The Game Series (63 page)

My hand hovers over Dr. Hausen’s door. I know it’s not too late to change my mind, turn around, and go. She doesn’t know I’m here, and that’s both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it means there’s no expectations. A curse because it means I don’t have to go in there.

But I do. I know in my heart I do.

So I knock on her door with three short, sharp taps.

“Come in,” she calls.

Slowly, I push the door open and step inside the office I know so well. From the motivational quotes framed on the walls to the comfy red armchairs and the mahogany furniture. It’s all comforting.

“Abbi,” she says, surprise in her voice. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“I wasn’t expecting to come here,” I admit. “But I need to talk to you... Ask you something.”

She tilts her head to the side, lowering her glasses. “On or off your record?”

“On.”

“Take a seat.”

Questions are coming off her in waves as she gets my file and sits opposite me. She opens it, grabs her favorite clicky pen, and settles back in her chair.

“What do you need to ask?”

“You said my recovery would be at my pace, and within reason, I had control of it.”

“I did.”

I swallow. “Okay. Well, I want to change something.”

Dr. Hausen sits up straight. “What would you like to change?”

“My medication.”

She pauses. “Alright. You’ve got my attention.”

I cross my legs on the chair and look directly at her. “I don’t think I need the highest dose anymore. I think – no, I know, I’m coping better than I was before. I still get the nightmares and flashbacks, but I can deal with them now. I don’t feel as if I rely on the pills anymore. They’re like a safety net for me and my emotions now instead.”

“And you don’t think that safety net is a good thing?” She scrawls something on her pad.

“No, it is. But I don’t think I need one as big. I’d like to think I could maybe catch myself before I needed that net.” I look down and pick some lint off my leggings. “I mean, you said I was stronger than most people in here, right? You said I was the one that could fight it and get better. How can I fight it if there’s a wall of cotton wool around me? As long as the pills are there, keeping my crazy in check, I won’t be able to fight it. They’ll always cushion the fall.”

“You realize leaving them behind is a gradual process, don’t you? It’s not something that happens overnight. In your case, it may take a year before you’re fully weaned from them.”

“I know that. I’m not saying I’m necessarily ready to give them up entirely. Actually, that’s quite a scary thought. I just think I’m ready to step back a little. Take back some of the control you believe I have.”

“I believe you have?”

“And me. I’ve come this far, haven’t I? I must have some control over my feelings and my depression. I’m still alive. I have to believe I can control whatever’s inside.”

Dr. Hausen is quite for a long minute. I look up, and there’s a small smile on her face.

“You know your mind better than anyone else. I can look at you and make a medical evaluation, but only you can make a true one. If you believe you’re ready to lower your dosage of your meds, then I’m happy to put you down to the next one and see how you go. You know you can change back up anytime, don’t you?”

I nod.

“And our weekly sessions will remain that way for now. It’s even more important now. Even if all we do is have a coffee and chat about the weather.”

I nod again. “I understand. I just… I really feel like I’m ready.”

“I’ll get that arranged for tomorrow. I can call when they’re ready for you to pick up.”

“I’ll get Dad to come by when he finishes work tomorrow night.”

“That’ll work. Was that all?”

“Yep.” I get up and walk toward the door with a slight bounce in my step. “Thank you.” I open it.

“Abbi?”

I look over my shoulder. “Yes?”

Dr. Hausen looks at me, her pen spinning between her fingers. “I have to ask… What’s changed?”

I smile slowly and genuinely. “I stopped existing and started living.”

~

I fall into Blake’s arms in the wings after our dance. My feet lift off the floor as he spins me, my face buried in his neck. I can’t fight the smile on my face – it’s been too long since I stepped foot on a real stage and danced below the bright lights without a care in the world. It’s been a long, long time since I felt that at home.

That alone is the best birthday present anyone could have given me.

Blake squeezes me tightly, pressing his lips to the side of my head. “I hope your mum recorded that like she said she would.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to send it to my mum to piss her off,” he mumbles into my hair. I laugh, pulling back.

