Page 93 of The Game

Carefully, I tip the metal mixing bowl over my oiled glass pan, cake batter pouring out thickly and flooding the rectangle. My eyes simply engulf the view, my nose picking up on that sugary sweet scent. The oven beeps, pre-heated, as the sounds of a soccer game hum to me from the living room. Everything should be peaceful, but I am only nervous.

Scraping out the bowl with my rubber spatula, I ensure to not waste any cake, smiling at the oily blackness of the batter. I shouldn’t be nervous to see Teddy again, but I am, because I know with him comes someone I am not quite ready to face.

Oksana.

Jameson told me everything after he came home that night, always forthright with me, even when difficult. My heart had ached around an empty feeling of jealousy before I remembered that was not for me to feel. Instead, I found a way to replace it with a dose of humility for myself and a shit ton of adoration for what Jameson is doing.

Today, Teddy, Tristan, Jameson, Corey, and myself will find out if any of us are a match to be Alina’s bone marrow donor—the odds are impossible, but we wanted to show our love in this way before the twins tap into the national database with Teddy’s help.

“Alice, are you anxious?” Corey calls from the couch before he cheers with Tristan. I roll my eyes. I hate soccer, and those two have been sitting there the entire time, eyes swishing to me every so often, as though I will throw a fit and refuse to allow Oksana to come over.

“Yes,” I grit back, for I’ve sworn to always be honest with Corey, even if he never asked that of me. I made that promise more for my twins, for if I can be honest with my therapist, it should be easier to be honest with them. So far, it’s begrudgingly working.

“And what do you do when you get anxious?” he calls back, not bothering to turn around before he raises his beer to his lips, so relaxed and at home it’s ridiculous. Tristan’s neck strains in his desire to turn, to let his eyes sweep over me and assess me for himself. It still irks me, how they baby me, but they are doing better, and so am I, and so I try to let it warm my heart instead.

Fuck Corey and all his ‘reframing’ shit. I hate that it works, but I am simultaneously getting free psych lessons from him. So sighing heavily, I answer him, slipping the cake into the oven with a sickening sweetness coating my tone.

“I get my heart rate up for three to five minutes to trick my brain into thinking I’ve already fought or run from the perceived threat.”

He raises his beer and nods.

“Yes, little shit, thank you for showing off.”

Before I can respond, Tristan mutters, “I have something that can get her heart rate up for three to five minutes.”

Jaw dropping as they both burst out laughing and he turns to fuckingwinkat me, I turn around, my cheeks flaming.

Jameson chooses then to stride into the kitchen, brows pulled together when he sees the look on my face.

“Are you alright,babochka?”

Glowering, I respond, “Your twin is immature.”

Jameson smirks, reaching for me, tucking me into his side and pecking my head, his affection much more casual now—just like how it used to be. The difference? The butterflies he gives me now have tripled, that reasoning still hidden from me. I can’t put my finger on it, but something with us feels deeper now, more cemented, more sure. Maybe it’s in knowing we went through hell together and were able to find our way out and back to one another.

Chafing my arm, he pulls me from my thoughts. “Whatever it is you’re making, it smells delicious.”

Smiling into him, I peek through the oven door, always paranoid when it comes to baking. It becomes the least of my problems when the doorbell rings and my stomach plummets. Mustering my courage, I straighten with a soft smile and move to answer, every step bringing me closer to a darkness I’ve been longing for.

* * *

“Where’ve you been?” I grumble, watching my footfalls as I pick my way over logs and slippery, moss covered rocks. Teddy chuckles, reaching out his hand as an anchor, and I take it with a bashful smile.

“Been fucking busy, bunny. Cash needs my help a lot lately…” he trails off, sun painting his face palomino as it filters through the boughs of heavy evergreens. My veins congeal to ice at his words, sorrow and confusion coursing through me.

“They think he did it?” I whisper. It’s been all over the news since Halloween; Bethany Martin, daughter of a prominent socialite family with ties to Boeing and Microsoft, goes missing for months and suddenly floats up in the middle of the Puget Sound.

Cash, Teddy and I were the last to see her that night, but Cash had gone into the woods with her. He told Teddy and I at the club that they came back to the car and she called a friend to come pick her up, refusing to give Cash the name of the guy. He suspects it was her dealer, a man she often cheated on him with.

The worst is in knowing I cannot help build a testimony, because my tie to them doesn’t exist; Teddy is truly a phantom now, stalking those woods and that asylum, completely untethered from all the strings that used to hold him. I often wonder what that type of freedom feels like. Clearly it is limiting in some aspects, but I think of how odd it was for me to adjust to a new schedule, to the notion that I could sleep when I wanted, wear what I wanted, eat when I was hungry.

Teddy sucks in a breath, squeezing my hand a little tighter. “Yeah. They still don’t have enough proof, but they will just keep looking until everything points to him, ya know?”

Biting my lip, I nod.

“I wish I could do something,” I mutter. He squeezes my hand again, and I peek at him, catching sight of his angular jaw and striking, dark features.

“You’re doing enough where you can. Oksana is relieved and very thankful.”

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