The Right Moves - The Game Book 3 by Emma Hart

storm cloud weighed down with inches upon inches of torrential rain.
    “Do you … Do you know about Pearce?”
    I nod.
    “Shit.” She smacks the table. “How did you find out?”
    “Jake. I saw him a few days ago and he told me.”
    “Asshole!” She snaps her jaw together. “I told him to keep his sorry ass out of it. Shit, Abbi. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you what happened. I didn’t want to say it over the phone, and then you were leaving that place and I didn’t want to push you back. I was gonna tell you this weekend.”
    I shrug. “Hey, it’s okay. I had to find out sometime, right? I don’t think I care, if I’m honest. I was scared to see him again, so finding out I won’t be kind of makes it better. Makes it easier to be home. Last week I was scared I’d run into him every time I turned a corner or walked into a store, but now I’m not. I feel kind of … freer. Like I honestly know he can’t hurt me anymore. I knew it before, but I really do believe it now.”
    Maddie picks at her cupcake and chews, deep in her thoughts. “I don’t know if I care. I mean, okay, obviously I care a bit. He is my brother; an asshole brother, but my brother all the same. I don’t want him to be there, but a part of me can’t help but think he deserves it. After what he did to you, and then deciding to deal … How fucking stupid could he be?” She shakes her hair out. “He made those choices and now it’s costing him fifteen years of his life. After everything Mom taught us, he went and did it all anyway. She’d be so disappointed if she could see him now, and I’m damn glad she can’t.”
    I lean forward and take her hand. She squeezes my fingers.
    “I’m okay,” she says with a sniff.
    “Mads, it’s okay to be upset he’s in prison. He’s still your brother, and he wasn’t an asshole until he got to high school.”
    “The problem is, that’s the Pearce I remember. The non-dickhead one.”
    “You know what?” I look from my coffee to her. “I think that’s the same problem I had. I think I fell in love with the Pearce that threw water balloons at us, that stole your mom’s freshly baked cookies from the cooling rack and threw roc ks at the boys that bullied us.” My eyes travel to the window, and my heart clenches with the realization that what I’m saying is completely true. “I think I fell in love with the idea of the person he could be, not the person he is, and because of that I never truly saw him for what he was. I was wrapped up in a fairytale, but everyone knows fairytales aren’t real.”
    “My brother will always be an asshole, but that doesn’t mean fairytales don’t exist. Remember, every fairytale has a bad guy and a bad patch, b ut they all have a happy ending too. You had your bad patch, now you just have to wait for your happy ending.”
    I smile sadly at her hopeful face. “I don’t believe in happy endings, Maddie. Not anymore. I’m alive. That in itself is enough of a happy ending for me.”
     
    ~
     
    “Mom? Mom!”
    “Your leotard is in the dryer, your tights are on the back of your chair, and the new can of hairspray you asked for is in the bathroom.”
    I blink at my dad, hidden behind his newspaper. “Well, damn, Dad. When did you get a sex change?”
    He drops the paper an inch so I can see his eyes. “Funny, Abigail. Your mother gave me those instructions before she left for some coffee date with her friends.”
    “And you remembered? I’m impressed. Maybe you’re not as old as I thought you were.”
    The paper falls onto his lap, and he peers at me over the rims of his reading glasses. His lips are twitching, and I don’t try to hide the wide grin on my face as I pass into the kitchen.
    “She made me repeat it to her near twenty times . I thought I should say it as soon as I heard you, so I wouldn’t forget to tell you I had something to tell you,” he calls.
    I shut the fridge door and lean against the kitchen doorframe. “Wait, is it too