“Mature, Blake. Real mature.”

“Oh well.” He shrugs, looking down at me with those green eyes of his. Green eyes that suddenly have a mischievous twinkle in them. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” I narrow my eyes.

“To get out of here. We have a place to go.”

“We do?”

He nods and puts his hand against my cheek. “I still owe you a birthday present.”

“Blake.”

“No, Abs. I’ve got you something, but you can absolutely blame Maddie if you hate it because she organized it all. However, if you love it, you should know it was all my idea.”

I grin. “Okay. I’m not gonna win here. Where is my present?”

“It’s an hour and a half away.”

“That’s… Quite a way.”

“But it’ll be worth it.” He takes my hand and leads me to the back of the theatre to the dressing rooms. “Meet me at the back door in ten minutes. Oh, and give me your car keys.”

“What?” I squeak. “Why the hell do you need my keys?”

“I don’t, and neither do you. I’m going to give them to your mum.”

“Why?”

“Just hand them over.”

“Okay, hang on.” I run into my dressing room, grab my keys from my purse, and smack them into his hand. “I’m starting to get worried about this present, you know.”

“Don’t be,” he says as he backs away from me. “Ten minutes.”

I take a deep breath and nod, then shut the door. My brain is whirring with thoughts of what he could have planned, but none of them seem realistic.

And here was me thinking I’d got to nine p.m. without a big fuss. I should be so lucky.

I change from my ballet clothes into my normal ones and pack all my things away. A quick glance around the dressing room reveals I have everything, so I run down the stairs to the back door. Blake’s waiting there, two bags in hand – his ballet bag, and another one.

“What’s that?” I point to the bag. “Hey, is that mine?”

He smirks. “Come on.”

My eyes narrow as I follow him out toward a silver Ford. “You don’t have a car,” I state.

“Correct. I hired this.”

“You
hired
a car? What are you? A car employer?”

“Uh… Do you say rented? ‘Cause this is a hire car to me.”

“Yep. We say rented.” I smirk. He’s so cute. “Freakin’ British.”

Blake’s fingers brush mine as he takes my dance bag from me, his lips curved on one side. “Bloody Americans,” he whispers, his eyes boring into mine. He takes the bag and throws it in the trunk, slamming the top down. “Are you getting in?” he asks, walking to the passenger side.

I swallow my smile, fighting my complete and utter amusement, and cross my arms over my chest. “I’d love to, but I don’t have the keys.”

“You don’t need the keys. I’m driving.”

“Not from the passenger side you’re not.”

He looks down, pausing for a moment, and drops his forehead onto the roof of the car. I giggle into my hands.

“Goddamn it. You’re all backwards over here!” he cries, walking round the front of the car.

I climb in the passenger side and turn my face toward him. “Just, for God sake, don’t forget we drive on the
other
side of the road to you guys, too.”

“Why did I ever think this was a good idea?”

I grin. “I told you not to worry.”

He grunts and starts the car up. He eyes the space where a gear stick would be. “Now I’m really glad Maddie made me go for an automatic. I don’t think I could use a gear stick with my right hand.”

“All our rentals are automatic.”

He looks at me. “You know how confusing you guys are, right?”

“Yep. Are you sure you can drive this and get us wherever the hell we’re going in one piece?”

“I’m sure. Now, do me a favor and go to sleep or something.”

I put my belt on and settle back in my chair as he backs out of the parking lot. “When I’ve made sure you’re on the right side of the road.”

“Or the wrong side,” he mutters. “Depends how you look at it.”

I cover my smile with my hand. “You know where we’re going, right?”

He nods. “Google maps. Works every time. Go to sleep, Abbi.”

~

The soft brush of Blake’s lips across mine wakes me. I smile, stretching out in my seat.

“Are we here?” I flop my head to the side and look at him through sleepy eyes.

He leans over and brushes some hair from my face. “Yes, we’re here.”

“Um… Where is here?”

His grin is lopsided, and he gets out of the car. I unclip my belt as he opens the door for me and climb out.

