Hisface pinched. He still didn’t look at me. “I’m not proud of it,” he muttered. “You’d be surprised what people will do during the dead of night, in the middle of nowhere, when they’re bored…or needing something to blow off steam.”
Something in my chest cracked. “Why would you go looking for something like that?” Most of me didn’t want the answer, but maybe I needed it.
He shook his head. “The details aren’t that important.”
I scoffed. “Of course they are.”
He finally glanced at me then from the corner of his eyes. His chest deflated with a long breath.
“I started because of Ash,” he said, slowly. “When you first left, I started keeping an eye on him when I could. I never went to your house or anything, but sometimes I’d give him a ride to or from school. He was young, and reckless, and pissed at the world.”
He licked his dry lips. “One time I was out late and caught a glimpse of him walking at night. I didn’t have time to follow him then, but I thought it was strange. He was sixteen at this point, but I don’t think he was allowed to have a car.” He shook his head, like he was shaking away the memory. “I wanted to keep him out of trouble, so the next time I saw him out that late, I followed him.”
My eyes widened in horror. “He was—fighting?”
Fox stilled. “He was in deep. That night was bad for him. I had to step in and finish the fight, but he wasn’t in good shape.”
This was my fault. All my fault. I’d left Ash. I’d left them both.
Fox shifted his gaze back toward the ceiling, but it didn’t hide the pain.
“But I couldn’t save him,” he breathed. “And then, I stopped trying.”
“What do you mean?” I balled my shaking hands into fists.
“After the first night, I went to more. I told myself it was to keep Ash safe.” His voice trembled. “But I started fighting regularly. Even when Ash was inconsistent, I still went. There was almost a year where he didn’t show up at all, and I never checked in with him. I was too preoccupied with my own demons.”
He cleared his throat, like he was trying to steady his voice. “The truth was, after you left, and then after what happened to Thea… I was angry. I was hurting, and I didn’t know what to do with any of it. So, I fought. I bled. It made everything else go quiet. I did it for years.”
My vision blurred. I covered my mouth, suddenly nauseous. “Oh, Fox.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I didn’t care if I got hurt,” he admitted. “Sometimes, I wanted to.”
My stomach twisted violently.
“You could have died.”
His expression didn’t change. It gutted me, his quiet acceptance of it.
“It was usually nothing that serious.” His fingers absently brushed over the scar on his ribs. “But I got kicked straight into a steel railing. Broke a rib clean through. I managed to call August and he got me to the hospital, but it wasn’t pretty.”
I pressed a hand to my chest. I couldn’t breathe.
“I quit after that,” he said, softer now. “I couldn’t hide what I was doing anymore, and it crushed my family—there are few times I’d seen August scared and the moment he saw me that night was one of them. I couldn’t keep doing that to them, or to myself.”
Tears were falling before I even realized they’d started. “I’m so sorry,” I choked out. “I—this is my fault.”
He frowned, looking over at me again. “Skye—”
“No, don’t.” I shook my head, burying my face in his chest. “I left. I left Ash, and you tried to take care of him. I abandoned both of you and—God, you could’ve died and I never would’ve known.”
“Skye, stop—”
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I sobbed. “I thought you’d be better off, but everything I did hurt the people I love the most.”
He sat up, reaching for me, but I flinched back.
Looking at him—at the scar on his ribs and the pain in his eyes—I felt like a failure. Like everything I’d built in my life meant nothing, because the people I loved most were bleeding in the rubble I left behind.
