AFTER OWEN LEAVES, the world collapses around me.
He lied to me.
He lied to me and he might die.
Someone knocks on my door. “Peyton? It’s Christian.”
“Go away.”
“I wanted to see if you were okay. Do you need anything?”
“Not from you.”
I walk into the bathroom and turn on the shower full blast. Maybe that will get rid of him. I don’t want to know why Christian and Cameron kept Owen’s condition a secret, or how much they know about it. The Twins should have told me.
The real question is why didn’t I figure it out myself?
How did I miss the signs?
Again.
The night I found Owen in the locker room after the semifinals, I should’ve realized he wasn’t telling me the whole story. Why didn’t I ask more questions?
What’s wrong with me? Is something inside me broken?
I’ve always relied on my instincts—on and off the field—and they’ve never led me astray. Until Reed.
Did he screw up more than just my knee?
And if he did, how do I fix it?
Suddenly, I’m panicked. I want somebody to tell me it’s not true. I almost call Lucia, but what would I say? I fell for another guy who was lying to me and I had no clue.
I can’t do it.
I curl up on the bed and listen to the voice mail from Dad that I saved on my phone. Hearing his voice makes me cry all over again, but it also reminds me that I’ll be okay.
After I listen to Dad’s message for the third time, I put my phone on the nightstand. Every few minutes it vibrates.
Owen alternates between calling and texting me. I let the calls go straight to voice mail and I don’t respond to his texts. But I still read them.
I screwed up. I’m sorry.
Please call me.
I want to explain.
I should’ve told you.
I’m an idiot. But I can’t lose you.
You mean so much to me.
I send Owen one text before I crawl under the covers and go to bed.
not enough for u to tell me the truth.
I hit send and turn off my phone.
* * *
At school the next day, I avoid Owen.
At the end of first period, I pretend to feel sick and I spend second period in the health room, which gets me out of English class. The Twins run interference, even though I’m barely speaking to them. After school, I skip PT.
Now I’m in my Tennessee bedroom, where I’ve been holed up for hours.
My cell phone rings, and I check the number before I answer. The list of people I’m not speaking to keeps growing.
It’s Grace.
“What’s up?”
“Promise you won’t hate me?” she asks. When a friend leads with that question, it’s never good.
“Why would I hate you?”
“Well…” She stalls. “I sort of told Owen that I’d give him a ride to the fight tonight. He cornered me after cheer practice and asked if you were okay. Then he hit me with all these questions: ‘Does Peyton hate me? Will she give me a chance to explain? Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?’ It was awful. I wanted to change the subject, so I asked if he was nervous about his big fight.”
The regional championship.
“Owen said he didn’t have a ride because his trainer was coming straight from UT. Maybe he’d take the bus or hitchhike. He looked so miserable. So I offered to give him a ride. He was going either way. I didn’t want him to go alone. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” But it’s not. If there’s something wrong with Owen’s heart, he probably shouldn’t be fighting at all.
“I have to pick up Owen and Tucker in thirty minutes. I just wanted to tell you before I left.”
“Come get me. I’m not letting you and Tucker go by yourselves. You’ve never been to an MMA fight.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re not even speaking to Owen.”
“And I’m not going to start now. Just pick me up.”
“Okay.” Grace hesitates. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
By the time I change and get downstairs, the Twins are already standing by the front door, wearing their letterman jackets.
“Are you two waiting for someone?” I ask.
“Grace is picking us all up,” Christian announces. “We’re coming, too.”
“What do you mean? How do you even know about this in the first place?”
“I know everything that happens with Grace,” Christian says.
Cam glares at him. “What he means is that Grace told me. I talked to her right after you did.”
“We’re not letting you two go to some wrestling match alone,” Christian says.
“It’s not a wrestling match. It’s an MMA championship fight.”
Christian waves me off. “Close enough.”
“What makes you think I want to be stuck in the car with you two?” I’m still hurt, and this is the most I’ve said to my cousins since they outed Owen.
“You probably don’t.” Christian keeps his eyes trained on the floor. “We’re just gonna have to keep telling you we’re sorry.”
“And we’ll try to find a way to make it up to you,” Cam adds.
“What if I still don’t want you to come?” I ask.
“We’re coming either way.” Christian’s mind is made up.
“Fine.” I sound like I’m in sixth grade again.
Grace honks, and the Twins follow me outside.
