Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(73)

Gripping the tub, I pushed myself to my feet. “I think I’m just gonna go ahead in to the gym. Get a head start on things.”

She pressed a hand to my chest. “You just woke up puking. You can’t go to the gym. Call in sick.”

“Nah, I’m good. I just…” I stalled, not willing to tell her that I’d just watched my biggest fears play out in my head.

She looked up at me expectantly.

“I guess I ate something bad last night. I’ll survive.”

At the sink, I turned the water on, splashing it on my face and then pasting up my toothbrush.

I participated in the rest of the conversation only by watching her hands sign in the mirror.

“I ate the exact same thing you did last night.”

I shrugged.

“Why don’t you just lie down and give it an hour or so? You aren’t supposed to be at the gym until seven.”

I shrugged again before rinsing my mouth and then moving to my closet.

When I opened the door, Christmas Tree Cakes rained from the top. “Shit,” I mumbled. “Any chance you can move those to your closet?” I bit out, my fears shifting to anger for no other reason than I didn’t know how to deal with it.

She was trying to catch my attention as I swirled around the room, but I couldn’t slow down.

I was desperate to get out of there.

Away from her.

Away from the memories of failing her.

And, because of that, facing my greatest fear of all—losing her.

Less than a minute later, I’d tugged on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, grabbed my keys and hearing aids, pecked her on the lips, and swiftly left.





“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” I whispered to myself as I heard the deadbolt on our front door click from the outside.

Quarry was full of shit. He hadn’t eaten something bad the night before. But what I couldn’t figure out was why he was acting like I had something to do with his getting sick. At first, he’d clung to me so tight that I could barely breathe. Then, after that, he had been so standoffish that it was as if he’d decided I’d poisoned his food.

I had still been signing to him as he rushed out the door—a brisk kiss on the lips my only acknowledgement.

So freaking weird.

I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, stuck in my ponderings of the great mystery known as Quarry Page, when I decided sleep was a lost cause. The sun was still well below the horizon, and only the soft, white rays of a nightlight illuminated the room.

Quarry had purchased it for his room a few weeks earlier. I hadn’t asked him to buy it. Nor had I asked him to buy and sync a secondary iPod just to keep on a docking station on his nightstand. He’d done it though. Because he’d worried I might be scared. Of course, he hadn’t come right out and told me that. But I knew.

I was a twenty-three-year-old woman who still slept with music and a nightlight. It wasn’t exactly my most redeeming quality, but Quarry had never made me feel like it was a flaw, either. He knew all about my past. He’d once used it against me. But, most recently, he’d used his knowledge to make me feel safer than ever before.

An odd feeling slid over me—it wasn’t exactly a chill, but it still made me shiver.

If I really thought about it, over the years, Quarry had always taken care of me.

Even while he had been with Mia, he’d still made me a priority in his life. Sure, he had done the mandatory job of taking care of his girlfriend’s best friend when the three of us had hung out. But it had always been more than that. He had been my friend just as much as Mia had. I hadn’t been the third wheel or the annoying girl who wouldn’t give them time alone. He’d gone out of his way to spend time with me. Maybe not alone, out of respect for Mia, but he’d made sure I was never left out. He’d bought me the required birthday and Christmas gifts, but he’d also changed my tire when I got a flat and taken me to the dentist when I had to have my wisdom teeth removed, and as a newly (practically) widowed twenty-year-old, he had opened his spare bedroom to me because I’d been too scared to go home.

He’d been handling me with care my entire life.

As hard as it was to admit, I had to let go of the past with Quarry. His actions the day he’d locked me in the closet had been those of a shattered child.

Unfortunately, it had still changed us though.

But not all change had to be bad.

Maybe we needed to change.

Maybe I needed to change.

I just didn’t know how. I hadn’t exactly been born into a life where I could afford to trust blindly. My mother had been a druggy, and her boyfriends, pimps, dealers—whatever they were—had been cruel. None of them had hit me, leaving scars for the world to see. No, their weapons of choice had been much subtler: words.

Eighteen years later, I could still hear the detailed threats of what would happen to me if I came out of my room at night.

Those were the scars my childish body had never had to bear. Yet they had been so deeply etched into my subconscious that my adult mind still couldn’t process the fear I’d felt back then.

I’d told everyone that I was afraid of the silence because of the night my mother had died.

It hadn’t been a lie.

It hadn’t been the complete truth though, either.

I was terrified of being alone.