“We’re in the Poconos Mountains,” Blake says quietly.

“We’re not even in New York
state?
” My eyebrows shoot up.

“No. But before you say anything else, I want you to do one thing.”

If it’s possible, my eyebrows go even higher.

“Look up.”

I do. I tilt my head back, and in the darkness, the complete and utter consuming darkness that surrounds us, the night sky is bright with lights of its own creation. The stars are brighter and bigger than I’ve ever seen them, hundreds of thousands of lights breaking through the darkness.

“Oh,” I breathe out, spinning around. They’re everywhere, twinkling even through the leaves of the tallest trees. “They’re beautiful… But why here?”

Blake takes my hands in his. “You can hide in plain sight here. It’s a giant, never-ending Prospect Park. And the stars? Well… The stars, the things you never see in Brooklyn, they’re the things everyone never sees about you. And more importantly, they’re the tiny specks of light you hold onto inside, just outside. The sky is your depression and the stars are the things that keep you going when you feel the darkness closing in on you. I wanted to give you a visual, something you can keep forever and look at whenever it gets hard.”

He drops my hands and reaches into the back seat of the car.

“What are you…” I stop talking when I see the camera in his hands. “Something I can keep forever,” I repeat in quiet awe. My tear-filled eyes meet his as he places it in my shaky hand.

“And look at whenever it gets hard. That’s my present for you.”

“Hope.” The tears creep out of the corners of my eyes. “You’re giving me hope.”

Blake wipes away the wetness falling down my cheeks. “I’m giving you another reason to live.”

I turn my cheek into his palm and close my hand over his. “You gave me that the day you walked into Bianca’s studio. I just didn’t know it then.”

“
You have to remember,” Tori had said. “To relax. Let yourself fall into the dance, Blake. No, no. Your shoulders are too tight!”

She batted my hands away and walked behind me. She smacked me between my shoulder blades. Hard.

“Ouch! What did you do that for?” I awkwardly tried to reach for the spot.

“Have your shoulders relaxed?”

I rolled them. “Yes.”

“Then I did it to relax your shoulders,” she huffed. “You won’t be able to do it right if you’re tensed up. It’ll be like dancing with a plank of wood!”

“I don’t even have to know this yet!”

“But I do, Blake. I have to get this routine right or I won’t be able to dance in the Christmas production. Please help me. Please,” she whined, dragging the last word out. Her green eyes blinked at me innocently, and I sighed helplessly.

Of course I would help her. I would learn dance steps four years above my level because she needed me to. She knew I’d do anything for her.

“Fine,” I grumbled in the way only an eleven year old could. “But you owe me, Tori. Again.”

“I know, I know.” She kissed the top of my head. “You’re the best.”

“Just don’t slap me again.”

“I won’t. I promise – but you have to relax, okay?”

“I get it!”

“No, really, Blake. You can’t dance if you’re tense, not ballet.”

“Your keeping on is making me tense,” I said pointedly, folding my arms across my chest.

Tori just smiled. “Only because you’re not listening to me!”

“Al-right!” I moaned. “I’m listening.”

She ruffled my hair. “You have to dance the way you fall in love; effortlessly, unrelentingly, and with everything you have.”

“I’m never going to fall in love,” I protested. “Girls are annoying.”

“You say that now, but one day you will.”

“No, I won’t. Ever.”

“Everyone falls in love, little brother. At some point in your life, you’ll fall in love with someone and when you do, you’ll be unable to distinguish the feelings between dance and love. And if you’re really lucky, she’ll be the dance you fall in love with
.”

My eyes snap open. I can still hear her voice ringing in my ears and echoing around the small log cabin. That dream was real, all too real, even after all these years.

Ten years have passed since that conversation and I’ve been waiting since then to prove her right or wrong. I threw myself into dance the way she said – I gave it my all and then some. I planned for the future and I dreamed bigger than anyone I know. I never stopped or gave up on dancing no matter what was thrown my way. Even through my parent’s disappointment, I never pushed it to the side. I kept on fighting to dance although it seemed impossible at times.

