The Right Moves (The Game #3)(40)
Author: Emma Hart

“Can you save that, Blake?” I gesture to the glass, my chest heaving with every breath I’m suddenly struggling to take. “Can you?!”

“You can’t compare yourself to a broken glass; that’s different.”

“No, it’s not. Not at all. You see those pieces on the floor? There are hundreds of thousands of shards, and no matter how hard you try will you never be able to get them all and put them back together. Even if you do, it won’t be perfectly. There will always, always be a part missing from it. There will always be one piece that you won’t be able to keep hold of.

“I am that glass! I’m shattered, torn, broken. I’m irreparable.” I walk backwards into the wall, my whole body tight. My trembling hands flatten against the wall, and I keep eye contact with him. “It doesn’t matter how hard you try. I’ll never be whole again. I’ll never be the princess climbing on the back of your horse. I will never, ever be the same person I was before.”

He steps forward, and when he speaks, there’s desperation tinging his tone. “You’re not the person you used to be because that was never the person you were meant to be. I want to help you, Abs. I wish you’d let me help you!”

“I don’t want your help!” I scream, pushing myself into the wall and hanging my head, my chin resting on my chest. “I don’t want your help. I want you to leave. I want to be alone.”

The sharp, cooling slice of a blade drifting across skin. The slow, stinging parting of flesh. The warm, relieving trickling of blood. Red against white.

“So you can search your house top to bottom for something sharp enough to cut yourself with?” His words are shorter and sharper than I’ve ever heard him use, the venom in them chilling me.

My breath catches and my head snaps back up, our gazes colliding. He looks nothing like the Blake I know. His eyes are cold, every sparkle and shine gone from them as they burn into me, slicing into me harder than any blade ever could. I try to curl my fingers into my palms, craving the feeling of my nails digging into them. A brief respite.

“Is that it?” he says in the same biting tone.

Nails. Palm. Sting.

“No,” I answer, but my voice is weak and unconvincing even to me.

“Open your hands,” he orders. I shake my head, bringing my fisted hands to my stomach. “Open your hands!”

“No!”

His feet thud against the wooden floor as he storms over to me. His hands close around my fists, his fingers prying between mine.

“No!” I cry again, feeling the heat of tears fall over my eyes as he succeeds in dragging my nails away from my hands.

“I won’t let you do this to yourself.” He grinds his teeth together, holding my hands tightly.

“You don’t understand!” I sob, my throat closing up as panic takes me over. “You don’t get it. I need something. I haven’t for so long, but I can’t do it anymore. I need it. I can’t keep remembering. It hurts too much. Let me go. Please.”

I shake my arms and kick out at him, desperately trying to get him to let me go. My body thrashes as he pushes his against mine, trapping me against the wall, and I scream, feeling Pearce press against me instead of Blake.

I’m hurled back in time yet again.

Pearce. Music. Alcohol. Drugs. His hand. My face.

“Sssshh.”

I’m rocking. And screaming. Screaming loudly, a scream that breaks even my heart. I can’t breathe. Panic. Weight on my body. I need to get it off. Get him off. Get him away.

“Get off. Please. Let me… Go. Now. Please,” I sob out. “Don’t hurt me. Please.” I stretch my legs out, and my face is buried in a shoulder.

“I have you.” British accent. Blake. “You are safe, Abbi. I promise you.”

I’m shaking. Hard. I want him to let me go and hold me at the same time. “No. Never safe.”

“Yes,” he whispers in my ear, his arms tightening slightly around me. My fingers are curled into his shirt, holding him to me as tight as he’s holding me. “I promise you, you will always be safe around me.”

I swallow, closing my eyes, and try to regain control of my breathing just like Dr. Hausen taught me. Deep breaths, count of three. In, out. In, out.

“I will never be safe,” I whisper hoarsely. “There’s nothing outside that can hurt me any more than what is inside. You don’t understand that.”

“Oh, I understand.” He breathes out shakily. “I understand that better than you think.”

“You don’t. You won’t ever get it.”

He releases me, his hands moving to either side of my face. My eyes open. Our faces are perfectly aligned. I’m still grasping his shirt, and he wipes his thumbs under my eyes.

“You know Tori died. What you don’t know is I watched her slice deeper and deeper every day until she finally hit gold.” His voice quivers. “And I didn’t do a single f**king thing to stop her, because everyone made me believe it was for attention. I’ve lived with that guilt for ten years. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit here and watch you do the same thing.”

More tears stream from my eyes at the raw pain in his voice, and I remember and I know. I know because I was so close. So, so close. I was minutes away from nothing, then Maddie found me.

“Saving me won’t bring her back,” I croak. “It won’t make it easier and it won’t make it go away. Don’t save me to make up for not saving her. I’m not a project.”

“I never said you were.” His voice drops to a bare whisper and he puts one of his hands into my hair, his fingers threading through it. “I’m not trying to save you because I couldn’t save her. I’m trying to save you because I don’t think I could cope if I lost you too.”

Tears brim in his eyes, and I’ve never seen him look so vulnerable. I imagine how we must look right now, crouched on my kitchen floor, both of us shaking. Both of us crying. Both of us broken, yet holding onto each other like that’s all that can fix us.

“I won’t watch you do it too. You are so, so much stronger than that. You are so much stronger than she was, Abs.” He moves his thumb under my eye to wipe away the wetness there. “You are everything I wish my sister was and so much more, and it’s that so much more that means you can push me away all you like because I won’t go. That darkness you have inside, the one that pulls you under, I swear I won’t let you fall into it. I won’t let you fall anywhere unless it’s my arms you’re falling into.”