CHAPTER 33
MYLES
The incessant buzzing from my phone isn’t helping my headache. I know who it is, too, and it’s not the woman I’ve been avoiding. It’s her dickhead brother.
Beau started texting me three days ago and he hasn’t stopped since with messages, calls and voicemails. I don’t know what he wants since I gave him what he wanted. And I took the chicken’s way out, too. I’m not proud of myself but I couldn’t face Sheridan knowing how fucked up everything had become.
I wince again when my phone buzzes with Beau’s follow-up voicemail. One more vibration and I might throw it at the wall.
“I know you’re in pain,” Brad says delicately.
He has no idea.
“But I think you might need to stop with the fighting.”
I eye him from where I’m sitting on his sofa, head back to stop my nose from bleeding. Yeah. I’ve broken my nose. Again.
Well, someone else broke my nose for me. I didn’t realise how much pent up rage I had until I found Nash in the dodgy gym he trains at and unleashed myself on him.
Yep, I finally let the caged animal inside me loose, and we’ve been on a rampage ever since.
Like any good drug, the first hit felt good, and every punch after that felt even better until we were completely battered and bleeding in the middle of the sparring ring. And I’ve gone back time and time again knowing he’ll be there waiting to go. It’s never been as satisfying as that first fight, but I’ll keep going until he apologises.
I know for a fact that he isn’t talking to the other Bennetts. I think it’s a mixture of shame and pettiness, but I’ll continue pushing with him until he admits he was wrong. Knowing how stubborn he is, it might never happen.
He broke my phone in our first year of university and has still never admitted it was him or said he was sorry for doing it. As if it wasn’t the only thing of value I had to my name at the time.
It’s memories like that—his unbridled selfishness and ignorance—that keep my anger at a continual simmer until I see his stupid face.
“I will when he apologises,” I say to Brad, my voice nasally like a ventriloquist. I might’ve permanently damaged something up there.
“I don’t think he’s going to apologise, mate.” He scratches his cheek then pushes his glasses up his nose.
“Then I’ll keep fighting him.”
Brad sighs and leaves me alone again.
It’s been two weeks and I’ve had four bouts with Nash. This is the second time Brad has tried to talk me out of it.
I’ve been hiding out at his house so no one can find me. I can’t believe he hasn’t tattled on me to Brinsley quite honestly. I thought she’d be the first person he told when I turned up on his doorstep that Tuesday night after my suspension.
It’s been a slow downward spiral ever since then.
I appreciate Brad for that alone. I needed another friend in this town that isn’t completely linked to the Bennett family, and I found one. For all his dithering and debate over a woman who clearly doesn’t appreciate him—Emily the French teacher has been here one singular time since I’ve been crashing and was a walking red flag in that she incessantly flirted with me the whole time—Brad is a good bloke, and I’m glad I have him.
Twenty minutes later Brad is back with his car keys in hand, which I know means it’s time to go to the hospital. I haven’t needed to go since the night Nash punched me, but breaking your nose twice isn’t going to look great.
We’re at the hospital for hours, unsurprisingly, because AE is overrun with patients but distinctly lacking nurses and doctors. Fortunately, my nose stopped bleeding some time ago, so I don’t have to stare at the ceiling anymore.
When I’m finally seen, it’s by a pretty nurse who might have a penchant for men with bruises and broken noses from the way she flirts with me. I try not to be rude with an obvious dismissal, but how do I tell her I’ve just given up the only woman I want, and I’m in far too much pain to even be concerned about the advances of other women.
Finally, about four hours after we arrived, we get to leave. I realise I owe Brad a big something to say thank you for putting up with my fucked up self and plan to rectify that soon.
A mop of brown hair catches my attention as we’re passing through the waiting room on our way to the exit.
Sam is sitting by himself in a secluded corner quite clearly trying not to draw attention to himself. The sight is so startling that my shoes skid and squeak against the linoleum with my abrupt halt.
“What?” Brad asks cautiously when I grab his arm.
“That’s Sam.”
Brad’s gaze sweeps across the room to the dishevelled boy in the corner and widens with concern at the way he cradles his arm. “Do you think he’s by himself?”
It’s likely. Knowing what his home life is like with his foster family I wouldn’t be surprised if he is here alone.
“Probably.” I face Brad, determined. “I’m gonna stay with him. I don’t know the procedure for helping minors without an adult and I don’t want him to suffer. If you want to go, I get it. I can take him home.”
Brad shakes his head. “I’ll come back. I’ll just go shopping down the road while you wait.”
“Thanks, mate.” I pat his shoulder and head towards Sam.
He doesn’t notice me at first, too busy fiddling with his phone. I tentatively sit in the seat beside him, not oblivious to the way he curls in on himself. He’s playing some version of Candy Crush one-handed. He makes the wrong move and fails.
“Should’ve gone for the yellow,” I say with a nudge to his good arm. “You’d have passed.”
Sam’s eyes widen as he looks up at me. “How did you-,” he really looks at my face, “Holy shit, sir. What happened to you?”
