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PROLOGUE
NOAH
When I was ten,my father took me to a therapist.
He said it was because I was different. That I was just hard to understand. That he and my mother didn’t know how to reach me.
I knew he was lying.
My parents took me to a therapist because they were scared of me. They feared me because they didn’t understand me.
I’ve never been like my brother or sister. There’s something wrong with me, deep, deep down in the shadowed crevice of my soul. Where there should have been light, there is darkness, a massive black pit of emptiness.
They didn’t understand why I lacked the glimmer you should have found in the eyes of a musically gifted young boy with a bright future ahead of him, and they never believed me when I tried to explain.
They chalked it up to some illness that must have festered in my brain, but they were wrong.
I held no light because I had given it to her. The moment I laid eyes on my golden girl, I tore myself open and handed her piece after piece of me until there was nothing left but that eerie darkness that scared my family.
It is because of the girl with the glossy brown hair I imagine wrapping my fists in and the pale, unblemished skin I want to decorate in bruises the shapes of my lips and fingertips.
The owner of the charred, bloody organ that beats like a kick drum in my chest at the mere idea of her existence. Tinsley Lowry is my obsession. The reason I’m still here, living a life that gives me no joy, no satisfaction.
She is happiness personified. Everything fucking good on this earth.
She is mine.
And after all these years, it’s time she knew what that means.
1
TINSLEY
“Do you want a ride home, sweetheart?”Dad asks, a soft but firm hand splayed across my back as we linger outside.
The empty building that’s going to be the third expansion of my dad’s gym franchise stands before us on a plot of prime real estate in West Toronto. The space above the doors where the Knockout Training sign will go is an empty space of dark brick, and the windows on either side of the doors are still boarded up.
“Thanks, but no, thanks. My walk home is the only time I get a chance alone now that you have me slaving around this place.”
“Slaving,” he echoes, blowing a raspberry. “My apologies, princess.”
“You could always let Hunter take over for you full-time already. At least it would be him busting my lady balls and not you.”
“You know, there are thousands of boxers who would love to have your dear old dad as one of their trainers. I’m kind of a big deal around these parts.”
“These parts? Have you started watching westerns again? I thought Mom hid all those from you after your last bender.”
“She tried. But it seems you got more than just your fantastic sense of humour from your mother.”
Our inability to keep a secret. We would make terrible politicians.
“Is that a compliment or an insult?” I ask.
“We’ll have to leave that one up to interpretation,” he teases, breaking away to lock the gym doors.
I stifle a laugh when the toe of his sneaker catches on a slight crack in the walkway—one that wasn’t there this morning—and he stumbles, curse after curse slipping out. He shoots me an exasperated look over his shoulder before shoving a hand through his floppy silver hair and then flipping me the bird.
“It won’t be so funny when it’s you tripping next time.”
