Not that kind of cheating. Reed was taking performance-enhancing drugs.” Every time I think about it, my stomach ties itself into knots. “Reed was using steroids, which is prohibited in MMA, like it is in most sports. I didn’t catch on right away, but based on the changes in Reed’s behavior, I think he was using for at least two months before I finally figured it out.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been so hard.” Grace breaks the last doughnut in half and hands me a piece. “How did you find out? Did he tell you?”

“I found the drugs in his gym bag.”

“Seriously?”

This is my opening.

If I chicken out now, I might never tell her and I want Grace to know. But it’s harder than I expected.

“Finding his stash wasn’t the worst part.”

Grace doesn’t ask any more questions. She waits until I’m ready to tell her the rest.

“We were at a party, and I went out to Reed’s car to look for something. That’s when I found the drugs. So I confronted him. He admitted the steroids were his, but he refused to stop doping, so I broke up with him.”

Bits and pieces of my conversation with Reed flash through my mind.…

I was going to stop after the fight.

A couple of months … that’s all I need.

After the tournaments I’ve got coming up. I’ll stop. I swear.

You have to choose right now—me or the drugs.

This is the hard part. “Reed refused to accept the fact that I was breaking up with him. He got angry and flew into a rage.” I take a shaky breath, picturing the scene. “People talk about ’roid rage, but I didn’t really understand what it meant until that night. Reed turned into a different person. It was like he was a stranger.”

“What did you do?” Grace’s voice is a whisper.

There’s no way to prepare her for what I’m about to say next. I can’t find the right words. It’s too painful and ugly. “Remember when I said I hurt my knee falling down a flight of stairs? I left something out. Reed pushed me.”

Grace’s eyes go wide and tear up. She points at my brace. “That’s how—?”

“Yeah.” Seeing Grace on the verge of tears triggers the same reaction in me. I press the inside corners of my eyes and take a deep breath to hold them back.

“Did you press charges against him?” she asks.

“No.”

“Why not?” she blurts out. “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. I’m not judging you. I just hate that guy for hurting you.”

“Don’t feel bad. It was a hard decision, and the situation was complicated because Reed’s sister is—I mean, she was—my best friend. Tess loves him so much. I just couldn’t do that to her.” And look how it turned out. “But I wanted Reed to pay for what he did to me. So I reported him to his trainer instead. I knew if Reed wanted to keep competing, he’d have to submit to a drug test for PEDs. It’s league protocol. I thought he’d test positive and his trainer and his mom would get him help.” I close my eyes to keep from crying. “But that’s not how it turned out.”

Grace scoots closer to me. “What do you mean?”

A tear runs down my cheek and I wipe it away. “Reed figured out how to beat the test and the results came back clean. He had already convinced people that I was confused about what happened the night of the party. He said he never pushed me—that he was just trying to grab my arm when I started falling. The test results made it look like he was telling the truth and a lot of people believed him—including Tess.”