My father continues as if I’ve said nothing. “Did I hear him say he has a sister?” The question is delivered lightly, but it sends a waft of icy air down my spine. “It would be a shame if her brother didn’t come home one day.”
Invisible hands close around my throat, tightening to the point that I can barely speak. “What…what does that even mean?”
His eye ticks. “It means, you know very well now that I have friends in extremely low places, Grace. Unscrupulous friends. I’m not above asking for a favor to keep you from dragging our family’s reputation through the mud. My associates would laugh at me behind closed doors. There isn’t a spiritual retreat in the world that could cure your mother of the shame.” His voice is like an ice pick, cutting through the center of my sternum. “End it now. Or I have him ended. Do I make myself clear?”
“You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t.”
“I would. Tomorrow. Without batting an eyelash.”
I almost double over from the pain in my midsection.
No. No no no. This is a battle I can’t win.
I can’t put North’s life in danger. I love him too much. I’ve come to love Tulip, as well, and who would raise her if something happened to North? How could I even live in this world if he didn’t exist? How could I live with myself if I was the reason he ended up dead?
“Please, don’t do this,” I whisper to my father. “Please.”
Now he only looks bored. “You have a minute to say goodbye. Make it convincing. Because if he comes sniffing around again, I’ll make the phone call. Don’t test me.”
I’m numb, head to toe, as I turn around and walk back toward the boy who owns my heart. He’s so substantial and strong and handsome and capable standing there in the sunlight, a sob tries to wing its way up my throat. But I swallow it down. His life is hanging in the balance now—and I put it there. This is the only way to save him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, unable to meet his eyes, my heart rupturing inside my ribcage. Agony cascading inside of me like a treacherous waterfall. “I’m sorry, but…he’s right. It wouldn’t work. You couldn’t support me, North. Not the way I’m used to. Not the way I need. It’s better if we end this now. I…want to end this now.” I think of Curtis Tennison holding a gun to North’s head. Or worse, North’s body lifeless at the bottom of the river—and it pushes me to say the rest. “Please. Please don’t contact me again. Goodbye.”
North stands frozen like a statue as I say the words, but his eyes are wild. Tortured.
He chokes out my name as I walk away, the shadow he casts telling me he’s dropped down to his knees. With tears streaming down my face, all I can do is keep walking, telling myself I’m saving his life. I’m making the only decision possible. But those assurances do nothing to stop my heart from splintering into a million pieces.
Ten
North
If it wasn’t for my sister, I’d already be dead.
There would be nothing to live for.
As it is, I’m hanging on by a thread.
The only way to deal with the pain of losing Grace is to seek more pain.
I’ve been in the Hellmouth every night for the last four days, since she broke up with me, taking on anyone and everyone. Searching for someone who can beat me unconscious. Please. I just don’t want to be awake anymore.
Please. I just want someone to come bury their fist between my eyes and shut my brain down so I can’t think of Grace telling me not to contact her again.
I need the punishment of being knocked out. I deserve it for not being everything she needs. If I’d known she existed sooner, I would have been more prepared. But I didn’t. I didn’t know my beauty was out there, so I had nothing to offer when the time came. And it all happened so fast. It happened so fucking fast. One second, I had the world in the palm of my hand and the next, I’m looking for a way to darken that world. A way to make everything dark around me. Shut off my mind. Shut off everything.
I’m in the ring now at the Hellmouth fighting this guy I’ve beaten before. It’s not a challenge. But I want two seconds of peace from the tortured screams in my head, so I let one of his punches slip through, the crack and spray of blood from my nose doing nothing to satisfy me. This isn’t working. I’m the sum of the pain in my heart. I can’t even register anything on the outside anymore. I can’t do this. I really don’t think I can get out of bed every day and pretend like I don’t want to die. If it wasn’t for Tulip, I’m not sure what I would have done by now.
I’m not what Grace needs.
I can’t make her happy.
Obviously her father said something that made her realize that.
And honestly, why would she want someone who her father looks at with such derision? That’s her family. The people she’ll be spending holidays and milestones with for the rest of her life. If I’m by her side, she won’t have them. Did I expect her to give them up for me? To trade her own flesh and blood for a brawler with a walk-up apartment and no hope of an education like hers? The only currency I have are my fists—and I don’t even want to use them.
There’s no fire in me to fight anymore. Fight for what? What is there? I can feed Tulip and keep a roof over her head with money I earn at the Hellmouth, but I’m not fighting at the Garden. I can’t find the fucking motivation. I don’t even think I’d make it to the arena without collapsing into the gutter and expiring from the razor-clawed agony that ravages my insides, never stopping, the intensity never lessening. It’s constant. A man can’t survive like this.
A memory of Grace running up the stairs of my building and launching herself, laughing, into my arms sets off a bomb in my throat and I roar, throwing a right cross at my opponent, sending him stumbling back several feet. “Come on,” I beg him, my voice guttural. “Hit me. Hit me! Knock me out. Please.”
Slowly, the guy lowers his fists. “You need to go home, man.”
The rushing in my ears slows down momentarily and I realize the entire Hellmouth is silent. Watching me. There’s no money exchanging hands or shouting or revving up the fighters. It’s the stillest and quietest I’ve ever seen this place. They have sympathy for me—it’s obvious. Right there on their faces. And that pity is like lighting a match and dropping it into a bucket of kerosene, blistering my skin. “Find me a fucking challenge for tomorrow,” I bellow, ducking out of the ring. “Find me a killer. Someone better than me. Do it.”
I snatch up my bag on the way out, blood still dripping from my nose. Layer upon layer of sweat running down my bare torso and soaking into my shorts. I don’t bother putting on clothes or wiping myself down on the way to the car. It’s parked beneath the overpass as usual, traffic rumbling by overhead. I move for the driver’s side, then hesitate, memories of Grace bombarding me. Memories of that first night when she rode home in my passenger seat, so angelic and wholesome and pure and trusting. Of me.
She did trust me once, didn’t she?
That wasn’t a dream?
Instead of climbing into the driver’s side, I find myself stumbling to the opposite side. Opening the passenger door and falling on my knees, half inside the car and half out, burying my face in the center of the seat, begging it hoarsely for the scent of her pussy. “Please. Give it to me. Give me something. Please.”