The box slips from my grasp the moment I walk through the doorway. It drops to the ground and the clunk echoes around the cavernous space. I bite my lip to fight the groan.

How can a human being actually live here?

Dad's flat is above his gym. The entire space mirrors the layout of the floor below. Red brick walls, and polished wooden floors, but that's the end of any personality or sign that this is space a person calls home.

A kitchen lines the wall at the back with more empty takeaway boxes than appliances and a couple of doors lead to what I'm praying contains more than one bathroom. A pair of faded leather sofas and a coffee table straight from Ikea look tiny in the centre of the vacant room. Only the enormous TV hanging from the wall looks chosen with any care.

There are no decorations apart from one wall where a cluster of photos hang in plastic frames. I know he's recently nailed in the photos because there's brick dust on the wooden floor. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The taste of stale takeaway food hitting the back of my throat makes me gag.

I'm counting the days till I'm back in Edinburgh. The Scottish weather never seemed so appealing.

Dad pants as he stumbles in behind me. Carrying more boxes than he can easily carry, clenching his jaw as his body shakes from the strain. He drops them as he walks through the door. Coughing to cover his breathlessness. I roll my eyes and don't hide my disdain at the fragility of the male ego.

"So... it's probably not what you're used to," he utters between forced coughs. "Your mum always had good taste as well as your grandparents' money..."

I glare at him, and he swears under his breath, regretting his words.

"They might not have been the best example of humanity, but at least they were there." For a moment we just scowl at each other, until finally he shakes his head and wipes the sweat from his forehead.

"There's a lot you don't know, Cassie. This is the worst of circumstances, I know, but I hope you can be mature enough to give me a chance."

I say nothing. Fuck maturity, I just want to go home.

He sighs. "Your room is through there. I bought a few things to help you get settled. I'll head down and get the rest of the boxes." He stomps away, leaving me there in that hollow, lifeless place.

I ignore my quivering bottom lip and the lump growing in my throat and walk over to the photo wall. They're all photos of me and Mum—Dad isn't in any of them. Me in my first tutu, me dancing on a lit stage, Mum on a beach when she wasn't much older than me.

I step closer, my eyes lingering on the photo. Mum is beaming at the camera, completely unaware of how little time she had left. Was there a sign in her serene expression that one day she'd go to sleep and just not wake up? A whole life now locked away in cheap frames, just part of the furniture like coffee stains on a table?

I have never felt so alone in my whole life.

***

The light of the television flickers against the dark walls. I'm sitting cross-legged on the cold wooden floor. Exhaustion was weighing me down, but I couldn't sleep—not in a strange bare room, with unfamiliar smells and odd sounds. And Kyle blowing up my phone trying to determine where I am.

Well, fuck him. I'm sure the teen is keeping his bed warm even if I'm not. I'm sitting wrapped in my quilt in the front room. Since I couldn't sleep, I did what I always do—I got to work.

I've been watching clips of the fight on YouTube and studying it for the past hour. My sluggish brain isn't processing much, but I understand two things so far. The first—I really know nothing about boxing. The commentators, debating animatedly about every move Xander and Daniel made, are basically speaking another language. The second—Daniel really was slow. Or at least he was compared to Xander.

Xander moved with a speed and grace most dancers I trained with would kill for. Despite his large body, which is all inconveniently distracting toned muscle and hypnotic ink, he moved like he was weightless. What Daniel lacked was control. He was so focused on making contact he was practically chasing Xander around the ring, leaving him exhausted after a couple of rounds. I could see it on his face. The spark dimmed in his eyes as Xander's green eyes blazed —he knew he'd won long before the final round.

"You could have given yourself at least a night," Dad grumbles as he stumbles into the room from the doorway. He yawns loudly and runs his hand through his messy hair. A scraggly dressing gown is hanging from his shoulders. The light of the screen flashes across his features, making the shadows sink deeper into the lines on his face.

"I couldn't sleep. Thought I'd make a head start."

Dad slumps onto the sofa behind me which whines in protest.

"I don't know what you want me to do here. I know nothing about any of this." I uncurl my stiff legs, stretching and wiggling my toes.

"I told you. Boxing is my job. Your job is to teach him ballet."

