For3ver Read Free Page B

but in such a small town nobody wanted to get into someone else's private family business. They sure as hell would spread the gossip, but no one would step into it. 
    That was one of the worst days of my life. I lost Ryley as my girlfriend and I lost my dog to a sadistic fuck that I swore I'd kill if he hurt my sister. I lost my trust in people and happiness was a rare gem in my house anymore after I realized just how much the world could hurt you. Gage was with me, the less I saw of Ryley, the more he started to talk to me, but we didn't talk about pointless kid things anymore. We talked about ways to get back at Rod; we talked about whose ass we were going to kick in school if they looked at us funny. We talked about why you can't love a girl without getting yourself hurt and why I needed to let Ryley go. If I couldn't protect myself, I couldn't protect her.
     
    RYLEY
    That night he cried on my bedroom floor was the worst night I had ever experienced in my young life. Liam was my rock. He was my world. Seeing him fall apart like that broke something in me. 
    He was broken and I didn't know what to do to fix him. Gage didn't seem to care about much of what happened to his brother in the aftermath, but I sure as hell tried everything I could to bring my best friend out of the dark. I tried doing the things we liked to do as kids, but he would just complain that we weren't kids anymore. I wanted to have that carefree childhood back.
    He finally told me what happened in his house, what happened that day to make him crawl in my bedroom window one final time, covered in his dog's blood. I knew his mom wasn't in the picture, but he never talked about it much. I guess I just figured she was out of the picture completely. As a kid, there is so much about the adult world you just don't understand. Nor should you. 
    It'd been three years since that awful day that changed everything in our naive little worlds.  Liam and I had remained best friends all those years, my bracelet, torn and tattered, still hung on my wrist, but life was never the same. He just seemed to blank out at times, or he would have days where he wouldn't leave the house. I was worried for him, but I never gave up. I vowed that even if it took me the rest of my life, I would work on getting him back. We were supposed to be friends forever and always, no matter what, but I felt that slipping every day that passed. 
    Sure, boys tried to ask me out, but I always declined. Liam and I weren't together anymore, but I always held out hope that he would come around. Realize what he did was wrong and ask me out. Bobby Dylan, the school football quarterback, even asked me to prom that year and I turned him down. That didn't make me too popular with the cheerleaders, but I didn't care. They could go screw themselves. Bobby Dylan was a jerk who made fun of Liam. Anyone who made fun of my best friend wasn't good enough for me. 
    Liam and I were both born in early May, and as a joint birthday celebration, I had planned on throwing a surprise party for him. We were finally going to be sixteen! My parents took pity on both of the boys after everything happened with their mom, so when I threw out the idea of a surprise party, my mom was ecstatic.
      "Ry, where do you want these balloons?" Gage asked as he ran up the front stairs to get them inside before Liam looked across our lawns and saw what we were doing. 
      "Hey, Gage, bring them up to my room. I'll store them there until it's party time."
    He saluted me and headed upstairs with a huge group of balloons. I laughed to myself. Gage Porter was definitely not hurting in the girlfriend department. He was so attentive to the needs of every girl around him; I could easily understand why girls were throwing themselves at him. Maybe it was just how Gage treated all of his female friends, but when we got into high school he'd started giving me more attention than he did when we were younger. It was like when Liam stepped into