by Amity Cross
No. Not again.
“You can’t?” I asked, my voice sounding far away.
I don’t love you, Ren. I can’t love you. I’m already lost. Get the fuck out, and don’t come back. He’d said those words right before he’d forced me to run the night Hammer attacked me at Beat. Now, all they did was echo through my mind like a warning. They repeated over and over until all I could think about was the fact that he was going to leave me again. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? All the edginess, the distance, the secrets? Ash was going to abandon me again. That’s what the words ‘I can’t’ meant.
I was frozen to the spot with tears welling in my eyes, my throat tight with restrained emotion. Do something, Ren. Do something.
Swallowing hard, my lip curled into a sneer. Fuck him. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to break me, not this time.
Without a word, I spun on my heel and stalked across the mats, my hands beginning to shake. With each painful step, I felt a void of emptiness open between us, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t be in this place anymore. This home and life he’d built for us was beginning to look a lot like an elaborate lie. A motherfucking game at my expense.
“Ren!”
I heard his shout behind me as I bounded up the stairs. My footsteps echoed in the enclosed space like a replacement for my cold dead heart as I ran down the hall and shoved into the apartment. If I let it in and really felt what was happening, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to survive the pain. If this was really the end, then I doubted I’d ever be the same again even if I could get over him.
“Ren, stop.”
He’d chased after me, but it was already too late.
Grabbing my arm, he pulled me around to face him. “Ren.”
“Don’t,” I snapped, and he immediately let go. I couldn’t take this bullshit again. Not after everything we’d been through to get here.
Shoving away from him, I strode down the hall and into the bedroom. I couldn’t be here.
Not anymore.
Twelve
Ash
My father was right.
In that moment, when my hand was wrapped around Ren’s arm and her anger toward me was an inferno, a switch was flipped in my head. I was crossing a line I vowed never to toe.
I let her go, and she shoved me away, making a break for the bedroom.
Desperation began to creep through my veins, and I followed her. I needed to fix this. I was pissed at my dad, I was pissed at myself, and I was afraid of the things I was capable of, but I still needed her.
She was in the walk-in closet, pulling clothes off hangers and opening drawers, leaving things strewn all over the place. In the two seconds she’d been in here, it looked like a bomb had gone off, and I clutched the doorjamb with a trembling hand. She was shoving clothes haphazardly into her bag, not even slowing to fold them.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching her with mounting anxiety.
“What does it look like?” she snapped, not even glancing up at me.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’ve told you time and time again secrets are a deal breaker. That, downstairs…” She shook her head, clearly disappointed and hurt. “I remember that. You’ve done it to me before.”
The night Hammer attacked her. She thought I was going to leave her? I wasn’t, but it was inevitable that our road would lead us there if I couldn’t control the monster inside me. Selfishly, I still didn’t want her to go.
“No, no, no,” I wailed. “Ren, please.”
“Fucked if I let you do it to me again.” If she felt at least a little upset at the fact that I was here on the verge of delirium, she didn’t show it.
“Where are you going?” I asked, knowing she’d probably go straight to Beat.
She ignored my question and zipped up her bag, the rasp of the zipper sounding very final in the quiet room.
I reached out for her as she weaved past me, desperate to feel her skin against mine, and she jerked backward like I was poison.
“Don’t,” she hissed, holding her free hand in the air. Her gaze didn’t meet mine, and I felt the emptiness beginning to overwhelm me already.
“Ren, you can’t leave,” I pleaded.
“Then tell me what’s been going on.”
My chest tightened, and my throat felt thick. I couldn’t tell her the thing I feared the most, not after all that we’d seen. I couldn’t make this moment worse than it already was because she’d want to stay and then… What would happen then?
Her gaze finally met mine and it was laced with bitter disappointment. Slowly, her head moved from side to side, and she grimaced, a single tear sliding down her cheek. I ached to touch her, to make her stay, but if my father was right…
She swallowed hard and turned, practically running from the room. I followed her like a fool, but all I saw was her back as she left, and when the door slammed closed behind her, everything seemed to stop. Silence enveloped the apartment and my entire world in a way I never thought possible. It was always so full of her—my Ren—and now there was nothing.
My fingers began to ache, and I curled them into tight fists. I was meant to be strong for her, a pillar that she could lean on, not the other way around. I was a ticking time bomb.
Glancing out the corner of my eye, I saw the fuzzy outline of the photographs that I’d hung on the wall for her. The one of her and her dad, the one of her and her mum and the one of us together at the gym’s opening party.
I couldn’t bring myself to let her in, and this time, to save herself from the same bullshit I’d put her through before, she’d left me. She was gone.
Turning, I stared at the photo of her and me standing chest to chest at Pulse’s opening party. The giddy happiness I’d felt that night now replaced with nothing but shame. I was such a stupid fucking asshole. I kept breaking everything while trying to spare other people’s emotions. I was trying to save her from this, but I hadn’t counted on it being so painful. I’d been beaten up, punched in the head, broken bones, lost teeth, been knocked out cold, but none of that compared to this.
