"Hello?" Pt. 1

Rocky

Partially unedited! Consider yourselves warned.

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"Oh, come on, Dan!" Samuel spat at me as he knocked his padded fists together aggressively. He stood over me, his eyes narrowed as he waited for me to get up off the canvas. "Stop being a pussy!"

I recoiled slightly as I heard that word drip from his lips, mainly because I hated the word but also because I understood the meaning behind it. It had nothing to do with the sparring session that we were having- not that it could be deemed a 'sparring' session any longer now that we've gone full mode into boxing- but it had more to do with what we'd been talking about seconds before his fist weighed down against my jaw.

Sophie.

"You know," Samuel continued, hopping from one foot to another. He was itching for a full blown fight for one reason or another and he was doing everything possible to get me riled up for it. Little did he know that he was going the right way about it the longer he spoke about Sophie. "She's a gorgeous girl. Long, slender legs that would look pretty good wrapped around my waist. Stunning blue eyes that I could stare into for days on end. And that pretty little mouth of hers... I bet she knows what she's doing there."

I saw red then. Springing back up onto my feet, I lunged forwards, anger clouding my vision as I lashed out at my brother. My fists rained down on him with precision, connecting with his jaw several times, before a short uppercut made Samuel spin where he stood. I heard him grunt as I threw the last punch, throwing himself against the ropes so that he didn't fall over. 

"Don't talk about her like that!" I warned him, pointing a gloved hand in his face. Taking a step back to put some much needed distance between us, I took in jagged breaths, trying to regain my long lost composure. We'd been at the gym for over an hour and so far, all we'd done is fight- both physically and verbally. Ever since we stepped inside the boxing ring, Samuel has been taunting me about Sophie and I finally had enough. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

"Me?" Samuel scoffed, taking off one of his gloves so that he could wipe the blood from his split lip. Brushing his sweat soaked hair from his face, he shook his head at me and sighed. "What the hell is the matter with you? Sophie Delaney is fucking perfect, you idiot, and somehow, you still managed to screw it all up!"

"She doesn't love me back!" I yelled at him. As soon as the words passed my lips, I heard a small giggle from the ringside bench. Turning my attention there, I see Nola's shoulders shaking as her lips break out into a wide smile, while Elias is stifling his own laughter. This past week, Nola and Elias have been hanging out a lot- Elias had even started to leave work early so he could pick Nola up from school- but from what I could gather, those two are trouble together. "Nola, you shouldn't laugh when people swear in front of you. And Samuel?" I turn back to my brother, levelling a scornful look upon him. "Don't swear in front of children."

"But I was laughing at you," Nola said from behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see her bright blue eyes shining under the lights in the gym, while her blonde hair was like a golden crown around her face. She wore a pink and blue spotted dress, a pair of white Converse shoes on her feet. She looked like her mother a lot, but her personality was definitely Elias' contribution to the gene pool. "Sophie does love you. You should have seen her on Saturday, Uncle Dan. She was really upset but tried hard to hide it under her smiles."

That was the thing about Sophie Clément- she's good at hiding things. I thought that I was able to see passed that, and maybe for a brief while, I could. She had let her guard down around me, allowed me to glimpse the real her, but I could never be sure if it was the real her that I saw. I think, because of all the hurt she's been through, she's built up all these walls and she's gotten lost in the maze of them all.