I pause by the front door when I realize Owen and Tucker are already in the car. Owen gets out and holds the passenger door open.
Christian heads straight for the front seat.
“Shotgun,” Cam says.
I catch up with them and settle the argument. “I’m sitting in the front.”
Christian and Cam pile into the back seat with Tucker, which doesn’t leave much room for Owen. But he squeezes back there, too. I feel him watching me, but I try to ignore it.
“Scoot over.” Cam elbows his brother.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Christian complains. “I’m bigger than you.”
“Don’t start that crap again,” Cam says. “You’re not bigger than me. You just take up more room. Maybe it’s your ego.”
“My ego? What are you talking about?” Christian snaps. The tension between the Twins is getting worse.
“How come the four of us are crammed back here when I have a truck?” Christian grumbles.
“I think you mean I have a truck,” Cam says.
Christian waves him off. “Whatever. Same difference.”
“If I remember correctly, you two weren’t supposed to be coming,” Grace points out. “So if you want a ride, don’t complain.”
“Peyton, will you talk to me?” Owen pleads.
“I don’t have anything to say.”
“But I do. I’m sorry for lying. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Christian clears his throat. “It feels like I’m watching a sappy scene in a chick flick, but I can’t pretend to go to the bathroom so I can hang in the lobby until it’s over.”
“Nobody gives a shit what you think, Christian,” Cam barks. “Everything isn’t about you. They’re trying to talk.”
“We’re not talking.” I don’t want to be in the car with Owen any more than I want to watch him fight. But I’m also terrified that the fight could trigger another attack.
What would’ve happened if I hadn’t been there the night I found him in the locker room struggling to breathe? Or if I had waited in the car fifteen minutes longer before I decided to go inside and look for him?
I can ignore Owen, but I can’t turn off my feelings for him.
I stare out the window while Grace drives, and the Twins bicker and complain about the radio station—and each other. Tucker talks to Grace and Owen and I stay quiet.
We finally make it to the arena. This building is a lot bigger than the one where the semifinals were held. When Grace parks, I’m the first one out of the car.
As I walk toward the main entrance, I feel Owen watching me. I’m so aware of him, even now. Part of me wants to forgive him, but it would only make things harder.
Now that I know about Owen’s heart, nothing can happen between us. I can’t let myself fall for a guy who’s putting his life at risk all the time. Losing my dad was hard enough. I can’t imagine losing a friend, or … I don’t even know what to call Owen.
Owen catches up with me. “Peyton. Can I talk to you for one second?”
I shake my head, keeping my back to him. “You need to concentrate on the fight tonight. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’ll always worry about you.” He’s next to me now.
Cutter and Lazarus are waiting for him by a side entrance.
Thank god.
It’s probably my only way out of this conversation.
“I’ll talk to you afterward,” Owen says, as if we were having a real conversation.
I keep my eyes on the door and keep walking.
Cam jogs up next to me. “You okay? Don’t lie.”
“No.” I sigh. “But it doesn’t matter.”
Cam opens the door for me. “Listen. I know Christian and I weren’t happy about the idea of you dating Owen, but it’s not because he’s a bad guy. You said you didn’t want to date a fighter, and—”
“He’s gonna die?” I cut in. “I’m quoting you.”
Cam pulls out his wallet as we walk up to the ticket window. “We just didn’t want to see you get hurt. But we shouldn’t have told you the way we did.”
“I think what you meant to say is that you shouldn’t have kept it secret from me.”
“Yeah. That too.” He crams some money under the window. “Five tickets, please.”
“Twenty-five bucks.” The woman counts the crinkled bills, then slides the tickets under the partition.
Christian, Grace, and Tucker catch up with us, but it’s too crowded for all of us to walk next to one another, so they fall in line behind Cam and me.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. But we gave Pop our word that we wouldn’t tell anyone,” Cam says.
“Are you saying Hawk told you to lie to me?” I can’t handle another betrayal.
“Not just to you. To everybody.”
“I don’t understand.”
Cam glances back at Grace and Tucker and lowers his voice. “Owen’s dad was a piece of shit. He made your ex seem like a Boy Scout. After Owen was diagnosed, I guess things got really bad between his parents. Pop and Owen’s mom were friends in high school, so she came over to ask him for advice.
“Christian and I were eavesdropping and we overheard Owen’s mom talking about his heart condition. Later on, when we fessed up to Pop, he lost it. He made us give him our word that we wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“So Owen didn’t tell you himself?” I ask.
