Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(4)

Much to my surprise, Quarry never did find a way to quit the youth program. It didn’t escape me that his name was never once on the board for bathroom duty. I also noted the way his eyes lit up every time I would walk into a room. I pretended to play it cool when he was around. The last thing I needed was for him to know how much I liked him.

I suspected that it was a wasted effort.

Because I knew for certain exactly how much he liked me.





I HAD BEEN A FIGHTER from the day I’d taken my first breath on Earth.

Literally.

Born six weeks early to absolute losers for parents, I wasn’t even guaranteed survival. Luckily, my lungs and my heart didn’t need love or affection to thrive. Lord knows I never would have made it home from the hospital if that had been the case.

My childhood had gone much like my birth. I’d grown up, kicking and screaming, in a world I was much too young for. My older brothers, Till and Flint, were the only reasons I’d thrived at all. Flint was only five years older than I was, and Till six years older than he was, but they had done everything in their meager powers to keep me fed, clothed, and out of the care of Social Services.

Back then, the concept of stability had felt about as realistic as wizards and mythical beasts.

Insecurity was what I knew.

It wasn’t something to fear.

It just…was.

I was the ripe old age of ten when my mom took off with her piece-of-shit boyfriend. I wished I could have been surprised that she abandoned us like that, but I’d never known Debbie Page to be anything but worthless. If possible, my dad, Clay Page, was actually worse. He was serving time in prison when she left, so the responsibility of caring for Flint and me fell entirely on Till’s shoulders. Already working his ass off at three jobs to make ends meet, he also spent countless hours at the gym to fulfill his dream of becoming a professional boxer. But, Till being Till, he didn’t bat an eye about taking us in.

The excitement I felt knowing that he and his now-wife, Eliza, would be taking care of us permanently was unexplainable. He gave me a comfy bed with clean sheets and more ramen noodles than I would ever be able to choke down. But, honestly, I wouldn’t have given a single damn if I’d had to fall asleep hungry on a cardboard box every night. The only part I could focus on was that I finally belonged somewhere. And, even though we didn’t have a dime in our pockets, each night, as the four of us sat around the dinner table laughing and relentlessly making fun of each other, it felt like the first time I actually had something.

It was a scary realization.

Because, for the first time in my life, I found myself with something to lose.

Cue Liv James.

Liv rocked my entire world the moment I met her. There was something about the mischievous glint in her big, brown doe eyes that spoke to me on a level a ten-year-old couldn’t even begin to understand.

But, somehow, I did.

Or, at least, I desperately wanted to.

She entered my life during a brief period when all the stars had momentarily aligned.

It wasn’t until it all exploded, throwing my entire world out of orbit, that I realized she was the greatest gift I’d ever been given.

After we’d met in that back alley, Liv and I became close—or as close as a fourth-grader and a fifth-grader who lived three hours apart could be. I saw her once every few weeks, and those were the best days of my life.

On the outside, we were the most unlikely of friends, but on the inside, she and I had been cut from the same cloth. Everyone knew I was trouble. I had a good heart, but I kept it buried under layers of attitude and a million curse words. I’d learned years earlier that no one could damage what they didn’t know you had.

My heart became my best-kept secret.

Liv was the exact opposite. She wore her heart on her sleeve and exuded innocence. With straight, brown hair and olive-toned skin, she looked like a tiny Hispanic angel. I knew her better than that though. Liv didn’t have an innocent bone in her body. That girl made my brand of trouble look amateur. And, because of that, she quickly became my best friend and partner in crime.

Together, we pulled off countless pranks at the gym. They were harmless for the most part. Normal kid-type stuff. We both found it utterly fascinating, the havoc we could wreak with a single tube of crazy glue. At the end of the day, it never failed. I always got caught and she always giggled while watching me run punishment laps around the track. I swear my cardio was on point back in those days.

Six months after I’d met Liv, my newfound happiness took a huge hit.

It was easily the worst day of my life…at that point.

“You’re going deaf. Just like me,” Till blurted out.

I froze with my spoon halfway to my mouth.

Tears welled in his eyes, and that alone was scary as f*ck. Till was the rock in our family; he didn’t break down.

Ever.

Flint immediately pushed to his feet and began pacing the room. “Oh, God.”

“What?” I asked, thoroughly confused as my eyes bounced between my two older brothers, who were obviously freaking the f*ck out.

I wasn’t sure what to think. Those two screwed with me on a daily basis. I was the youngest of three boys—being the butt of their jokes was a way of life. I was far from gullible, but either they had stepped their game up or it wasn’t a joke at all.

My heart pounded in my chest. “Wait. You’re serious?”