Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(13)

“Quarry!” she shrieked, frantically rattling the handle.

But I refused to release it.

She needed to know.

“Quarry!” Her fists beat on the wood as I sank to the ground, blocking the door with my body.

She had to understand that the world was a scary place, where people you love got kidnapped, shot, and paralyzed. The silence was the easy part.

“Quarry, please!” Utter panic colored her voice, but I didn’t budge.

The vibrations of her tiny, pounding fists slashed my soul, ensuring that I’d wear the scars of that moment for the rest of my life. And maybe even a lifetime after that.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so f*cking sorry.”

“Quarry!” she cried, her voice cracking as she broke into loud sobs.

She needed to know that the silence wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her—trusting me was.

“Daddy!” she screamed, giving up on me altogether—just as she should have.

But it wrecked me all the same.

After pushing to my feet, I released the door. It flew open, but I didn’t dare look at her. I couldn’t. I no longer had that right.

She should have punched me. No. She should have beaten the absolute shit out of me.

I would have let her. I’d have stood there until I was black and blue if it would have made her feel better.

Instead, all I got was the squeak of her shoes on the tile as she sprinted away.

It was the single best decision she had ever made—regardless of how it gutted me.

Standing completely alone in that hall, I anxiously awaited the moment when Leo or Slate would come after me. I’d done the deed; I wanted to pay the price. They never showed up though. There were no laps to be run. No hard lesson from her angry father. Till didn’t even ground me when we got home. I wasn’t actually sure Liv had told anyone.

But the punishment I received was more devastating than I was prepared for—even if it was exactly what I deserved.

It was three long years before I saw Liv James again.





I USED EVERY POSSIBLE EXCUSE to avoid Indianapolis, On The Ropes, and, more specifically, a pair of hazel eyes that had broken my heart. My parents were extremely suspicious as to why I broke into tears any time the Page brothers came up in conversation, but I never told them what had happened that day at the hospital. As much as I liked getting Quarry into minor trouble, I knew that this would have been major in my father’s eyes, mainly because it was major in mine too.

Quarry no longer had my back—that much was clear. I, however, had told him that I’d protect him, and despite months of nightmares about being locked in that dark, silent closet, I kept my word.

But just because I didn’t rat him out didn’t mean I forgave him—or ever would. Besides my parents and my counselor, he was the only person who knew about my fears. And he’d used that knowledge like a weapon, slicing me to the core. As sad as it sounds, the worst of it wasn’t the fact that he’d so grossly broken my trust. No, the worst was that I’d lost him in the process. A few months after it’d happened, my dad started bringing home notes any time he saw the boys. They were all addressed to Rocky, and they all landed in the trash can without being opened.

I didn’t want an apology from Quarry Page.

I actually didn’t want anything from him anymore.

He’d made the decision, and I was the one forced to live with the consequences.

It f*cking sucked.

I’d lost my best friend that day. Sure, we were just kids, but the bond Quarry and I shared was something that only happened once in a lifetime. I knew I’d never find anyone like him again, so I didn’t even bother trying.

Much to my father’s excitement, I met a few girls at school. Most of them were nice, but they didn’t make me laugh the way Quarry had. They also never locked me in a closet, so I decided to keep them.

Life moved on. I grew up, and judging by the amount of time my dad spent traveling to boxing matches with Slate, so did the Page brothers. I overheard my mom on the phone the day Quarry had won the Golden Gloves championship. I was happy for him. There was a part of me that ached because I would have killed to be at that fight. I could even imagine his lopsided grin as he caught my eye while I cheered his name from the front row. That thought stung worse than I could have ever imagined. I knew how much he loved boxing—just exactly the way he knew how terrified I was of the silence.

With that, the ache went away, and I once again set on about living the lie that had become my life.

And it worked really freaking well for three years. I was just a normal teenager, texting friends, flirting with boys, slaving over geometry homework, and religiously sleeping with headphones. So, maybe normal was a stretch. But I was happy-ish. I rarely even thought about my old childhood pal, Quarry Page. And, by rarely, I mean maybe once a week. Okay, so maybe rarely was a bit of a stretch too. It’s not like I had a scrapbook of all the articles that were published about him in the sports section as he became the up-and-coming golden boy of boxing at only sixteen. Being that Till was a former world champion and his trainer, Uncle Slate, was too, boxing fans everywhere were watching Quarry destroy the amateur circuit. A scrapbook like that would have taken hours each week to keep up—hypothetically, of course.

I never hated Quarry for what he had done to me. I hated him for what he had done to us. It had been the ultimate betrayal, and it affected me far more than those sixty seconds in the closet. I had already been a bit of a loner, preferring to spend my time with a book and music rather than actual people. But, as the years passed, it became worse. If I didn’t trust anyone else, they couldn’t hurt me. It was a hard lesson learned but surprisingly easy to maintain. I had friends, but not a single confidant.