“No way. Owen was mad when he found out we knew. And we never told anyone—not even Grace.”
Maybe Owen was telling the truth when he said that I was the first person he’d ever wanted to tell.
“And I’m sorry you’re miserable,” Cam adds. “It seemed like Owen made you happy. So I guess I’m wondering if the fighter thing is such a big deal.”
I choke out a laugh. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a big deal anymore. We’re done. You understand that, right? There’s no going back. He didn’t just keep his heart condition a secret from me. He lied to me about it. He told me he had asthma.”
Cam maneuvers halfway in front of me to shield me from the crowd. “I don’t know why he lied, but it must be hard to have a condition that serious.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” I swallow hard. It feels like there’s always a knot in my throat. Everything about this situation sucks. After the nightmare with Reed, I thought something positive was finally happening in my life.
We enter the main arena. The cage is set up in the center of the room. Green rubber-coated chain-link encircles the octagon-shaped mat, rising up around it like walls, and then curving to form a dome. It reminds me of the enclosure for the birds of prey at the zoo.
This venue is larger and less run-down than the arena where the semifinals were held. It has newer seats, a fresh coat of paint on the walls, and concession stands that sell more than hot dogs and beer. But this place is packed and people are sweating, so it reeks as bad as the other arena. The majority of the spectators are men, drinking beer from plastic cups.
We find our seats. Tucker and Grace are excited because we’re sitting in the front row.
Grace points at the cage. “Those are Owen’s coaches inside the fence-thingy, right? You mentioned one of them was a woman.”
“The fenced-in area is called a cage or an octagon,” I say. “Cutter—the woman—is Owen’s head trainer, but Lazarus works with him, too. Tonight he’s here as Owen’s cutman.”
“What’s a cutman?” she asks.
“Like in boxing,” Tucker says.
“I don’t watch boxing.”
“A cutman fixes you up between rounds,” Tucker explains. “Keeps the swelling down if you get hit in the eye, and stops the bleeding if your face gets busted open so you can go another round. That kind of stuff.”
I’m relieved Tucker is doing the talking instead of me.
“If Owen’s trainers are in the cage does that mean the fight is about to start?” Grace asks.
“Yeah. In ten minutes if they start on time,” Tucker says.
“Why is Owen out here?” Cam nods at an archway on the opposite side of the cage that probably leads to the locker rooms. “Isn’t he supposed to wait for them to call him or something?”
“Technically no. That only happens in big-ticket fights. But he shouldn’t be wandering around ten minutes before a fight.”
Owen looks right at me, and he heads in my direction.
What is he thinking?
“I think he’s coming over here,” Grace says.
I get up to walk outside, and Owen picks up his pace.
“Peyton, wait.” He touches my arm, and I pull away.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask. “You’re supposed to be in the locker room getting ready for your fight. Not out here talking to me.”
Owen paces in front of me. “I can’t fight without talking to you first. There are things I need to tell you.”
“Whatever they are, they can wait. You have to get your head in the game.” Excelling in a sport requires mental and physical prep.
“You won’t take my calls and you dodged me all day at school. How am I supposed to explain if you won’t listen?”
I lower my voice. “Owen, this is a championship fight. You can’t do this. You’ve got to focus on the fight, or you could get hurt.”
“Don’t use my condition against me.”
“I’m not using it against you. I’m stating a fact. You shouldn’t be in the cage. But if you’re going to ignore your doctors’ advice, the least you could do is take it seriously.” I turn away. At this point, I’m a distraction. “Go back to the locker room. The fight is starting in a few minutes.”
“I don’t care about the fight,” he says.
“Of course you do. Or you wouldn’t have lied to everyone.”
Owen looks at me the same way he did the morning I saw him in the car with his mom—like he’s drowning and he wants me to save him. But I can’t, because I’m drowning too.
“That’s not why I lied,” he says. “You don’t know how hard it is. I’m a time bomb without a countdown clock. I have no idea what’s going to happen—or when. I just … I need you to understand.”
“Isn’t that sweet,” a familiar voice says, and my blood runs cold.
How did he find me?
Reed circles around from behind me, his attention focused on Owen. “But take my word for it, Peyton isn’t the most understanding girl out there.”
TJ and Billy stand behind Reed like they’re his bodyguards.
“Who the hell are you?” Owen demands.