I shrug, even though it hurts. “Got into a bit of a barney with someone.” I probably shouldn’t be passing off fist fights with disgruntled brothers as nothing but I’m more concerned about the boy. “What happened to you?”
He echoes my shrug. “Fell off my bike. I think my wrist is fucked.” He lifts it up and flinches at the effort.
“Fell off your bike, aye?” I challenge with a raised brow. I point at the bruises around his wrist. “What’s that then?”
“Nothing,” he mutters.
“Hmm. Did you also fall onto something hand-shaped when you fell off this bike?”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, Sam. I’m not stupid. You need out of that house.”
“I’m already out of the house.”
“What? Since when?”
“Last week. Shipped me off back to the care home just in time for Christmas.”
Fuckers.
Sam rubs his face and groans. “I thought I left something there, so I went back to check. Turned me away at the door and when I tried again the bastard shoved me off. I fell on my arm funny and when I got up it hurt like a bitch. So, I came here.”
“How did you even get here?”
“Bus.”
I sigh and lean forward on my knees. “Do the guardians at your care home know?”
“No. But it’s gonna be pretty hard to hide it.” He’s silent for a minute, and then, so quietly I nearly don’t hear him over the bustling waiting room racket, he asks, “Are you gonna tell anyone?”
“Do you want me to tell anyone?”
He hesitates, and then shakes his head. “No.”
“Then I won’t tell anyone,” I promise.
I get it, because I’ve been in his position, and I never wanted anyone to know either. It’s damaging to your pride as a young boy to have a bigger man knock you about.
“Why weren’t you at school last week?” He asks after a quiet few minutes.
“I’ve been temporarily suspended.”
“Over that video?” Sam seems baffled. “That’s not fair, you got punched, not the other way around!”
I can’t help my laugh. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”
“So, what happens? Do you get to come back?”
“Depends. I have to talk to the school board and tell them. Nash—the guy who hit me—will have to submit a statement, too. Then it will be up to them.”
“Can you get sacked?”
“Possibly,” I admit with a cringe. “Shirley—sorry, Mrs. Bennett—doesn’t think that’ll happen but it’s not great with it being my first year teaching and all. So, I could be.”
“That’s bullshit, sir.”
I smile at his defence of me. “Not much I can do about it.”
“What will you do if you get sacked?”
“Don’t know, to be quite honest. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, so I don’t have a backup plan. But I don’t think I can stay here. I’ll probably move to another city. Fresh start.”
“What about your lady?”
My smile saddens. “I, er, don’t think she’s technically my lady anymore.”
“She left you?!”
“Er, no, not quite.”
Sam’s gaze burns the side of my face for a long time. “Can I come with you? If you do go? I hope you don’t. Like, I hate art but you’re my favourite teacher easily.”
My face feels hot. And my eyes feel wet. Fucking hell. “Thanks, bud.”
“So, can I come with you?”
I hastily wipe my face before I embarrass myself. I never thought a kid would take to me like that. Growing up the way I did, it seems far-fetched that another boy would be in almost the exact same position and look up to me because of it. I’m no idol, no role model. I’ve spent the past two weeks willingly getting into fights, for crying out loud. But I’d be better for the sake of an impressionable kid, because I never had that person myself.
The very last thing I want Sam to become is the bad version of me.
My laughter is wet. “Sure, mate. You can come with me.”
* * *
It takes us an hour and a half more to be seen by someone, where they X-ray Sam’s wrist and arm and decide to put him in a cast up to his elbow. It’s midnight by the time we leave, and Sam’s phone has been going bananas with calls and texts.
Brad graciously takes us to the group home Sam has been cruelly returned to and lingers while I deposit him through the door.
“What happened to you?” A harried-looking woman in her early sixties gasps when she opens the house up.
“Broke my wrist.” He murmurs, looking sheepish while he toes the doormat.
“How on earth did you manage that, Sam? And who are you?” She turns a glare on me.
I realise that with my face the state it’s in, I probably should’ve let Brad take him in. Sam and I share a conspiratorial glance.
“He’s my teacher. And I fell off my bike.”
“This man is your teacher?” Her tone drips with disbelief, and honestly, I don’t blame her. I’m a mess.
“Yeah. He got jumped on his way home from the gym and saw me on his way out the hospital.” Sam shrugs.
His ability to lie easily is terrifying.
The woman sighs. “Fine. Whatever. Just text me next time or something.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Say goodbye and go to bed. I’m exhausted.” She says with a withering look and abandons us on the porch.
Sam turns to look at me with an awkward grin.
“Stay out of trouble, Sam,” I warn him. “But use that number I gave you if you ever need it. Hopefully I’ll be back in school by the end of Feb. I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
“Thanks, sir. And thanks for staying with me through that.”
“I’d be a rubbish adult if I didn’t. Just try not to make it a regular thing, alright?”
“Yeah, alright.”
I head back to the car as he dips inside and wait until all the lights are off before we pull off. I’m so tired that when we get back to Brad’s, I pass out on the sofa within seconds of being horizontal.