It seems silly now to look back and think those words came from a fifteen year old girl. What did Tori know about love? She was still a child, whose only true happiness came from the same place mine did – holding onto a
barre.

But she was right. She was so, completely right.

Love and dance are one and the same. They’re easy, like breathing, and if it’s for you then it’s natural. There’s no second thoughts, no doubts. You don’t think it’s not for you, not even for a second. In fact you know. You just
know
it’s all you’re ever going to need.

Abbi shifts slightly in her sleep, and I hold her closer to me. She tucks her head under my chin, snuggling in.

Abbi is it. She’s my dance. I fell in love with her the way Tori always said I would, and it was so effortless I didn’t even notice. It’s grown slowly, building and transforming each time she’s smiled at me or laughed with me. It means I can’t walk away, no matter what she tells me, because of the sheer, unrelenting force of it inside. It keeps me tied to her and everything she’d rather hide. It keeps me living, because she’s filled a part of me that’s been missing for a long time.

She can never replace my sister. I’m not stupid enough to think that, but just because she can’t replace her doesn’t mean she can’t stand alongside her in my heart, and it doesn’t mean I love Tori any less for loving Abbi.

I can love them both the same in entirely different ways, all the while thanking the shit out of whoever is in the sky that Abbi didn’t follow in Tori’s footsteps.

~

“You have to be freaking kidding me,” Abbi deadpans, staring at the canoe.

“Would it be funny if I said no?”

“No. No, it wouldn’t be. There is no way in hell
that…
” She looks at me and points accusingly at the canoe. “…Is funny. In any way. At all.”

“I guess you don’t really feel up to going in it then, huh?”

“Do I look like a girl who goes canoeing? Honestly?”

I say nothing, trying to control the twitching of my lips. She picks up the bright orange life jacket.

“And this. I’m not wearing it. I’m not going on that boat. I hate boats.”

“There’s nothing wrong with boats.”

“If it’s not on dry land, there damn well is something wrong with it.” She folds her arms across her chest defiantly.

“Well, you do have two options, actually,” I say slowly.

“And they are?”

“You put this on…” I take the jacket from her. “…And get in the boat…”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Or you put the jacket on and get in the water. Either way, you’re putting the jacket on.”

Her mouth drops open. “You dare throw me in that water, Blake Smith, and I swear to God…”

I grin. “What?”

She pauses. “I don’t know. I haven’t come up with anything yet.”

I laugh and touch her face. “Abbi, please. Just put the jacket on and get on the boat. I promise it’ll be okay.”

She narrows her eyes. “Hmmm.”

“
Please,
” I beg. “Don’t make me do the pouting and puppy dog eyes thing again. You know you have no chance then.”

“Why is it so important that I get on the damn boat?”

“It just is. It’s part of your birthday surprise, okay?”

She softens a little. “Blake, you’ve already given me enough.”

“No, I haven’t.” I put her arms in the jacket and do it up at the front. My hands hover over the zip as I look down at her. “When I think about what you give me every single day, I have a lot of things to make up for.”

I spin her around and nudge her toward the boat. I grab my own jacket and put it on, moving to steady the boat for her. She steps in and sits down tentatively, looking completely out of her comfort zone.

“I cannot believe I’m doing this,” she mutters. “I really can’t.”

“You don’t have to believe it. You just have to do it.” I push the oar into the water and move us off into the center of the river.

Abbi’s silent for a moment. “So, where are we going?”

“Oh, just down the river a ways.”

“That’s a vague answer.”

“Yes…”

“Blake,” she says sternly. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Of course I know where we’re going. I always know where we’re going.”

“Oh no…”

“I just don’t necessarily know exactly how to get there.”

She hits the boat. “Blake!”

“What? Don’t blame me.” I glance over my shoulder into her narrowed yet slightly amused eyes. “Blame Google. They’re the ones who haven’t developed maps that work in the mountains.”

“You… I don’t even know what to say.” I catch her shaking her head. “We’re on a boat on a river in the middle of the Poconos, and we could end up anywhere. I feel so reassured right now.”

