Page 66 of The Play

“Has to be you,” Brenna agrees, taking a sip of the hot chocolate that soon-to-be deceased Rupi prepared for us.

“Mike,” Rupi warns. “If you kill me, I swear to God…”

“Babe,” he says.

“Mike.”

“Babe.”

“Mike.”

“Babe,” he sighs, and then places the Sacrifice card in front of her pile.

Rupi shrieks loud enough to shake the coffee table. “Icannotbelieve you did that!”

“I had no choice,” he protests. “It was best for the group.”

“What about what’s best forme?”

“You’re being very selfish right now, babe.”

“Why? Because I want my boyfriend to protect me from harm? I don’t believe this! After we’re done with this game, I’m going to—”

“Youaredone with the game,” Brenna interrupts dryly. “He killed you.”

Rupi huffs and flounces off in traditional Rupi fashion. The girl is a drama queen.

Luckily, she found true love with a drama king. Hollis stands up and throws his frazzled arms up in the air. “Do you see what you made me do?” he accuses the rest of us. “This is why I never play board games!”

He hurries after Rupi.

“And then there were three,” Brenna says indifferently, flipping through her arsenal cards.

“We can’t go on without him,” I tell her. “He’s the only one who has the antidote for the second mutation. Oh, and the only one who can skin a rabbit.”

“We’ll redistribute all the assets,” Summer suggests.

“Nah, I think the game’s over.” I drop my cards on the board and lean back against the couch cushions.

“We need to stop playing games with them,” Brenna remarks as she picks up her mug.

“Definitely,” Summer concurs. “They’re the worst.”

I reach for my own hot chocolate and gulp it down. My head wasn’t in the game, anyway.

For the past five days, Demi Davis has consumed my thoughts. I feel like shit for snapping at her, but if my severe tone wasn’t bad enough, I followed it up by info-dumping my dismal relationship with my father on her. I could practically see the gears in her brain working over all the things I’d told her since the semester started, trying to discern which ones were true.

Sadly, the majority were. I embellished a few details, to be sure. Dad generally isn’t cruel to my mother, nor does he speak to her with the same disdain I used during the fake therapy sessions. I was trying to exaggerate certain narcissistic tendencies to make it easier for Demi.

But all the events I described occurred in real life. I did catch my father banging his secretary when I was fourteen years old. I did tell my mom, and she did tell me to not interfere in their marriage. Just be a good boy and stay quiet because Daddy takes care of us and what kind of life would we have without him.

That was the day I realized my mother has no self-worth and my father has too much of it.

Still, an angry trip down memory lane was no excuse to take it out on Demi. I knew there was a chance she wouldn’t believe me when I told her about Nico. I shouldn’t have mocked her about getting her head out of the sand, insinuated she was a naïve fool.

She called you a fuckboy.

Ugh, true. She was as much of a dick to me as I was to her. We’re both dicks.

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