Never Truth

30

Nico eventually drove me home, although neither of us ever touched our cake. As I lay in bed that night, I replayed the hour we spent together countless times in my head, a broad smile plastered to my face. I pictured future dates and promised intimacies in my dreams that night, unaware that my imagination would be the only place I would experience those things with Nico. He never showed at school the next day, or the day after. It wasn’t until four days later that he let me know he was alive. The same day he shattered my heart. OceanofPDF.com I’d never been particularly rash. No doubt that was the assumption when people learned I was a boxer, but it wasn’t the case. I’d always prided myself on not being impulsive. My dad was impulsive and undisciplined. He kept our family buried in debt and poised for failure. I refused to be like my father. Years ago, when I made the decision to leave Sofia, it wasn’t something I took lightly. I wasn’t given a lot of time to make the decision, but I took each minute I was given. I carefully weighed my options and attempted to decide based on facts and logic without the muddled haze of emotion blurring my thoughts. Now, I’d come back full circle and had to decide all over again what to do about Sofia. Did I guard her from a distance and allow her to push me away or try to fix things between us and make a go at a real relationship, despite the dangers it entailed? Circumstances had changed since we were kids, but the situation felt just as difficult to navigate. This time around, I wasn’t so convinced it was wise to exclude emotion from the equation. However, if I allowed my feelings to have a vote, it complicated everything. Once you let emotion in the door, it becomes tyrannical and demands full rein of the place. Balance was tricky. I’d gone the route of pure logic before, and it hadn’t ended well for either of us. It made sense to do what I wanted this time, rather than what I thought I should do, but it could go just as poorly, if not worse. The uncertainty and indecision pissed me off, even after spending the morning pounding the heavy bag at Joe’s. I was almost out of energy and no closer to an answer. “That bag owe you money?” I turned to find Tony walking up carrying a gym bag. I hadn’t seen him since the night at the bar when I’d had to cover his tab to make up for the jab to the face. Things with guys were so much easier. You f****d up, you bought the guy some drinks, and all was forgiven. Yet nothing on God’s green earth would buy my way back into Sofia’s good graces. “I wish it were that simple,” I grumbled as I removed the gloves from my hands. “Nothing like girl trouble to complicate life. I take it things with Sofia haven’t been a walk in the park?” “Maybe if that park was filled with landmines and everyone was decked out in camo.” “s**t, man. What happened?” I glanced around and closed the distance between us. “She knows about Enzo. She’s always known.” His eyes widened in surprise. “How the hell did that happen?” “Saw her brother get killed and never told anyone.” Tony let out a low whistle. “Jesus. You gonna tell Enzo?” I ground my teeth tightly together as I took a deep breath. “She made me promise not to.” “Fuck.” “Yeah, but it gets better.” “No s**t?” “She figured out I work for him, and now she’s furious I didn’t tell her.” “She’s gotta know you couldn’t.” “She doesn’t see it that way,” I said in a defeated tone. “She’s still hurt that I left, even after I tried to explain that I did it to protect her.” Tony’s lips thinned. “Well, it was rough for her after that. Once you left, that b***h Brooke Britton made her life at school a living hell.” My stomach turned at the implication. “What the hell did she do?” “Guess she had her eye on you and blamed Sofia for you leaving. Used to pull all kinds of petty s**t—nothing major, though.” “Why the f**k are you just telling me this?” He lifted his hands placatingly. “Easy chief,” he said in warning. “You had enough on your plate, in case you forgot.” His tone was increasingly defensive as I targeted him with my anger. “You knew how much I cared about Sofia. You should have told me,” I ground out, grabbing my towel off a bench and attempting to cool down my temper. “It was only a few weeks, then she made some friend who put a stop to it.” I whipped around, taken aback by his words. “Made some friend? Who?” I tried to picture who she might have befriended in my absence but came up empty. She hardly talked to anyone other than me while we were together. “Some new kid who had transferred at the semester break. I think his name was Mikey or something.” A guy? She befriended a guy when I left? The image of her saddling up to some other guy, holding his hand through the halls and sharing stolen looks with him made my blood boil with a jealous rage. How close did she get with him? Did he take her virginity? I had to stop that train of thought before I vomited up whatever I had left in my stomach from breakfast. I wouldn’t have wanted her to suffer while I was gone, but it had never occurred to me that she might run straight into another guy’s arms. Was that how it had played out? Had she given any consideration to where I might have been before replacing me, or had her anger at what I’d done given her a clean conscience? When I left, I didn’t expect her to join a convent or anything, but I figured it would have taken at least a little time to get over me. Now, I wasn’t so sure. But what about the necklace? Was that a sign she still held feelings for me, or was I a hopeless fool? The questions were endless, stampeding through my brain and trampling all other thoughts. I turned to Tony, my eyes blazing. “I want to know everything.”