I run my hand over my forehead, groaning loudly. The clip moves onto another, but I know straight away it's a different fight. The grainy video states "Kane versus Rose" in angry red text across the bottom of the screen—my dad versus Xander's. The sofa squeals as Dad snaps upright.

"Cassie, turn it off."

I ignore him, leaning back against the base of the sofa as the fight starts. Xander's dad looks nothing like him. He's pasty-skinned, fair-haired, and with a body that makes me think of a bulldog rather than the sleek but powerful build of his son. The way his eyes gleam, even through the lousy twenty-year-old video, is pure Xander, though.

I would never have recognised the other young man in the ring with him. Only the rose tattoos and name sewn into shorts reveal it's Dad. A chill creeps up my spine. Time hasn't been kind.

"I said turn it off!" he barks, and I hear the warning in his voice. I turn, see the light of the screen flashing across his pale face, the blood having drained away. My stomach clenches and I pat the floor, searching for the remote.

"Cassie!" His voice is desperate. He drops off the sofa, searching the floor along with me. The cry that calls out from the TV freezes me to the spot, my eyes fixed on the screen. Dad is rolling on the floor of the ring, holding his head, screaming unnaturally at the top of his lungs. Kane is arguing with the referee from the corner, shaking his head as his lips twitch with nightmarish amusement. Then Dad's body jerks unnaturally, the white of his eyes flashing with fear.

I feel sick.

The screen turns black. Dad is staring at me, panting hard. He throws the remote down on the floor, where it skids across the wood. He clenches his jaw hard enough to snap teeth.

"I told you to turn it off!" he rumbles. I flinch, backing away, and his body shrinks before my eyes. He leans back against the sofa, breathing hard.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." he whispers. His voice cracking, his fists clenching and unclenching on the floor.

"I knew you'd got hurt in a fight. I'd read bits about it, but that was..."

"Kane was an animal. I should never have got in the ring with him. It destroyed my career. The only thing I knew how to do was fight. Only thing I was good for, and he took it away from me."

"What happened?"

He sighs, running his hand across his now shimmering forehead. He closes his eyes. I can see the pain of the memories pass through him as his lips twitch.

"Three weeks in a coma, a brain bleed, a plate holding my skull together. And another year before I was even remotely close to being me again. And I've never stepped a foot back in the ring again." He glances over at me, his expression loaded but the meaning lost on me.

My anger has always been a comfort. It protected me from the hurt that came with feeling discarded, of feeling left behind. But it's hard not to feel something shift. However hard I want to fight it. Need to fight it. It's impossible to see Dad like that and not feel something like sympathy.

"I've always felt scared. Terrified even, of something taking a dance away from me. It only takes one moment to completely change the direction of your life."

Mum's unmoving body flashes before my eyes, but I brush it aside.

Dad exhales. His hand running over his stubble. "You think when you walk into the ring you know the risk you're taking but... living it. Now that's something different. I'm a horror story, a cautionary tale they talk about in changing rooms and pubs." He chuckles bitterly.

"But you still train others to do it."

He nods.

"It's all I know. It's the world I belong to. Daniel is a next generation winner. I discovered him myself and I've been training him since he was fifteen. I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be there when he lifts that belt in a few years."

I hear the words he doesn't say. He doesn't want Daniel to win—he needs him to. And not just for the money.

"So that's why you hate Xander?"

Dad snorts but doesn't quite meet my eyes.

"I don't hate Xander. I can just tell how much like his dad he is. Did he tell you he threw a punch at Daniel a week before the first fight? He could have caused some proper damage, Cassie. And maybe that's what he wanted. All boxers have a complicated relationship with violence. Most of us use boxing to channel that into something good. But some just like to fight. Some just like to cause pain. That's how it is. And I'm old enough and been around long enough to know which is which."

Dad groans and pulls himself up. Even in the faint light, I can see some of the colour has returned to his face.

"This is going to be a long summer. Go to bed. Get some sleep." Yawning, he walks away. As he reaches the door, he stops. Glancing over his shoulder at me.

"Cassie... I mean it. Keep away from Kane, OK?"

I stare at him, his hard gaze pressing into me. Then I laugh.

"You know what I want. I have no interest in Xander other than how Daniel can beat him."

He smiles and slips through the doorway. It's only after he's gone I realise how uncomfortable those words feel in my mouth. They taste like a lie.