Page 66 of Freak Show

In fact, if I had to admit the truth, I’d underexaggerated because I’d wanted her to go with me that badly.

CHAPTER 13

A good place to put your opinions is up your ass.

-Text from Caristonia to Hades

CARISTONIA

Two solid hours of watching them practice later, I was exhausted for them.

They were all looking mighty tired after having very little sleep the night before, and even the young, upbeat looking ones that’d looked like they rallied after the plane ride now looked worn down and over it.

The coach, sensing this, called it a day.

As I waited for them to start dispersing, I felt my phone buzz in my hands.

Hades: I can’t believe I’m reading this. You slept with him?

Twice.

Me: Why is that so hard to believe? And I never said I slept with him. I said that I liked him.

Hades: You saying you like him means that you slept with him.

I rolled my eyes, even though she did have a point.

Me: Why do I even bother texting you?

Hades: Because I’m your twin, and you love me despite my failings.

She was right about that.

No matter what she did or how she did it, I would always love her.

That was the crux of the matter at hand.

Hades was an asshole.

To the point that sometimes I couldn’t stand her.

Then again, all of my siblings were assholes. That was just the thing that happened when you had to fend for yourself for your entire life, were forced into child labor, and had to raise yourself from an early age.

Our dad had definitely done us all a disservice, and to be completely truthful, he’d turned us all into fucked up versions of the people we could’ve been had we been raised in a loving, stable home.

“Hey, sunshine.”

I looked up to find Slone looking at me from five rows down and a jump over a short fence concrete wall.

“Yes?” I batted my eyelids at him.

His mouth turned up into a smirk at the corner as he gestured with his finger in a “come here” motion.

Eyes wide, I shook my head.

“Come on,” he urged, calling me from where I was sitting in the bleachers.

I was already shaking my hand. “No, sir. That sign very clearly says ‘athletes and staff only’ and I’m neither of those.”

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