Chapter Twenty-One

West

In the end, it all boiled down to this: I couldn’t have Kade Appleton and his scouts know that Grace was my girlfriend. He had eyes everywhere, and confirming she and I were together was going to put her in the line of fire.

I couldn’t do that.

So I did what I had to.

Dumped my ugly past at her feet.

Aubrey didn’t die in a car accident.

She died because of me.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about Aub the first night I laid eyes on Grace Shaw. That it wasn’t why I took the job at the food truck. Sure, the extra money was helpful, but mainly, I wanted to see what Aub would be like had she survived the fire. What kind of person she’d grow up to be.

I realized how majorly fucked up that was to look at this chick and see my sister. But that was the thing—I didn’t see Aubrey in Grace. Not at all.

Grace was Grace. A madly unique person. Sweet-mannered and kind and funny, but also sarcastic and feisty and intelligent. She was gorgeous—scratch that, fucking breathtaking, apart from those scars that didn’t even matter to me—and the more I spent time with her, the more it was impossible to think of her as a replacement to the sister I loved so desperately.

Texas thought I pitied her. That she was a pet project. And I’d confirmed her darkest suspicions to make sure Kade Appleton and his rats think the same thing.

But I never pitied her. Not even for one second.

If anything, I envied her strength. I couldn’t have dealt with half the shit she’s been through and still survive.

Hell, I still couldn’t talk to my own parents without breaking into goddamn hives.

Now, the guilt of what I did to her at the cafeteria ate at me alive like the fire that consumed Aubrey.

“You’re such an idiot.” East shook his head. He was cruising around town, clutching the steering wheel like he was ready to yank and throw it out the window. We’d been doing that for an hour now. I sat next to him in his Toyota Camry, wallowing in the sheer volume of my stupidity.

“School’s full of rats. Couldn’t chance Appleton finding out about Grace and getting to her.” I fixed my gaze on the view outside the window, reminding myself to fucking breathe.

“Appleton doesn’t want to hurt your girlfriend, you moron. He wants to hurt you.”

“He’s hurt women before.”

“That was his own girlfriend,” East argued.

“Exactly what makes you think Grace, who is a stranger, is safe when his own goddamn baby momma isn’t? Not to mention, one of his errand boys has warned me that he knows where Grace lives.”

I referred to the incident at the intersection, where the guy on the Harley commented on Tex.

“Then why did you say yes to the fight?” East growled.

“That was before I hooked up with Grace.”

“Why didn’t you cancel?”

“He wouldn’t fucking let me!” I boomed. “Were you not there when I gave you the rundown five thousand times?”

“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” Easton kept pushing, and that was when I officially lost it.

“Because she had enough on her fucking plate and didn’t need my shit on top of it!”

My roar shook the entire car, reverberating between us. I didn’t even tell him the whole truth. The truth I was able to admit only to myself. That I knew Grace would have broken up with me, and that she had the right to know. The right to get rid of my ass before things got ten times more complicated. It wasn’t a noble thing to do, to lie to the person you love, but I’d long realized that love made you do twisted things.

Easton got back to being annoyingly quiet, and I drew a breath, gluing my gaze back to the monotonous view of yellow ranch-styled houses, the water tower, and cactuses.

Maybe if things had been different with Aubrey, I wouldn’t be so paranoid about the people I loved. But Aubrey had died, and keeping Grace safe was my top priority, even if it gutted me inside out.

Even leaving here wouldn’t have changed that. If anything, I’d be leaving her unprotected, in the same zip code with that asshole, Kade Appleton.

I’d already come to terms with the dreadful fact that I loved her.

It was the kind of love that made me roll my eyes to oblivion when I saw it in movies and TV. The intensity of it scared the shit out of me, because I never thought I could be this way with someone who wasn’t blood-related to me.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Wanting to touch her.

Wondering what she was thinking, where she was, what she was doing.

It was different from the fairy tales, because I knew that I could go on without Grace Shaw. It wouldn’t kill me. Not physically, anyway. I’d just go back to being the same miserable jackass I was prior to falling in love with her.

But I wouldn’t be alive. Not really. I would be wasting oxygen, space, and resources, going back to not-so-secretly wishing I’d die.

The realization dawned on me like a cold shower.

I didn’t want to die when I was with Grace.

I wanted to live. To laugh. To love.

To date her and nibble on her neck and listen to her talking about plays and nineties movies and defending fanny packs vehemently.

