Page 106 of Betting on the Brainiac

“Is that a jab? That I’m not impulsive?”

“An observation. Now you spill yours. Stasis. Cowboy up and own it.”

“All right, Mads.” She wants to fight dirty, fine. “Stasis. You stay, sis. You do exactly what you need to do to not take a step forward in your life, and that includes being busy enough with the store or Gatsby’s to pretend that you’re moving forward.”

“That’s not true,” she says. “I started as a cocktail server at Gatsby’s and now I’m managing the serving staff. I started by volunteering at the store and now I do their books and their buying.”

“That’s busyness. In the end, you’re still working at a fair-trade Anthropologie and a bar like you have for the last, what, four years?”

She doesn’t answer, and her jaw is tight.

Yeah, this was a bad idea. It makes me frustrated with both of us. I get up to rinse out my mug. “Pattern is a good word. Save yourself for a masked dude at the club because holding out for Prince Charming is easier than falling in love. Pour yourselfinto your friends because that’s easier than managing family relationships.”

I set the mug on the counter with a loud clink. “Something’s been nagging at me, but it wasn’t until listening to Kaitlyn that I pinpointed it. Maybe setting up a compensation fund that is all about what happened in the past is easier than thinking about how to make a change that looks toward the future. Something that would require more of you than your money.”

“I’m confused. I’m thinking too much about the future to settle on a man right now, but I think too much about the past to settle on a purpose for myself in the future. I’m hiding from life in retail and waitressing. And you think I should ignore the people my dad cheated out of fair settlements. Am I even hearing this right?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and force myself to take a calming breath. “I’m sorry about the Anthropologie crack. That was . . .”

“Petty?” Her voice is flat.

“Unnecessary. But I said everything else the way I hope a friend would talk to me. I wasn’t trying to be mean.” I turn and walk to the stairs. “I have to go to Azora. I’m sorry you had a rough start to your day. You and Kaitlyn will figure it out.” I don’t have a good ending to this speech, so I just say what’s true. “I hope it gets better from here, Madi.”

She’s silent, and when I come back down after a shower and change of clothes, she’s gone.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Madison

I don’t stop atmy own house before I get in my car and drive to Gatsby’s. I’ve got my gym bag in the back seat and a wicked need to get all the buzzing and pressure inside of me out. Like an exorcism of a super irritating ghost. Not Casper. Much worse than Casper. More like that green blob thing inGhostbusters.

I change into my workout clothes in the office, then hit the deejay stage. Kosmik gave me a speaker preset for the peak dance workout experience and showed me how to find it in the spaceship-level console. I select it, considering what to listen to while I stand in the middle of the sound vortex. I have a lot of go-to dance favorites, but they all feel . . . fun. Why don’t I have an angry playlist? I choose a public “Songs for Rage Dancing” playlist, and hit the floor to the chorus of “Toxic,” since that’s what everybody seems to think I am.

I’m not an audiophile like Kosmik, but he told me this speaker preset would make the sound immersive for me in an eight-foot radius in the dead center of the club. “The hi hat comes down from the horn-shaped speaker straight above you, and it’s like standing under one of those rain shower heads on full pressure. When the bass hits you from the sides, that’s like being wrapped in a six-foot-thick roll of luxury bath towels and then shoved back and forth between two sumo wrestlers.”

He might have been high when he explained it all to me, but he’s right. As Britney snarls about being toxic, I scream along, switching it to first person. “Don’t you know that I’m toxic?” I feel the bass in my bones. Literally, like the speakers are vibrating the marrow inside them.

I’ve got endorphins flowing when it goes to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal,” because the last several days have definitely been “brutal out here.”

By the time it rolls into P!nk’s “So What,” I am one thousand percent ready to start the fight she recommends.Thisis the perfect song to punch and kick the crap out of a focus mitt. But Oliver isn’t here to hold it for me to pour my anger into. Oliver isn’t ever here anymore. Here, or his own house, or anywhere I am. And when heisaround, he acts like—

“Aaaargh!” I can’t even hear my scream inside my head over the sound system. I want to be mad at Oliver because he wasright. What was wrong with me, climbing on top of him like he’s a magic carpet ride, there to take me away from feeling crappy about the things Kaitlyn said?

“Bad Blood” comes on next, which my girl T-Swift obviously wrote about Kaitlyn and me. Kaitlyn and herRemember when you used to like dance team and not be a shallow party girl?I give it an angry dance fight improv, wishing I had explosives to set off like the song’s video for the sheer satisfaction of the sonic booms.

A woman definitely made this playlist, and whoever she is, she and I should be friends.

I groove through “Truth Hurts”—it does, whether it’s Ruby not telling it to me or Kaitlyn giving me her version. But the super dramatic violin opening to an old Destiny’s Child song gives me life and reminds me that I’m a survivor, but also, I remember the routine we did to this song when I was a sophomore, and I hit it hard.

Six songs before I feel like I don’t want to rip anything apart, blow anything up, or tear anything—or anyone—down. My breath is coming hard, and as Beyoncé and company close out their anthem, I’m ready to take a break and find some mellow EDM. But the next song opens with stunning familiar jittery drum riffs followed by a voice that brightens every note of this emo hit even though it’s an angry song about “never being good enough for people who just aren’t good.”

I stand in shock, then throw my arms in the air and scream “Pixie Luna!” before I run in wild circles, high knees, flailing arms, and cackling.

I collapse in the middle of the floor, spread-eagled, and grin up at the giant speaker. “Sami!” I yell at it. “That is SAMI! Sami is making it onto random playlists!” I can’t wait to go home and tell her.

My breath starts to even out, my heart rate coming down, as I listen to the rest of the song, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling. Good for Sami. I’m proud of her.

Sami isn’t mad at me. Ava isn’t either, even though she and Ruby are the OG best friends. I know they both know Ruby and I aren’t speaking, but I don’t know if Ruby has told them why.

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