“As long as we don’t end up at the Atlantic, I figure we’re okay.”

Abbi sighs heavily. “So you say. So you say.”

~

I smile smugly at the look on her face.

“You did this?”

I nod. “I told you it would be okay, didn’t I?”

“Okay?
Okay?
” Abbi stares at me like I’m insane. “Blake, you’ve organized a goddamn picnic in the middle of the Poconos, shadowed by the mountains and overlooking the most incredible lake I’ve ever seen just for my birthday. And you say it’s “okay”?”

“What would you say it is?”

“I don’t think I know,” she whispers, her eyes filling with softness. “But I do know it’s the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me.”

She wraps her arms around my neck, squeezing me. I slide my arms around her waist, smiling.

“In that case, this whole getaway thing was totally my idea. Maddie had no say in it at all.”

She laughs into my shoulder. “Nice try.”

I shrug, leading her to the blanket and sitting her down. “The getaway was Maddie’s idea. The Poconos was mine. Like I said last night, it reminded me of a giant Prospect Park.”

Abbi looks around, taking in the varying shades of green on the trees and bushes, the wild flowers dotted around the bottom of them, and the crystal clear blue of the lake. “It is exactly like that.” She touches the blanket. “I think I have a new favorite place.”

“I’m not coming here every time you need to hide,” I mutter playfully.

Her lips curve into a gentle smile. “You won’t need to. I think I’ll just hide under my covers from now on. It doesn’t matter where I go, my past will still find me. I can’t fight against it, I just have to go with it. That’s the only way I’ll ever beat this. Acceptance is key to moving on.”

I shake my head slowly, just looking at her, from the curve of her eyebrows to the pink of her cheeks and the tiny curl in her hair to the slight upturn of her nose.

“What?”

“Ever think that the really bad shit always happens to the best people?” I think out loud. “The people that always deserve it the least get hit with the biggest piles of crap.”

“I guess,” she replies slowly. “But I’d like to think the best people get hit with the bad stuff because they can handle it. What doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger and all that. I think I’m stronger for all my bad stuff. At least, I should be since it didn’t kill me. No one knows why stuff happens, good or bad, but there’s always a reason.”

I think about that for a moment. “I guess you’re right.”

“Well, if I hadn’t been through what I have, then we wouldn’t have met, would we?”

“I suppose not.” I smile. “Good things have to fall apart sometimes, if only to make way for the even better things to fall together.”

“Exactly. And as corny as it is, I think I’ll choose to believe I had to deal with all Pearce’s crap so I could be here today.” She looks at me and smiles softly, her eyes wide. “I know it hasn’t been easy to be around me sometimes, and that might not change any time soon, but I’m really glad you stuck it out.”

“Yeah, well, you are a bit of a pain in the arse.”

She raises an eyebrow, amused.

“I mean, you’re a total nuisance, and I can never get anything done when you’re around because you just distract me, but-”

She grabs the collar of my top and pulls my face towards hers, covering my mouth with hers. I blink, taken aback for a second, before I sink my fingers into her hair and follow her lead. Her teeth graze across my bottom lip, tugging on it gently, and it’s not the only part of my body it’s tugging.

I move forward and push into her until she lies back. One of my hands supports me as we lower and the other is wrapped around her, holding our bodies together. My body covers hers and my knee slips between hers. She runs her tongue along my lip and
fucking hell. This is driving me insane.
Her fingers entwine in my hair, holding me to her, and I kiss her with everything I have. I take the kiss deeper until everything else has disappeared. Everything except her soft but strong body lying beneath mine, her tongue stroking mine, and her fingers wrapped in my hair.

“
But,
” I whisper against her lips, kissing her once more. “I can’t imagine not sticking it out with you. I’d be crazy if I didn’t. In fact, I think I might be a little crazy anyway.”

She giggles, my forehead resting against hers. “Then we can be a little crazy together.”

I smile widely, a small laugh escaping me. “Always.”