I didn’t know how I forced myself to stay away. I started taking a different route to work so I didn’t have to pass that abandoned building every day. She could have been there . . . but she probably wasn’t. She was moving on, and I was floundering.
Boxing was the only thing that kept me sane. When I missed her, I worked out. When I needed her, I trained. And when the world became too much, I imagined her. Her smile. Her laugh. That one fucking freckle haunted me. Which only made me miss her, so I trained some more. My life was a never-ending cycle that both began and ended with On The Ropes—with Eliza.
However, my body could only take so much abuse. Ten hours was the max a kid could work at the gym, but I was easily putting in at least twenty-five hours a week. Slate started forcing me to leave each night. I would have rather been cleaning the jockstraps than go home though.
Three months after I left Eliza, I was laid off from my job at the construction company. Not only did I become hard up for money, I was suddenly overflowing with free time. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t pay the rent and had nothing but time to worry about it. Thankfully, a kid at the gym helped me get a job cleaning up at the auto repair shop where he worked. The money was okay, but I learned a ton from the mechanics. They helped me buy a piece-of-shit truck from a customer who couldn’t afford to fix it. It took months to get it running, but as I drove out of the parking lot in a truck that was completely mine, I felt like the biggest success on the planet.
After that, a whole world opened up for me. Being able to travel more than a mile from my house gave me a freedom I had never experienced before. Sure, there was public transportation, but when life went to hell in a handbasket, I didn’t have to check the bus schedule now. I could just hop in my truck and drive as far as my usually empty gas tank could take me.
That truck was the reason I ended up with my father the night when everything went wrong. The night when he turned on me and I left him for dead.
The same night Eliza saved me all over again.
I WAS STARTLED AWAKE BY a loud knock on my window. My heart began to pound from the surprise wake-up call, but as I managed to rouse my lagging mind to consciousness, I automatically knew who was on the other side. I could picture his straight, black hair barely sticking out from under the edges of a beanie and his hazel eyes—the ones that could stir something inside me with only a single glance. I could clearly envision the sexy grin that only tipped one side of his mouth while his thumb nervously toyed with his bottom lip in that way that drew the attention of every woman in a fifty-mile radius.
As I walked to the window, I ran through every possible excuse why I shouldn’t open it. Perhaps I should have gone back to bed and sent away him without another a backward glance. I wouldn’t though. Regardless that he had rejected me? I found myself absolutely unable to return the favor. Unfortunately, I was transparent because Till Page obviously knew that too.
“Doodle, open up,” he whispered from the other side of the glass.
“Till, it’s late. Go home,” I urged, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist opening it for much longer.
“I, um . . .” His words caught with uncharacteristic emotion.
“Till?”
“Please, Doodle.” His voice cracked, which shattered whatever imaginary resolve I was holding on to.
I threw back the curtains and pried the window open. Based on the way he sounded, I was fearful of what I would find on the other side. My suspicions were confirmed when I caught sight of his blood-soaked T-shirt.
“Oh my God, Till. Are you all right? Is that your blood?”
“No,” was his only response. My eyes raced over his body, looking for any possible injury, but with the exception of split knuckles, there wasn’t a mark on him.
“Get in here.” I stepped away to allow him room to crawl inside.
“No,” he repeated with glazed over eyes. He leaned in only far enough to grab my hips and drag me out the window.
“What the hell are you doing?” I cried out as he carried me to a beat-up pickup truck.
He didn’t answer as he placed me on the seat and slammed the door closed behind me. Till might have been there physically, but his mind was lost somewhere else.
Just as he slid behind the wheel, his empty eyes swung to mine.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“I need you,” he said desperately.
“Then I’m here.” I reached over to squeeze his arm, but it did nothing to relax his tense, straining body. “Whose blood is that?”
He swallowed hard then shook his head in response.
It wasn’t enough though. “Please. You have to give me something here. I haven’t seen you in six months, and tonight, you showed up at my window covered in blood. I’m scared,” I said quietly, so as not to spook him. This wasn’t my rock, Till. This was a virtually unrecognizable, nervous boy.
“I’ll tell you at the apartment,” he muttered, and a pang of guilt stole my breath.
“No. Tell me here,” I demanded. “I’m not leaving.”