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I’d just been on a run.
The Rail Park was one of my favorite spots, but apparently, Ames had started to frequent there too.
When I’d spotted her, my heart had sped up, but when she mentioned Nina, it stopped.
Tears pricked at my eyes, a burning sensation I couldn’t ignore. This wasn’t the way I’d wanted to tell Ames about the past—if I did at all. However, the truth seemed to spill from my lips, beyond my control. My insides stretched like tallow, to the point they might snap. And my body had started to hum, like it always did before I careened over the edge into a breakdown.
I needed to reroute off this road, but when I met Ames’s quiet, steady gaze, I ended up pushing the gas instead.
Hot tears slid down my cheeks. “Nina has no problem with you being a lesbian?” I managed to push the words out, even though my chest throbbed. Fuck. This was one Band-Aid I hated to tear off because the wound had never fully healed.
Ames shook her head. “No, she was one of the first people I came out to.”
I clawed at my chest, unable to handle how my heart throbbed—fucking unbearable. The tears blurred my vision, but there was no way back, only forward. “When I came out, I lost my entire family.”
The day remained vivid in my memories, and I still couldn’t taste wintergreen gum without wanting to vomit.
How my hands had trembled when I’d approached Mom and Dad in the kitchen.
How Mom’s glass had slid from her hand and shattered onto the tile.
How Dad’s face had purpled with rage, his finger pointed toward the door.
The hollow sunlight not penetrating the icy numbness that had overtaken me when I’d driven my car to the closest park and bawled for hours. I’d stolen back in the middle of the night to pack whatever I could from my room—officially homeless.
“What do you mean?” Ames said slowly, her face pale. Her hands balled into fists, the knuckles white.
“Mom and Dad couldn’t have a lesbian for a daughter,” I spat out. The bitterness was as vibrant as if the betrayal had just happened, an acid burn inside me. “When I called Nina, she told me not to bother.”
Ames’s jaw dropped.
I swiped at my cheeks. Goddammit, those hateful tears needed to stop spilling. I’d cried so much over my family, and they didn’t deserve my tears any longer. My whole body tensed, waiting for Ames’s defense of her best friend, for her to tell me I had to be wrong, that Nina could never do that—even though she had.
Instead, Amelia wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me tight, like she tried to single-handedly keep my broken pieces together. The warmth of her embrace and how she buried her face in the crook of my neck—all of it overwhelmed me, and my tears slowed. I didn’t move, but with each second that passed, my muscles unclenched a little more.
“I hate that you went through that,” she murmured into my neck, wetness coming from her eyes. My heart thundered so loud it drowned out any noise, but I leaned into her embrace.
“After a few rough months in the suburbs, I ended up working at Knockout,” I said, the words sounding barren and hushed in the wake of the bomb I’d dropped. “Chuck helped me land on my feet and get situated in the city, and I’ve been here ever since.”
Ames gripped me a little tighter, her nails biting into my sides. The sting felt right, felt needed in the moment. I’d told this story before, but not to someone who knew me back then. My extended family had lost my number real fast, and Mom and Dad had cut me off. Same with Nina. Ugliness stirred in my gut at the unfairness, at how differently my own sister had treated Ames. At how fast Nina had abandoned me.
“I’d been wondering for so long,” Ames murmured into my neck. “One day, you vanished, and no one would fucking talk about it. I was just a kid, so it wasn’t like I could chase you down either.”
I clutched her even tighter. The knowledge that someone had cared, that someone had been looking for me, traveled deep to my core. That maybe I wasn’t so easy to discard.
“There were years,” I said, my voice trembling, “when I didn’t think anyone would even know if I died. No one at the funeral, nothing. After that, it took me a long time to trust again, to start letting people in.” My heart wrenched at the memory of the agony. I’d been a husk floating through the motions at work, having lost everything—my family, my future in MMA, my home.
Too many days, I’d considered oblivion.
Just walking into traffic to end the misery.
“Fuck.” Ames drew away from me. Her hands still circled me, but she moved back enough to lock her gaze with mine. “How could they do that to you?”
I shrugged. My cheeks were sticky with the tears that had thankfully stopped, and the breeze chilled my skin. However, Ames’s body was warm against mine, her fierce grip keeping me grounded, even as my numbed soul threatened to ice over. “That’s the question I’ve been asking for years.”
She trailed her fingertips along my cheeks, staring at me like I mattered, and my heart fucking tumbled headfirst.
I was unable to pull away from this magnetic force between us. Not sure if I even wanted to at this point. A need unfurled inside me, fresh, new, and stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. In the wake of those tears, of the confession, I found myself lighter. The heaviness that had weighed me down for so long dissipated, leaving this burning desire to just feel tonight.