Reed laughs. He looks worse than the last time I saw him. His skin is broken out along his jawline, and he’s sweating like he just finished fighting. I wonder how much dope he has in his system.
“Peyton didn’t tell you about me?” Reed tries to hide his irritation. “I’m her ex-boyfriend. Which makes you the rebound guy.”
Owen’s shoulders tense.
I want to intervene and say something, but my feet are stuck in quicksand again. The last time I was alone with Reed, he was standing at the top of the steps after he pushed me. I’ve imagined seeing him again, and it didn’t feel like this.
I know Reed won’t touch me in front of all these people, but somehow my fight-or-flight response didn’t get the memo.
“This is your ex?” Owen asks.
I try to respond, but all I can do is nod. I can’t find my voice.
“Everything okay?” Cam asks as he comes up beside me.
I’ve never been so glad to see him.
Christian, Grace, and Tucker are trailing behind him. When Grace sees me, she rushes over. “What’s wrong? You’re totally pale.”
“That’s him,” I whisper.
Her eyes flash to Reed and she stiffens next to me. “Oh my god. What’s he doing here?”
Realization hits me.
Reed didn’t come here looking for me.
“I’m fighting tonight, sweetheart,” Reed says. “It’s classic. Ex-boyfriend versus rebound guy.”
“Hold up,” Christian says. “This is the guy?”
Billy crosses his arms and squares his shoulders, and TJ leers at Grace.
“What guy?” Tucker whispers to Grace.
Reed tries to make eye contact with me. “So you’ve been telling everyone about me, Peyton? I guess you miss me more than I thought.” He has always been cocky, but not like this. I wonder if Tess’ big brother is still in there somewhere. I doubt it.
“Yeah. We heard all about you,” Cam says, his tone icy.
Owen moves closer to me. “What’s going on? Peyton, look at me.”
I shake my head.
“She’s fine,” Grace says, trying to cover for me.
“She’s not fine.” Owen reaches for me as if he’s going to pull me into the safety of his arms.
I want to say I’m fine, even though I’m not. But I can’t speak. If I start talking, I’ll have to interact with Reed, and this nightmare will be real.
Cam touches my arm. “Let’s go. You don’t need to talk to him.”
“Does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?” Owen asks.
Reed ignores Owen and looks at me. “It’s not too late to come back.”
TJ eyes Grace from where he’s standing beside Reed. “And you can bring your friend with you. She’s just my speed.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” Cam’s voice comes out as a growl, and before TJ has time to make a smart-ass comeback, Cameron tackles him, fists flying.
Reed smirks and steps out of the way.
“Cameron!” Grace shouts. “Stop!”
The ref sees TJ and Cam grappling on the floor and signals a huge man wearing a yellow EVENT SECURITY T-shirt.
Grace looks at Christian. “Do something!”
“I wouldn’t,” Billy warns.
Christian’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “Or what?”
One fight is bad enough. If Christian and Billy get into it, someone is definitely going to get hurt. But the man working event security shows up before one of them takes a swing.
TJ and Cam are jockeying for the upper hand, but on the ground TJ has the advantage.
The security guard grabs TJ by the shoulder and jerks him back as if he weighs nothing. Cam gets back on his feet and goes after TJ again. But the huge guy catches Cameron in a headlock. “You need to cut that shit out unless you wanna get hurt.”
“Let him go,” Christian says.
The giant of a man gives Christian a dismissive look. “I’ll let his ass go outside, ’cause they’re both out of here.” He keeps Cam in a headlock as he walks up the aisle, and he shoves TJ forward with his other hand.
“I’m going to make sure Cam is okay,” Grace says. She rushes up the aisle, and I’m left with Reed and Owen, who look like they want to tear each other apart; Christian and Billy, who are squaring off; and Tucker, who looks like he’s just trying to stay out of their way.
The ref walks over to the edge of the cage and calls out to Owen and Reed. “You two aren’t supposed to be out here. Get in your corners, unless you both want to be disqualified.”
I spot Reed’s trainer in the corner opposite Cutter, and he signals Reed.
“It was fun catching up,” Reed says, looking right at me. “We should do this again after the fight. We can celebrate my championship win.”
Billy laughs.
Owen’s posture has turned to stone. He might not know exactly what’s going on, but he knows something is wrong.
Reed notices Owen staring him down. “Why is he looking at me like I’m the bad guy, Peyton? Let me guess. You told them your little fairy tale about me pushing you down the stairs? Did someone actually believe you?”