Fuck, I’m going to do this.
“Come to my room.” Amy grabbed my hand and pulled me up the last step and opened the door. But the spell broke. She wasn’t the girl I wanted to do this with. She wasn’t Grace.
Grace.
Just thinking her name sobered me up, and I pulled back on Amy’s hand. “Stop. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Her face deflated, and I felt like a complete jerk.
She rolled her eyes at me. “You’ll regret this, Oliver Ray. This is a one-time offer, and, for the record, I think we’d be pretty good together.”
She was right; we would have been. She was smart, funny, and sexy. But she wasn’t Grace.
“I’m sorry.”
“Does she even know?” Amy asked, a little whiny. “Would she even kiss you back?”
And I couldn’t answer her. Because I wasn’t sure of the answer.
Visiting home so often was worth it because Grace made me feel like a million pounds when she saw me. And it gave me hope, because how could a person be that happy to see someone, without feeling something? Amy’s words lingered in my thoughts for weeks, and I couldn’t shake them. Luckily, she had, and we’d gone back to being just friends.
But I dwelled. Grace transformed every time I visited. Sure, she was over the moon to start with. Her hair had grown even longer, and she’d taken to wearing it down all the time. My fingers begged to brush through their strands, but I kept them to myself. It was her smiles I noticed first. They were smaller, fewer. And sorrow had crept into her features when she thought I wasn’t looking. She was withdrawn and nothing like the carefree girl I’d fallen in love with.
She didn’t talk about friends or any of the books she’d read lately, and that made me worry for her, even more, when I wasn’t around.
“Hey, Mads.” He put down his phone and looked up at me expectantly.
“What? I haven’t got all day.”
“Is Grace okay? She seems… sad. Is she getting on all right at school?”
“Sure. She’s fine. She’s always been quiet, you know her. She’s not sad when I’m with her, at least.”
“And…” I worked up the confidence to ask, “how often is that?” The question hung in the air.
“Plenty. Are we done?” He tilted his head, dismissing me.
Typical Maddison. I didn’t know if he was bragging on purpose to stir things up, or if he and Grace did see each other all the time. They went to sixth form together, worked together. Was that all?
As the older brother, I shouldn’t have been competing with my younger brother all my life, but it was Maddison’s shadow that always pushed me to the background. With Grace, we’d somehow avoided that, and I know that my change of plans at Uni didn’t fit in with Maddison’s.
But Grace was my best friend, and if Maddison felt anything close to what I did, then he’d notice if something was wrong with her. We both had a connection to her, and I had to trust that he wouldn’t ruin Grace to spite me.
Chapter 10
Maddison Seventeen Years Old
I couldn’t believe Oliver. He couldn’t deal with the fact that he was away from Grace, and so made up shit like she was unhappy without him. Well, screw him. She was fine. We were fine.
Except, I couldn’t forget about it. The idea of Grace not being happy haunted me. For weeks, I’d second-guessed the time we spent together, and when we were apart, the anger that was always lurking just under my skin was all too easy to provoke.
Just one more year, not even that, given we would finish by the summer for exams, and then I could stop busting my gut at school for something I didn’t want. I’d never have made it this far without Grace, and at least it was a reason to spend as much time as we did together.
I’d got the grades to study my A-Levels by the skin of my teeth, and luckily, Grace was more than happy to help me study. I needed it more than I wanted to admit because I’d have been kicked out for failing if not for her help. School was hard. It always had been. And I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was older. Apparently, we were all meant to have that shit sorted out by now. All I wanted was to play sport and be with Grace. Nothing else mattered.
As well as the part-time job I had at the same place as Grace, I’d joined a local gym with some of my mates. I was the biggest in our group of friends: the most muscle, the tallest, the fastest. It made up for my lack of book-smarts, and I wouldn’t let the titles I still held slip. So, I worked out. I lifted weights, I ran, and I did circuits until my body screamed for mercy. And I showed it none.
“Hey, kid.” An older guy stacked with muscle and dripping in sweat, with a towel wrapped around his neck, approached me one day after I’d finished my latest set. The room was empty, but for the two of us.
“Yeah.”
“You like to train, eh?” He had an accent that sounded foreign.
“I guess.”
“Seem to be here a lot.”
“And?” This guy was giving me the creeps.
“Ever been in fights?”
“Sure.” I puffed my chest out, thinking of the few kids I’d punched in my time. And Oliver.
“No. I mean, real fights.” He stepped closer to me, but I stayed still. This dude wasn’t going to intimidate me.
“No, then. Why?”
“Because you look like you could hold your own. A bit of training, and you’d look good in a ring.” Fighting for real? Shit. The energy I’d been working off seemed to hum back to life at the prospect.
“What’s in it for me?” I didn’t know what this guy was selling, but I wasn’t going to be some wimpy kid about it. There’d have to be a catch or something to his offer. But I couldn’t deny I was interested from the word fights.
“Money. Victory. The opportunity to beat someone senseless with no repercussions.” He smiled, showing me a couple of gaps where teeth should be, and I wondered if this guy was for real. His words sunk in, and my hands flexed automatically as if just hearing the words got them excited.
“Okay. I’m in. What next.”
The guy smiled wider, and for a moment, I wondered if I’d just made a deal with the devil.
“I’m Zuri.” His name explained the accent I didn’t recognise. “We will meet and train here. And then I take you to my gym. I show you the ropes.”
“And?” I prompted. He hadn’t mentioned anything about fighting.
“And if you are good, you fight.” He offered his hand, and I shook. He grabbed his wallet at the side of the room and picked up his water bottle. “Here. Text me your details. We will make plan.”
I shoved the card in my wallet and left it there when I got home. Grace was coming over soon to help me study. She was clever, just like Oliver, but she never made me feel stupid. She took her time to explain things that confused me, and the mental block that seemed to be in the way all the time, eased when it was her words and her face explaining stuff.
She was my best friend, and although we had differences, that didn’t matter. She’d been supporting me since we met—coming to my games, keeping me from killing Oliver, and now with homework.