Gentle fingers stroked through my hair, and I sighed.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Travis chuckled quietly. “Tiffany always said they had their own language inside their heads, but Kyle thought they just enjoyed not having to interact with anyone.”
“Matthew doesn’t really talk about his parents very much,” Mayra said. “He doesn’t say much about Megan, either.”
“It’s still hard for him,” Bethany said. “He feels so needlessly guilty about where Megan is now, and his father was the only one who could ever really convince him otherwise once he got something in his head.”
“My brother was great at that. He always knew what to say to the kid to get him to rethink something. I’ve tried, but he just doesn’t trust me as much.”
“You have been amazing for him.” I could hear Beth shifting in her seat. “I don’t know what you’re doing—”
A short laugh came from Travis, and Mayra’s fingers paused for a moment before resuming their trek around my scalp.
“Well…whatever it is, I’m not going to argue. It’s working.”
“He means a lot to me.” The soft, whispered words were combined with a stroke of warm fingers over my cheek. It was enough to send me into further, quieter darkness.
Win.
Chapter 15—Dive Straight In
“Will you consider it? You have three weeks to prepare, and I’ll help any way I can.”
I squeezed my palms together to try to stop the shaking. The movement seemed to transfer to my leg, which started bouncing up and down instead. My head filled up with all kinds of imagery I wasn’t prepared to handle, so I jumped up and ran downstairs.
The gloves felt good on my hands as my fists connected with the heavy bag repeatedly.
Mayra wanted to go to a graduation party at Hueston Woods, right by the lake. It was over three weeks away, and almost everyone in our graduating class was going to be there, sans one Justin Lords, who had pled guilty to assault and possession charges and would be attending his sentencing hearing instead of wearing a weird, square cap.
Mayra wanted me to go with her.
I had already decided there was no way I was going to attend the graduation ceremony and sit there in the middle of a bunch of other kids, waiting to walk across a stage that probably couldn’t hold the people who were standing on it. There was no way I was going to do that while everyone looked at me and waited for me to trip on the stairs or just freak out when it was my turn to shake the principal’s hand. There was just no way. My grades would already be in, and my diploma would already be secured. I didn’t have to attend the ceremony, and I wasn’t going to put myself through all that.
All of Mayra’s friends from the soccer team were going to be at this party.
It was going to be her last time to really hang out with them, which she hadn’t done much of since she started dating me.
I didn’t want to be the one to hold her back.
I didn’t want to go.
People weren’t treating me quite like they were after that fateful night Uptown, which I considered a blessing, but a lot of them still tried to strike up conversations, and I just didn’t know what to do or say. They would ask about my fighting experience or just questions about various homework assignments—it didn’t matter. It still came down to the same thing: I couldn’t cope with all the attention.
But Mayra was different.
She was popular, accepted, and liked by almost everyone.
I was holding her back.
My fist slammed low on the heavy bag. Then I spun around and landed blow after blow with my feet.
There was something incredibly selfish inside of me that just wanted her all to myself. I wanted to take her away and hide her with me, and me alone, so I wouldn’t have to share her with anyone. I had absolutely no desire to go out for both the first and last time with a bunch of people I would likely never see again. I’d never been to a party, and I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t even want to know what to expect.
It wasn’t right to make Mayra stay with me when she should be having fun with her friends, but I knew she wouldn’t go without me. What about when we went to college, and she wanted to go out and meet people, and I didn’t? Was I going to hold her back then, too? What about after college graduation? Would I keep her from getting a great job because I didn’t want to move to wherever she got an offer?
I couldn’t do that to her.
My arms ached, but I kept punching.