The girls don’t even try to hide it. Some gasp softly. Others smirk, twirling strands of hair around their fingers as they look me over. A few wink like we’re sharing a secret.
I don’t care much for attention—but I won’t pretend I’m unfamiliar with it either.
I notice the way women look at me when I enter a room. I’ve been asked out more times than I can count. I know I’m attractive. I just don’t let it get to my head.
I like women.
I just don’t make a habit of it.
When we left this town four years ago and moved to New York, trouble followed me everywhere. Or maybe I went looking for it. By the time I turned sixteen, I’d been kicked out of six schools.
Mom still looks at me sometimes like she’s trying to solve a puzzle she broke herself. She wonders where she failed. How her son turned into a delinquent.
I don’t have an answer for her.
All I knew back then was that I couldn’t breathe in my own skin. I hated who I was. Hated how weak I’d been. Hated that I’d been too afraid to fight back.
If I hadn’t been so timid…
If I hadn’t been so weak…
Hayes wouldn’t have hurt me.
That thought ate at me.
I wanted to hurt someone. Needed to bleed the anger out of my system. I didn’t care who got caught in the middle.
Then I met an older guy who showed me another way.
He taught me how to let the rage out without destroying myself—or anyone else. He introduced me to underground fighting.
And I took to it like I was born for it.
Soon enough, I became a name people whispered about in those circles. People paid to watch me fight. I didn’t care about the money. I cared about the release. The control. The silence in my head when my fists connected.
I came home bruised more nights than not. Mom worried. Asked questions I never answered.
But for the first time in years, I could breathe.
Or at least I thought I could.
Because sometime last year, Hayes Griffin started showing up in my thoughts again.
Uninvited. Unwanted.
I couldn’t stop remembering the night he kissed me. The way his hands felt on my skin. The look in his eyes when he did it. I told myself it was all a setup. A lie. A trap meant to humiliate me.
But some traitorous part of me still believed the rest of it was real.
Including the kiss.
I don’t know why I let myself think that. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was my mind trying to convince itself that what I felt back then wasn’t one-sided.
I was young. The feelings were foreign. Terrifying.
But just because I’m older now doesn’t mean they magically disappeared.
For a while, I was curious.
