Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(5)

“It’s genetic, Q. You and me both have it. Flint, you tested negative,” Till said, but his eyes stayed glued to me.

This little announcement had come completely out of left field. We were supposed to be sitting down for a normal family dinner, and now, all of a sudden, I was deaf?

What the f*ck is going on?

I’m a man. I’m a man. I’m a man.

Men don’t cry.

Except the bullshit pooling in my eyes said differently.

“Are you f*cking with me?” I asked around the overwhelming emotion lodged in my throat.

Till shook his head, and he didn’t even yell at me for cursing.

He wasn’t f*cking with me.

“It’s gonna be okay. I swear to God. I’m going to make this okay,” he said as if it were supposed to be reassuring.

It wasn’t. Not while the word deaf still rang in my soon-to-be useless ears.

“When?” I choked out, fighting down any and every possible emotion. “When am I going…deaf?”

“I don’t know. It’s supposedly degenerative. That means it will happen over time.”

Blinking, I sucked in a deep breath. “You’re full of shit.”

He wasn’t, but I clung to whatever hope I could grasp. I had no real concept of what deaf meant. I knew that it meant you couldn’t hear, but I couldn’t wrap my young mind around the depths of that reality.

And the unknown was the scariest of all.

More insecurity I just couldn’t handle.

I was beyond terrified but refused to show any weakness in front of the two men to whom I owed my life. My feet attempted to flee from the problem, even though it followed me with every step. I didn’t allow Till or Flint a single glance at my devastation as I sprinted from our apartment. I didn’t know where I was going, but I couldn’t stop until I got there.

I raced down the stairs, and I’d barely made it to the edge of the sidewalk when I came to a screeching halt. Reality came crashing down on my shoulders.

There was nowhere else to go.

No one else who cared about me.

My entire life was in that crappy two-bedroom apartment behind me.

My lungs burned as I held my breath for an impossibly long time. I knew that, when I released it, I wouldn’t be able to hold the tears back anymore. That one breath was the only thing that kept me bound together.

I dropped to my knees as my head began to spin.

Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe.

Passing out was better than losing my shit in front of Till and Flint.

Suddenly, Eliza’s voice echoed off the building. “Quarry!” Her feet pounded against the pavement as she rushed from her apartment below ours. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” she asked, squatting in front of me.

I wanted to be a man, but I was failing epically.

At least it was only Eliza. I hated when she babied me. But, right then, as my vision began to tunnel and the inferno spread from my lungs to my chest, I was all too willing to put my pride aside for a single second of comfort.

With a loud exhale, I dove into her open arms. Warm streams of useless tears poured from my eyes.

“What’s going on?” she whispered, holding me tight.

I wrenched my eyes shut.

Till would have to fill her in because I wasn’t anywhere near ready to admit my future sentence to anyone yet.

And that included myself.




It was funny. The world didn’t shut down just because I was going deaf. In some ways, I think I would have felt marginally better if it had. Instead, I woke up the next morning and went to school, to the gym, and then home. I had dinner with my brothers, and Eliza dropped off a pan of my favorite twice-baked cheese potatoes. No one discussed my breakdown from the night before, not even to make fun of me for it. But there was definitely a blanket of anxiety dampening all of our spirits. Till had attempted to cover his own nerves with jokes, but forced laughter was all he got in return. Eventually, he disappeared, presumably down to Eliza’s apartment like he usually did when he thought we were asleep.

The next day went much like the first—until that afternoon when I was finally alone in the On The Ropes locker room, getting ready to spar with one of the fourteen-year-old boys who fought in my weight class. I was so lost in my own misery that I never even heard the door open. Suddenly, two small arms wrapped around my waist from behind.

“What the hell!” I jumped, but the small body clinging to me followed me forward.

Thankfully, before I threw an elbow, I glanced back and recognized Liv’s long, brown hair. Her face was crushed, nose first, against my back and her hands were knotted painfully tight at my stomach.

I was crazy about Liv, but we were young. Touching was still super weird. Our relationship, up until that point, had consisted of cracking jokes and getting in trouble together. With the exception of when we were huddled together in a dark corner, waiting for Derrick Bailey to pick his super-glued jock strap up, I wasn’t sure we had ever touched at all.

“Uh…Liv,” I said, contorting my body to see her.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into my back.

“For what?”

“That you’re going to lose your hearing.”

“What?!” I yelled jumping forward, but once again, she followed. “Who told you that?”