Page 116 of Forever We Fall

People are scared…of me.

I’m not the one who cracked someone’s skull.

I did turn a kid into a meat face, and I guess that’s more prominent than stitches hidden under hair and a thin crack only visible from an X-ray.

“Hey, man.” Miles juts his chin from a rack in the corner. “I tried to call you.”

“Cell’s dead.” I shrug.

“Want to borrow my charger?” He leans toward his gym bag.

“It’s crushed dead.”

He stops and looks at me with furrowed brows. “What happened?”

My father disowned me, stopped paying the bill, and I threw it across the room in a fit of rage.

“Dropped it,” I lie.

“That sucks.” He has a bench positioned between the posts and racks the bar low. “Doesn’t matter. You’re just in time.”

He’s the only one who doesn’t run or cower in fear. Probably because he’s bigger than me and has a steroid habit that keeps most other people at arm’s length.

“Perfect.” I grab a band and work on loosening up my chest, shoulders, and lats. I’m tighter than tight and ready to move plates on plates.

“So?” He slides a plate on each end. “They kick you off?”

“No. Just can’t be captain,” I say quickly, hoping to get off the subject of anything to do with me.

“That’s cool.” He gets into position on the bench and reps out twenty.

We work in tandem, adding weights, lifting, and spotting when it gets heavy. We’re nearing our last set when laughter erupts from the far side of the room.

I add our last plates and glance behind me.

Arlo’s face is pulled into a gigantic smile. The people around him laugh too.

My heart freezes in my chest, along with my lungs.

I haven’t seen his smile in so fucking long. I want to paint a picture of it, so I’ll always remember how stunning it is.

Part of me is thrilled to see it. He deserves to be happy, even if I’m not the one to make him so.

The other part, the selfish part, can’t stand the sight of other people making him happy. Especially when they’re the ones who left him for dead that night.

His gaze wanders around the room, then lands on me. Shock plays over his features. For a fraction of a second, his smile grows, but then it falls away.

Like us.

It feels like Phillip rocked me in the stomach.

Arlo pulls his gaze away, and I’m left drifting in the ether.

Did I make the right decision?

If I hadn’t taken up for that kid, Arlo wouldn’t have taken up for me, and he wouldn’t have gotten attacked and triggered like nothing since his uncle.

“Ready, man?” Miles asks, lying back on the bench ready to lift the colossal weight and ready for me to spot him.

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