I’d been relishing life—actively enjoying it, even—for months, and I didn’t even realize it.

I didn’t want to die anymore.

Somewhere along the road, the idea of veering my bike off the road when I picked up speed stopped appealing to me. I no longer imagined what it would feel like to hurl myself off a cliff. I stopped walking into the ring wanting the asshole in front of me to throw a punch that would send me into cardiac arrest.

And it was all because of Grace ‘Texas’ Shaw.

“Still don’t understand why you didn’t just tell him the fight wasn’t happening.” East huffed. “How could Appleton force you to fight?”

“Easily, by playing dirty. As soon as I got it on with Texas, I went to Max and told him I was bailing. Max said he’d try, and from the moment I got the text that Appleton wanted to go ahead and make it happen, I’d been threatened, ambushed at the food truck, and slammed at an intersection on my way home. Kade has eyes on me everywhere. He wants to see me in that ring—and not in one piece.”

“Fuck.” Easton scratched at his stubble.

“Yeah.”

“Well, even if you’re not going to be with Grace—which, by the way, I think is a fine decision, seeing as there’s no chance she is going to take your sorry ass back after the public humiliation you put her through—I still think you should explain yourself. You made your point. Everyone on planet Earth knows you guys are not a couple. Now’s the time to apologize.”

“I will,” I said with conviction. “I’m going to kiss her fucking feet and bow to her after this is all done. But I can’t contact her right now. I haven’t even visited her the entire week. I need to keep this shit on lock. Slipping now would just confirm everything she said is true. That we are a couple.”

“You aren’t a couple.”

He didn’t have to remind me.

The hole in my heart did the job.

The week leading to Friday was the worst of my life.

Well, maybe the second-worst week.

The week after I’d lost Aubrey, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would never see my baby sister again in the flesh. She could only taunt me in my dreams. But Grace—she was everywhere. She was on campus. In the cafeteria. In the provisional auditorium. She walked past me—always accompanied by Karlie and her new unlikely ally, Tess.

It was both comforting and taunting.

We both acted like the other person didn’t exist.

I couldn’t make it plainly obvious I was pining after her, even if it killed me.

Seeing her at work was no longer an option, as my ass got fired after the cafeteria scene. Not even an hour after I broke up with Texas publicly, I received a text message from Mrs. Contreras, advising me that my employment was terminated. She left a check and a formal letter in my mailbox the following day. She didn’t even give me the good luck in the future bullshit. Straight up cut me loose and didn’t look back.

To make my pathetic-o-meter ding even louder, I found myself driving around her neighborhood often. Each morning and every evening, skipping gym time. It wasn’t like I was capable of thinking about anything beyond her. I even managed to forget sending my parents their weekly stipend.

I spotted Grace a couple times during my stalking.

One time, she was coming home from a shift at the food truck. Sensing being watched, she turned around and impaled me with a death glare.

I pretended not to notice her, and drove off.

Another time, she threw a goodbye party for Marla. I saw Mrs. Contreras, Karlie, and a few other people through the window. Grace made Marla cupcakes and delivered a pretty neat speech (yeah, I creeped around long enough to listen to most of it).

Eventually, Marla got out of the house and trudged over to me, spotting me from way across the street. The old lady clutched my arm in her bloated, oily hand and shook it as hard as she could.

“I heard what you did to Grace, and I’m here to tell ya just because I’m movin’ to Florida don’t mean I won’t be watchin’ her, makin’ sure she’s okay. You better turn around and go back to the hellhole you came from, because if I hear you’re following her, I swear to God I’ll tell Sheriff Jones, and make sure he kicks your butt outta town. And if that don’t work, just remember: shotgun. I ain’t afraid to use it.”

As dearly as I wanted to see Grace, it was pretty obvious the feeling wasn’t mutual.

The clock ticked more slowly as Friday approached. I couldn’t wait to get it over with so I could finally talk to Tex, explain myself, and beg for forgiveness. I wasn’t so stupid as to think I’d actually get another chance. All I wanted was for her not to think she was nothing but a fucking Band-Aid.

East and Reign told me I would be stupid to get in the ring. My mind wasn’t in the game; it was with Grace.

Even Max said if I knew what was best for me, I’d skip town.

But I stayed, if only to lay eyes on Tex a few more times before school ended.

Wearing that little negligee, playing Blanche.

Thriving as I fell apart.