This was far worse.
With a cry, I grabbed the photo from the wall, tearing the hook from the plaster, and hurled the entire thing across the room. It smashed into the opposite wall, the glass shattering with a crack, and it fell to the floor with a bang that echoed into the void she’d left behind.
When it all came down to it, she was the only person in the entire world who had the power to break me completely. I might come back from an episode, but I’d never come back from her.
Glancing down at the side table, I opened the drawer, my hands shaking even more than they had been. The ring was still there, staring at me like I was the biggest moron in the world, and I began to ache at the realization that everything that had happened in the last day was one hundred percent real.
Holding the little black box in my hands, I cracked open the lid. Staring at the ring and all the tiny little diamonds that dusted across the band, I couldn’t feel anything but rage.
She’d left me, and the monster had surfaced…just like he’d said it would.
Maybe, just maybe…I had saved her after all.
Thirteen
Ren
Staring up at the celling, I sighed deeply like it would expel the ache in my soul.
The absence of Ash Fuller was something I’d thought I’d never have to live through again. Feeling it the first time around had almost broken me beyond repair, and I was determined not to let it happen again.
Lying in my bed in the ex-storage room upstairs at Beat, didn’t quite have the same effect as it usually did. It had been home for a long time, a safe place to come to if I needed it, but all I could see was him.
We’d fallen in love right here. He’d kissed me for the first time in this bed, he’d held me, talked to me, and trusted me. We’d also fought like hell with one another, two stubborn alphas, with total messes for lives, trying to push each other away and fit together
all at the same time.
When it was all said and done, love and trust wasn’t enough to keep us together. Was it ever going to be? I felt like I’d been living in a dream, a really sweet fucking dream, and now it was time to wake up.
Reality was bleak. Even bleaker than the days right after my mum passed. I’d filled the void she’d left behind with one-night stands and drinking, but I’d realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to fix anything, so I’d stopped that spiral before it got out of hand. That was the moment I’d pulled my finger out, fired up the computer and began my search for Dad.
The first time Ash left me, I filled the hole his absence left with fighting. The AUFC had been calling, and my Dad wanted to take me pro, so I’d gone along with it. Fighting to forget—replacing one type of pain with another. Ultimately, the big time wasn’t what I wanted and I’d gone back to fight at The Underground alongside Ash. That reconciliation had been difficult, but we’d gotten through it. Life was meant to be peachy after that, you know, the happily ever after and all. It was meant to be forever…or so I thought.
Ash had been the glue that had stuck my broken, jagged pieces together. Now that he was gone, everything was back to square one. What was I meant to do now? My entire life was in that gym in Abbotsford, and now I had nothing. He was the piece that completed my puzzle, but maybe I wasn’t his after all. If I was, then he’d be able to share with me whatever was eating him up.
Had I really known the real Ash Fuller? I’d asked myself that question so many times that it’d lost all meaning.
I closed my eyes, and the words he spoke to me right before I tasted his mouth for the first time filled my mind. Can I kiss you?
The door flew open, the light flicked on, and I sat up in bed with a gasp.
“Oh shit.”
Caleb looked as surprised at the fact that I was in bed as I was to see him. He hovered in the doorway, one hand on the light switch like he was stuck as to which way to flee.
“I didn’t know you were here,” he said sheepishly.
It didn’t escape me that his gaze dropped briefly to my breasts before he looked away.
“I didn’t plan on being here,” I replied, clutching the blanket against my chest.
“I was just…I need the top one.” He pointed to the pile of boxes in the corner of the room.
“I’ll bring it down for you in a sec,” I said, waving my hand to shoo him away. “Just let me get dressed.”
His eyes narrowed slightly at the notion of me getting changed, but I didn’t fuel the fire. He nodded once and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Shit, the last thing I needed was Caleb sniffing around if he knew that Ash and I were on the outs. He’d made himself perfectly clear that he was interested.
He was kinda cute in a boyish kind of way, but when I looked at him, I didn’t get the same zing that pinged through me when I looked at Ash. Shit, Ash.
The thought of him and I together opened up any cracks that had closed overnight with added heartache. Like pouring salt into the wound, an image of us downstairs on the mats appeared in my mind’s eye. Him over me, our reflection in the mirrors… Dropping my head into my hands, I rubbed my eyes, giving the vision a moment to disappear.
Then I got up, got dressed, and carried Caleb’s box downstairs.
The world didn’t wait for the broken hearted.
**
There was no way in hell I was going back to Pulse, and I didn’t expect Ash would be waiting for me to go to work, so I hung around Beat all day, hiding in the office.
Caleb didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell, and my phone didn’t ring once.
“It won’t ring the more you keep looking at it,” Caleb said as he sauntered into the office.
