Through Lies and Heartache (6 page)

“
Don’t you start with me
about Ryan. You know he still won’t tell me what the hell happened
between the two of you. Just that I need to stay away from you,
also that you aren’t who I think you are and that you’re not safe
for me to be around. Liam what the hell happened?” she almost
pleads with me, I stand up and reach for her and hug her close
“Farfalla you have…” I start to say but am cut off when someone
clears their throat. When I look up I see Ryan standing in the door
way looking pissed as hell. I let out a sigh and hold Gracie a
little tighter, god I miss her.

Chapter Nine

Gracie

G
etting a hug from Liam
is nice I miss
him, he was like the big brother I never had. I wipe the tears from
my eyes before I look up and meet Ryan’s eyes. It breaks my heart
seeing so much hate between them. Knowing how close we used to be,
I never understood why Liam stopped coming around and anytime I ask
Ryan what happened or talk about Liam he either shuts down or snaps
some shit about me not knowing who he really is and I can’t trust
him, then he’ll change the subject. With a curse he shakes his head
and tells me we need to go. I hug Liam one last time before walking
away, I miss my best friends.

When Ryan gets in the car I tell him,
“Liam and I were paired together on a project and I don’t want to
hear it. Honestly, Ryan not one word. Unless you give me a damn
good reason like what happened, why he was sent away. I will be
doing this project with Liam and you’re going to back the hell off.
I miss him, shit I miss you, you haven’t been the same sense he
stopped coming around. I know you and I are close but I know there
are things you keep from me, for whatever reasons you have. But
know I’m not your sister and you’re not my dad, so I’m done with
this shit.” I know I’m rambling so I take a deep breath as I look
at my hands. I feel his finger under my chin as he tries to lift it
I fight him a little but can’t fight it when he whispers
“Farfalla.” causing me to look at him because he hasn’t called me
that since Liam stopped coming around, that’s when he started
calling me Piccolina.

With a sigh “I’m sorry ok? I know you
miss him, all of us together, I do too but I know you won’t listen
to me about staying away but know this, he is dangerous and you
need to be careful around him. Please always have your phone with
you when you’re with him.” He pleads with me. I’m tired of fighting
with him so I just nod my head at him and sit back looking out the
window as we head to my house. On the way he stops at a little hole
in the wall diner to get something to eat.

Ryan

“
Come on Gracie, I’m hungry
for a burger and fries plus we need to talk.”

“
I’m tired of fighting with
you please can we do this another day?”

“
Nope because we’re not
going to fight, just talk I promise.”

“
Ok fine but Liam is not up
for discussion.”

“
Understood.”

Heading in we seat ourselves its pretty
empty just a few old timers. She’s not going to be happy with what
we need to talk about. I got a call just after she walked away from
me at lunch. When the waitress comes over we order, after she’s
gone I take a deep breathe and look at her as I tell
her,

“
I have to train more, I
have a fight the last Saturday of every month for the next 4 maybe
6 months. The last two haven’t been confirmed.”

I hold my breath waiting for her to
explode but all she does is hang her head, shoulders drooping. When
she finally answers all she says is,

“
Is this why you aren’t
fighting me about being around Liam because you have fights to get
ready for and you won’t be able to be around as often.”

“
I want to fight you on Liam
but you said no fighting, so I’m not. I want like to run with you,
like we did this summer.”

“
As long as you don’t mind
some of them being at the track during Track practice that’s fine
plus we still need to figure out when we’ll do our projects for
school.”

She says as the waitress
drops off our drinks and she ignores Gracie when she asks if
there’s anything else we need and bends over giving me a nice view
down her shirt but I don’t look. I do look at her hand as she
settles it onto my arm to tell me the food will be done in just a
few short minutes. I look up in her eyes and tell
thanks and we’re good.
With that she walks away. Gracie heaves a sigh, looking at her
I tell her.

“
Well I figured we could do
them at lunch the same days we run at the track. What do you
think?”

I finally look down because she isn’t
saying anything and she won’t look at me. With a sigh I stir my
soda with my straw.

“
That should work how about
this week I’ll talk to coach and let him know our plan, he knows
how I train so it shouldn’t be a problem, I can’t believe he
suckered me into training.”

“
Why did he even have to
sucker you in? Why didn’t you just try out, you knew you would have
made the team, plus you love to run. So what gives?” The waitress
brings our food over.

“
Can I get some Ranch?”
Gracie asks her but she’s too busy asking me if I need anything,
Gracie rolls her eyes, looking up at the waitress I ask “Can she
get some ranch?”

“
I don’t know I wanted to
take this year off and just worry about classes.”

“
Wait, were you going to run
at all this year? Not even for exercise?” I ask in complete wonder
of how she would do that because she’s a little narcissistic about
her running, always has been... She won’t look at me again, she’s
looking in her soda like a Madame would look into her Crystal ball.
Shaking her head she finally answers.

“
No I wasn’t going to run at
all this year.”

“
Why help me this summer if
you knew you were going to stop when school started?”

“
Shit, you really want to
talk about why I won’t run? How about we talk about our school
project.”

“
What is it Gracie, why
won’t you talk about this?”

She just shakes her head and finishes
eating, so I let it go and finish my food. I ask the waitress for
the check and when she brings the receipt back, I notice it has her
name and number on it. I just shake my head and leave it on the
table, Getting up offering Gracie my hand to help her up. Leading
her out to the car, she doesn’t say a word the entire time on the
way to her house.

