Chapter 10

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.”

Maybe I imagine it, maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I swear I catch a hint of her cherry cola scent and my cock starts to harden, a harsh sound falling from my mouth, muffled by the leather seat. For the first time since she walked away. I lunge for the chance to be with her in some small way, even if it’s just the memory of her in my car, the barest hint of her beloved scent haunting my nose. My brain.

I fumble for my phone and pull up the picture she sent me the first time we spoke on the phone. “Jesus, Gracie,” I breathe, devouring the high globes of her ass, that supple curve of her breast, the flirty little glance she’s giving me over her shoulder. “Goddamn. Look at you, beauty. Look how sweet and hot.”

Panting now, I grind my cock up against the edge of the passenger seat and start to rock, closing my eyes and imagining she’s sitting there with her legs spread open, gasping every time I give her the full length of me, in that way she always does. Her cunt is moist and welcoming and tight as a motherfucker, her graceful fingers buried in my hair, blue eyes leaden with lust. That beautiful ass of hers lifts off the seat to meet my pumps and we start to get frantic. We always do. Can’t help it. I fall on her and it becomes about getting my dick as deep as I can—and that’s what she wants, too. It’s why she’s wailing for her Daddy, her hands yanking on my ass, thighs opening wider. Wider.

But I open my eyes and I shouldn’t have.

I shouldn’t have because she’s not really there.

With a bellow of misery, I pitch forward onto the seat, slamming my forehead into the cushion over and over again, the picture of her on my phone having gone dark. My cock is still stiff and aching, but I don’t deserve to come. I lost her. I lost the right. So after a moment, I gather myself up as much as possible and shove my erection back into my shorts, vowing then and there never to touch myself again. Never to allow myself pleasure in any form. My punishment for failing to be everything she needs. For failing her. I’ll suffer now. I’ll suffer for her if that’s all she’ll allow me.

With blood drying on my face, I drive home numb on the outside, while on the inside, my mind roasts over an open flame in hell.

And somewhere deep down, I know it’s impossible to go on like this.

* * *

Grace

I reach downand test the knob of my bedroom door, unsurprised to find it locked. Over the weekend, I was forbidden from leaving this room. Then for the last three days, I was sent upstairs right after school, armed with extra-credit work my father arranged through my teachers.

I’m in hell.

I want to tear off my skin. It’s hot and cloying and doesn’t feel like mine anymore. Not without North to touch and kiss it. Why have it at all?

My father took my phone. I have nothing. Nothing. And what would I even do if I had a way to call North? I can’t. I’d be putting his life in jeopardy.

With a stuttering breath, I pace back and forth in front of my window, the sunset making me think of him. Making me think of holding his hand and walking across rooftops in South Boston. Did that magical night really happen? Did any of them? I want to go back. I would go back and live those nights over and over for the rest of my life, rather than live one more day like this. I’m dying. I’m dying, right?

I find myself kneeling on the floor and I have no idea how I got here.

My arms are wrapped around my middle and I’m rocking, saying words that don’t even make sense. I can’t go on like this. I can’t breathe. Even at school, I can barely make it between classes, my legs weighed down by cement, my heart gasping for air in my chest. I want to curse and rail at my so-called friends for what they’ve done. Can’t they see they’ve murdered my soul? But I can’t locate the energy. All I can do is stare straight ahead and try not to shatter.

Where is North?

What is he doing?

I crave the taste of salt on his skin. I crave his huge body on mine, above, inside and behind me. His growls in my ear. The way he cradles me after I have an orgasm, telling me I’m beautiful and we’ll always be together. What happened? What happened? I feel like someone has taken a chainsaw and cut me straight down the middle. I can’t do this.

Losing power over my muscles, I crash forward and bawl into the rug surrounding my bed, my ribs throbbing from the amount of crying I’ve done since Friday. My eyes are swollen, my chest desolate. If it’s possible to die from a broken heart, I need to be taken to the emergency room. I wouldn’t go, though. I wouldn’t. I’d refuse treatment.

Just let me die.

At first, when I hear a faint rapping on my window, I think it’s raining. Or maybe my bereaved mind is playing tricks on me. But it continues long enough that I realize it’s real. North? Is it North? Is he outside?

A sob saws inside my throat and I crawl over, disoriented, clawing my way up onto the windowsill, searching for his perfect face in the darkness. My love. The man I’ll love until the end of time. Is he here?

My feverish thoughts screech to a halt when I spy Tulip instead.

Down below my window, holding a handful of stones.

Exasperated, she signals at me to open my window.

At first, I’m relieved to see her. She’s a part of North. This is the closest I’ve come to seeing him in five days. Five hellish days. And she is proof he’s real.

But then I start to panic. Oh God, oh God, what if something happened to him? What if my father sent Curtis Tennison after him, even though I complied with his wishes?

“Please no, please no,” I hiccup, throwing open the window. “Tulip…” I manage.

“It’s about time,” she complains, tossing aside her handful of pebbles. “You know how long I’ve been out here, waiting for your father to leave?”

“I…” I’m dizzy. Delirious. Can’t string a thought together. How long since I’ve slept or eaten? “I didn’t even know he was gone,” I say, my voice hollow. “I’m…locked in here.”

A flash of sympathy crosses her young face. “Dang. You’re almost in worse shape than my brother—and that’s saying something.”

That statement cuts through my numbness, setting off alarm bells in my head. “What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with North?”

Tulip looks at me like I’m a moron, which is no less than I deserve for asking such a stupid question. What’s wrong with him? He’s without me. I’m without him. We’re not supposed to be apart. We’re both suffering. That’s a given. “He’s trying to get himself killed,” Tulip says in a pained whisper, tears filling her eyes. “Every night he comes home with more bruises, more blood. You have to come stop him before someone throws the punch that knocks him out forever. He’s not even trying to win, Grace. He’s not North anymore.”

Blistering hot tears roll down my cheeks, dripping off of my chin.

Helplessness pounds its fists against the inside of my skull. “I can’t…I can’t. You don’t understand. Being with him…it’s putting him in danger.”

“He’s in danger now!” Tulip calls back. “He’s getting beat up on purpose and you’re locked in a room. It can’t get any worse.”

“Yes, it can,” I rasp.

But even as I say those three words, the urgency is kicking in. I have to reach North. Now. Before something irreversible happens. My goal is to keep him alive, isn’t it? That’s the reason I left him, ripping both of our hearts out in the process. Well his life isn’t just in danger from my father and Curtis Tennison. It’s in danger from North. And there is no way I can sit here while he puts himself in harm’s way. On purpose, no less. I have to go to him.