I grunted and tossed it onto the desk. It was late afternoon and things were beginning to wind down with the daytime crowd. There was one class tonight that began at six thirty, and then it would be nothing but dim lighting, a punching bag and me. There was no way I was going downstairs and hammering it out with eyes watching my every move. There’d be questions, and I definitely didn’t want questions. The only ones I could think of would result in me blubbering my eyes out.
“What’s all that about?” Caleb asked, nodding toward the storeroom.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
I glared up at him. “It looks like none of your business.”
He held up his hands in mock defense. “Hey, just seeing if you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.” I rolled my eyes. Like shit. He was wondering how much longer it would take to get between my legs.
“You going to help out with the class tonight, or are you just going to sulk up here all day?”
Asshole. “I’ll think about it.”
“Alright,” he said, backing out of the room. “I could do with a hand FYI.”
I nodded. Maybe I should. I could do with the distraction. “Sure, whatever.”
“Good. Six thirty.” He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t be late.”
Once he was gone, I picked up my phone again and brought it to life. The screen was still blank, and a wave of disappointment smacked into me. Unlocking it, I pressed Josie’s name. I had to talk to someone because this whole charade was eating me up inside. Seriously, it was like someone had poured sulphuric acid all over my heart.
After five rings, she answered.
“Hey, sexy,” she drawled.
“Can you talk?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a minute. Is everything okay?”
“Ash and I had a huge fight last night,” I began.
“Oh, shit. About the marriage thing?”
“Not quite,” I replied. “He went somewhere yesterday and didn’t come back until late. When I asked him about it, he came straight out and said he didn’t want to tell me what was going on…” I swallowed hard, tears beginning to well at the memory of the moment when he said that he couldn’t.
“Shit,” Josie hissed. She knew the score with us, the deal Ash and I had struck when we’d gotten back together.
“It was like it was happening all over again,” I murmured. “So, I left.”
“You left him?”
“I’m at Beat,” I said. “I’m okay, but…”
“You’re fucking heartbroken, Ren,” she exclaimed. “I can’t see your face, but I know you. Don’t bottle it up. Look what that did last time.”
“I just need some time,” I replied. “It’s all so… Everything’s so fucked up.”
“You don’t want to go back to Pulse and work it out?”
“He told me he couldn’t, Josie,” I exclaimed. “Outright. I asked him where he was and what was bothering him, and he said ‘I can’t’.”
“Do you think he could’ve been shopping? You know, for a ring?”
I froze, the thought of Ash asking me to marry him catching on the broken edges of my heart. I’d dismissed the idea so flippantly, then so did he when I brought it back up. I was so confused, but I wasn’t entirely sure that the marriage thing was the issue. Last night, he’d been so…defeated.
“Maybe you should talk to him now that the dust has settled and you’ve both had a good night’s sleep,” she went on when I didn’t reply to her insane question.
Good night’s sleep? Hardly. If I knew Ash as well as I thought I did, then he wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep at all.
“It’s just… Keeping a secret from me, something that’s obviously hurting him, is a deal breaker, Josie. Look at all the mess it made last time. He was gone six months and wasn’t coming back.”
“That’s why I think you need to talk to him,” she shot back. “Men are stupid, Ren. So fucking stupid it hurts.”
“So things are still on the outs with Hamish?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Nerve. Struck. “We’re talking about you and your epic love story here.”
“Do you think I could crash at your place?” I asked, not wanting to entertain
the idea of going back to Pulse or think about the fact that Ash was hiding a ring. “I just don’t want to be at Beat. It’s where…you know. I need some time to think about things.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
Beat was full of so many memories, but most of all, it was full of Ash’s and my love story. We fell in lust here, we fought, and we argued here. We’d fucked on the mats, in the showers, in the bedroom upstairs… Beat brought us together, and being here was too painful. We’d only busted up last night, but the last thing I wanted was a constant reminder of the most perfect man in the world keeping secrets from me. He’d made promises, and what good were those now?
“The spare key is in the pot plant,” Josie went on.
“In the pot plant?”
“Yeah,” she said like it was a no-brainer. “People always look under them, so I put it in it. You might have to dig a little.”
“Sometimes I really want to know how your brain is wired,” I said, feeling a little lighter.
She laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever said. “Trust me, you don’t want to go in there.”
“I’ll move over there tomorrow,” I said. “Thanks, Josie. I owe you one.”
“Are you sure you want to move out of Pulse? You are going back to him, right?”
I didn’t know the answer to that either, and it was the one thing I didn’t want to acknowledge. That this might be it for Ash and me. Maybe this time we wouldn’t be able to find one another in the darkness again, and the thought terrified me.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Josie prodded.
“Sure.”
There was a moment of silence before she asked, “Ren?”
“Yeah?” There was an imminent pearl of wisdom brewing, and I knew it was going to hurt.
“Are you sure leaving him was the best thing to do?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I really don’t know.”
Fourteen
Ren
The beginner’s boxing class that night didn’t do much to take my mind off things.