The Right Moves (The Game #3)(39)
Author: Emma Hart

They’re always there.

In the back of my mind, they start off almost completely silently, getting louder and louder every minute you ignore them until they’re screaming at you. Until their shouts and yells take over everything else, until the urges they support are the only thing you can focus on.

I focus on the Gilmore Girls, listening to their voices instead of the anxiety building in my body. Goddammit, where is Blake? I rock forward slightly and push my whole body weight into my hands to stop myself pulling them from under me. My eyes travel to the window where I can see the sun starting to illuminate the low-lying clouds as it begins its descent.

Descent. Rib to hip. Knee to Ankle. Ankle to toe.

I screw my eyes shut, shaking my head.

Descent. Eyes to feet. Fist to cheek. Cheek to floor.

And I can feel it pulling me under. A memory of my own creation, born of my own anxiety. I can feel the tug in my mind and the shake of my body as faint music replaces the television and Pearce’s hands replace mine.

“Pearce,” I’d begged him. “Please, let’s just go. You know Owen won’t ever give you what he owes you, not when you still owe his brother money.”

“It’s not even his real f**king brother, Abbi. You know that. Owen’s just a spineless little dick who hides behind him.”

“It doesn’t matter what Owen is. You know he won’t pay up!”

He grabbed my arm and slammed my back against the brick wall. Pain seared through me, but I bit my lip and hid my grimace.

“Gary isn’t here this weekend. Five minutes inside Owen’s house with him, and the ass**le will cough up the cash.”

“You don’t know that,” I whispered.

“You’re not stupid, Abbi. You know I’ll get my money.” His eyes burned into me, anger sparking deep in them. “Don’t you? You know I’ll get it.”

I said nothing. He pushed me further into the wall.

“Don’t you?!”

“Yes,” I replied quietly, turning my face away from him. “I know you will.”

“Good.” He released me without another word and stormed down the street towards Owen’s house. I followed him slowly, letting my feet drag against the floor. My arm throbbed where he grabbed me, and I was certain there was a scrape on my back from the rough brickwork of the wall. I put a hand to my arm and flinched.

And I hoped to God there wasn’t a hand print there. I could explain away a bruise if anyone saw it, but there was no explaining a hand print.

Loud knocks at the door pull me from my past, and my arm burns. I look down and see my hand wrapped around it in the same place Pearce bruised me. A handprint never came, but that wasn’t the worst injury that night. The worst one was the cut across my leg from the glass he threw.

I say worst, but it was both the worst and the best. It had stung me and numbed me at the same time. It had made it easier to take the verbal abuse he’d inevitably thrown at me like it was my fault Gary had cancelled his weekend away and given Pearce a black eye for his troubles.

“Abbi!” Blake yells over his knocks, reminding me he’s there.

I lower my hand from my arm and walk towards the front door. The whispers are there still, stronger, begging me to do the very thing I promised myself I wouldn’t. I stretch my fingers out, even digging my nails into my palms too tempting. Even the sting from that would be bad. Too much. Too tempting.

I open the door and look up at Blake. His hand pauses in mid-air and his eyes flit over my face, taking me in.

“What…” he says softly. “Oh, Abbi.”

I look at him, not saying a thing as he steps inside and shuts the door behind him. His hands frame my face, and he wipes away the tears falling down my face. I drop my eyes, hiding them although he’ll never know the reason I’m crying and shaking.

“Talk to me,” he whispers, pulling me into him. I shake my head against him, my arms hanging limply by my sides. His touch quiets the whispers but it’s not enough. They’re still there.

“I think I need to be alone tonight.” I pry myself from his arms and wander into my kitchen.

“Hell no. You’re not getting rid of me that bloody easily.” His footsteps echo as he follows me.

I cross my arms and look out the window, my back to him. “I think I need to be alone,” I repeat.

“I’m not even thinking about leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, if you can call crying and shaking like f**k “fine!””

I flinch at the volume of his voice. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Abbi.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I do. I want to know what’s got you so upset. What’s hurting you so much?”

“I said…” I grit my teeth. “No!”

“Goddammit, Abs!” he shouts. “Don’t push me away like this! Let me help you!”

“I don’t need help!” The words are a blatant lie, but my next are the truth. “This depression… It’s destroying me even more than I was before. Slowly it’s tearing me apart inside. I fight it every day. God, I fight it! Every day it’s a fight to get up, to get dressed, to leave the house. Every single day I’m haunted by things that have been and it’s hard. It’s so damn hard, but I have to keep fighting. I have to do it alone. No one can help me – only I can do that. Only I can make it all better, but I don’t even know if I can, so Mom, Dad, Dr. Hausen, Bianca, even you… You can’t make it better. You can’t make it go away.

“You can’t save me, Blake. Do you get that? You. Can’t. Save. Me.” I turn around, dropping my arms to my sides, and meet his emotion-filled green eyes. “I’ve tried to believe it. I want to believe it, but I’m not a princess, Juilliard isn’t a fairytale castle, and you aren’t a prince riding in on a white horse to slay the dragon. Some things in life aren’t worth saving, and some aren’t able to be saved. I’m pretty sure I can’t be saved.”

“You’re wrong. You can be saved if you’d just let me help you!”

Impulsively I grab a glass from the side and smash it on the floor. Anger, helplessness, frustration, pain; they all heighten inside me to almost an uncontrollable level. But Blake doesn’t even flinch. His eyes don’t even fall to the glass. They never leave mine.