Their Vicious Games(21)

“Saint, it’s fine. I’m fine. I just need to… breathe.” I’m kinder as I finish, shedding my annoyance with my only ally in this before I ruin that, too. I slip away from her, and dart back through the ballroom doors.

Outside the ballroom, away from the crackling croon of the phonograph, my lungs still tighten with anxiety.

I look down at my black circle skirt and laugh breathlessly. Every time I close my eyes, I can picture the silk and velvet and taffeta cocktail dresses and gowns, each costing at least a grand. And here I stand in a borrowed black dress thinking I can win.

I still feel too exposed. My feet are moving before I can think of a plan or direction. Creeping down the hallway, I stick close to the wall then slip into the next room, pausing when I register it as an empty music room. It’s eerie looking, with only the moon streaming through the long windows and a single glass door that leads out to a balcony. I plink out a high note on the baby grand as I scoot around a stray music stand, then I push the door open, letting the warm summer air wrap around me and hopefully start to loosen my lungs.

I shut the door behind me, flinching at the click that booms like thunder in the silence, before I settle and finally let out a heavy sigh. My chest does start to feel far more open, and I can register the ends of my limbs more now.

“Can’t breathe in there, can you?”

“Fuck!” I yelp, looking for the source of the voice.

I realize my mistake. The balcony isn’t a singular one but instead wraps around the entire back of the second floor, and there, just a few doors down, is Graham, sitting on the ground with his back to the brick wall, glass balanced on his knee.

“It’s… it’s…”—he hiccups—“so much in there. Loud as shit.”

“You’re pretty loud,” I accuse.

“With the truth? I’m the only one who’s going to tell it to you in this shithole,” Graham says back.

“Somehow, I doubt that,” I say dryly, moving closer so he’ll stop yelling. “You made a scene. Penthesilea apologized for you.”

Graham rolls his eyes. “Penny knows better than to apologize for my poor behavior.”

“Yeah, well, she’s… dating Pierce. I think she feels responsible for some reason,” I say stiltedly, feeling bad still for snapping at her for that. “Then your dad said something to your brother.”

Graham lets out another sharp laugh, which he drowns in his glass. “Yeah, of course he told Four. ‘Call your brother, Four. Watch out for your brother, Four. Teach your brother right from wrong, Four.’ As if I’m not the older one. As if I didn’t practically raise that kid on my own.”

I scoff. “You mean like the nannies didn’t raise you both?”

“The nannies aren’t the godsend they’re meant to be, especially when your dad’s fucking them,” Graham says. He shakes his head. “I inherited all my bad traits, as you can see. Can’t seem to shake them. Blood is thick and all that shit.”

He salutes me with his glass.

“Sounds like you’re just foisting blame off on someone else,” I say. I look down at him and tilt my head. “You think you’re so different from them? Why? Because you’re ‘self-aware’? I can promise you… you’re not.”

Graham laughs. “I’m not?”

“No,” I say shortly. “I think you’re kinda worse. Pretending that you’re not morally bankrupt when you’re sitting here in a custom suit drinking top-shelf liquor.”

“Damn. Harsh,” Graham drawls. “Maybe you’re right. But so am I. You’ll never be one of us. And you shouldn’t want to be.”

I squint at him. “I don’t.”

He thinks he has me all figured out. They all think that. They don’t. They don’t know anything about what it’s like in Suburbia, where nothing moves and all the houses look the same. They can’t comprehend that I don’t want what they have either. That I want to make something that’s mine, that has my reflection.

“Then why are you here?” Graham asks.

The words stick to my tongue. For some reason, this feels like a moment that matters. “To get back what I earned and all the potential that came with it,” I say finally.

To even the playing field.

Graham frowns at me and, quiet and hushed like a confession, he says, “I would give every single cent of it away, the Remington money, if it were mine. All of it.”

I stare at him, my observation from earlier confirmed, and can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of my chest. He stares at me confused and he is so innocent, in a way. He thinks he’s the main character. People like him always think they’re the main character, because life tells them they are. They don’t need a playlist to convince themselves.

“Graham Remington, without your money, you wouldn’t last a day. You don’t have what it takes.”

Graham looks up at me and his eyes glint in the moonlight, but before he can answer, a scream shatters my triumph. I twist away from Graham as yet another flash of not-right hits me, swelteringly uncomfortable. What could cause a scream like that in a place as perfect as this? Graham stands sharply, that smug expression sliding off his face. I stalk past him, rushing through the double doors off the balcony, moving toward the commotion.