Page 43 of Not Fooling Anyone

I stare at him. “I know.” But how the hell am I supposed to tell him what I watched my mom go through? Her lifelong struggle with addiction. Finally getting clean for a few months and then coming home to find her shooting up again. And especially how I last found her.

No. That’ll invite too many questions. Bring up too many painful memories. It’s better to keep it buried in the past.

“How am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on?”

“I never asked for help.”

We stare at each other, the group of guys at the big ring earlier loud in the echoing space as they finish up.

“Come on,” Ethan says. “You need the heavy bag.”

“What?” That’s not what I expected him to say.

“Punch it out.” He leads me to the oversized punching bags suspended from the ceiling beams. “If you can’t talk about it, you still need to get it out.”

I roll my eyes behind his back. “That doesn’t actually work.”

“Humor me, then. What could it hurt?”

My hands for one. My knuckles aren’t used to hitting anymore.

I sigh as he positions me in front of one, and I give the bag a half-hearted hit.

He crosses his arms. “You swung at me way harder than that.”

“Fine.”

I ready myself, shaking out my arms and bouncing on the balls of my feet, limbering up. The ritual of a decade ago comes back easier than I thought it would as I start out slowly, my muscles warming, and jab at the bag, the contact better than I expected.

“Did you quit boxing when your dad said you couldn’t come with him?” Ethan asks after a minute.

“Yeah.”

“Out of spite?”

“More like I was angry and didn’t want to be reminded.”

I punch the bag harder, that crestfallen sensation from ages ago returning, burning in my chest. Dad hadn’t even seemed to notice how important the idea had been to me, oblivious as usual.

And then he’d left again, like he always did, leaving me with her. She’d fake acting like a good mom whenever he came to visit, hoping he’d stick around this time, want to be a family again, but he’d given up on her long ago.

I guess I was lucky he came back around occasionally for me.

My glove connects with the bag with force, more memories returning. Mom screaming at me it was my fault Dad had left, making me swear never to tell him she was using, leaving me by myself when she went on binges with her friends.

Sitting at home praying she’d come back, terrified this would be the time something would happen, living in a constant state of fear and anxiety…

“Lexie.”

I turn to Ethan, surprised at the volume of his voice, and blink, finding moisture on my lashes. Oh my God, am I… crying?

I back up, bumping into another punching bag, his hands coming out to steady me.

“Hey, hey.” His hands slide from my shoulders to my back, bringing me into his chest, the scent of clean sweat mixed with whatever cologne he uses overtaking me. “Everything’s good. I didn’t mean to make you—” He cuts himself off before he can finish that statement. “I just wanted to know more about you. You don’t give me anything.”

One of his hands idly rubs my back, the action probably commonplace for most others, but for me has my body in sensory overload. I melt against him, weak again in the face of his touch, allowing myself to press my cheek to his hard chest.

“I’m sorry I fell apart in the lab today,” I whisper. “That wasn’t fair to you.”

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