Chapter Ten

Gracie

S
hit, I knew these questions
were
coming but I didn’t want to have to answer him. About a month
before school started, Ryan had to leave to train for a fight. I
don’t know anything about the fight accept that he left to travel
and train early where the fight was being held. I didn’t know where
he was going and not who he was fighting, believe me I tried to
find out because I wanted to watch it but it was never aired and
there was never any talk about it.

I try not to think about it now because
it makes me wonder how many of his other fights were like this last
one. How many more will there be? I quit running because I didn’t
want to help him train for fights I knew nothing about. Childish I
know, but I’ve known him my whole life, I would hate for him to get
hurt in something legal let alone something illegal.

On the way home I don’t say anything to
him, just before I get out I look at him “I quite running because I
don’t want to help you train for illegal fights. If I run you want
to run with me, if I don’t run I don’t train with you.” He has this
look of pure shock but you can see the gears turning because the
look is slipping to one of irritation. I hold up my hand to stop
him before he smarts off.

“
Look I have a lot of
homework, I’ll do a little looking into our research tonight, and I
know you have to go train with Beni. Don’t worry we’ll run a few
days a week, during track you. Your coach can plan your cardio days
and you can run with me those days and if they think you need more,
closer to the fights you can add more cardio, no worries. Just know
this, I don’t want to know anything about any fight you take on.
Night Ry.” I hurry and grab my bag off the floor and hightail it
out of there, before he can say anything. Head up the steps and
into the kitchen there’s a note on the counter

Figlia,

I was called into work
there’s money on the fridge to order food if you’d like

Love Mama

I let out a sigh I hate that she works
so much but I know we need it but also right this second I’m glad
that she’s at work. I’ve had a rough day and just want to do my
homework and crash, so I do just that. Over the next week, I do the
same, I go to school only talking to Ryan in class about our
projects, same with Liam I talk to him in class this week I ate
lunch in the Library doing my own research on my projects. I go
home eat, do my homework and go to bed. Mom’s been super busy with
this new case they have her on but we eat dinner every night
together, it’s nice to spend time together so we started watching
movies after dinner. I forgot how nice it was to have mom time,
this last two months for her has been hard because they gave her
more of a work load.

I do much the same thing for the next
three weeks and Coach wants to talk to me about training after
school today so at lunch I tell Ryan that if he wants to talk to
coach about him running with me during track after school then I’m
talking to him today.

Chapter Eleven

Ryan

I
t’s been a month since
school started
and a month since Gracie has said anything to me outside of class.
I’m headed to the gym to talk with Coach about me being able to run
with her a couple of days a week. I really need to work on my
cardio more, so I may be here three days a week. I had a fight this
last Saturday, I didn’t talk about it or running with Gracie
because it was a fight for my dad and these fights are… well they
aren’t televised and if you don’t know the right people, you don’t
know about them. This last fight my cardio wasn’t where it needed
to be it almost cost me the fight, so my coaches decided it would
be good to start with three days a week and train in the ring after
running here.

I see Gracie talking with Coach,
walking up to them I greet them,

“
Hey Coach, hey
Gracie.”

Gracie steps away with a wave. I watch
her walk away wondering why she won’t talk to me.

“
Hey Ryan, so Gracie was
just saying that you were wanting to run with her here during track
practice?”

“
Yeah she helped me a lot
over the summer getting my cardio up and I still need more work and
she’s the best. Her training methods seem to work better than what
my coaches have been trying this last month. So if it’s ok with you
I’d like to run with her here, I promise not to interfere with your
training I just need all the help I can get.”

“
I don’t mind, she usually
runs on her own and I know she already agreed so what days were you
thinking?”

“
Well this month I was
thinking Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Would that be ok? I may
need less some months and more in others.”

“
That’s fine. You want to
start today? Gracie will be running on her own, I’ll be working the
other kids a little differently today.”

“
Yeah that’s great I’ll go
get changed.”

I head to the locker room to change. I
know how this will go, she never talks during running not ever. I
head out to the field and spot her sitting in the grass away from
everyone else. Sitting down next to her I tell her

“
So I’ll be here Monday,
Wednesday and Friday’s that ok with you?”

“
Yeah you know the drill,
you need to pace then push.” With that she continues to stretch so
I do the same. After running I head to the gym to practice in the
ring. I feel like I’m dead on my feet, Gracie wouldn’t let me quit
until I hit five miles.

Chapter Twelve

Gracie

I
t’s been three weeks that
Ryan’s been
training with me, he said this week he needs to be here every day,
for some reason he’s not cutting it. I’ve been thinking of a way to
help him. He seemed to do better over the summer. We usually ran
trails, never ran on a track, so I asked coach if this week I could
run the trails with Ryan, he said he didn’t mind but I needed to
use my mile counter on my phone because it tracks everything, so
I’ll need to set it to trails instead of track.

Sense its Monday I see Ryan at lunch,
that’s we’ve been working on our project. I tell him that were
going to run trails this week instead of the track. He doesn’t
think it’ll help and worried about his fight this Saturday and not
being ready, I’m pretty sure this is what he needs but he also has
to believe in himself... I guess we can talk about it while we
stretch it’s not something I really want to get into.