Chapter 12 Chess and Balances
I can’t sleep. I need to just admit it and get up. I could read a book, do some homework, listen to some music, throw some axes—anything but staring at the ceiling and thinking about Grace.
It’s been thirty-six hours since I walked away from her and Jaxon at the bonfire, and I haven’t been able to sleep since. Not last night and not tonight.
Foster didn’t enforce consequences after our fight because of “extenuating circumstances,” although he was none too happy to learn that Grace is mated to me and in love with my brother. Yeah, well, join the club, buddy.
He also made it very clear that Jaxon and I are holding on by a thin fucking rope. But that’s not why I can’t sleep. It feels like I’ve spent my whole life balancing on dental floss, so this is nothing new.
No, I can’t sleep because Grace texted me late last night, asking if I was okay. Asking if we could talk. I didn’t answer then and I didn’t answer her this morning when she texted to check in. She’s my mate, but I don’t think I have anything to say to her right now.
I’m not sure I’ll ever have anything to say to her again.
And there it is—the thing that’s keeping me up all night, that’s haunting me every time I try to close my eyes. Walking away from Grace is like having my skin flayed from my bones one tiny strip at a time.
But staying near her and watching her with Jaxon—having her choose Jaxon in front of me again and again—isn’t any better. I’m between a very big boulder and a very hard place and it feels like they’re both closing in.
Fuck. Just fuck.
I toss the covers back and climb out of bed. After changing into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, I take to the halls. Maybe a walk, or a cup of warm blood, will tire me out.
But when I get to the first floor, I find Macy sitting at the chess table at the bottom of the stairs. She’s not playing or even looking at the set. Instead, she’s sitting with her arms on the table and her face buried in the crook of her elbow as she obviously sobs and sobs.
It’s a personal grief—and a terrible one—and I think about slipping soundlessly back upstairs before she knows I’m here. If I was in her situation, I wouldn’t want anyone to see me like that.
But to be honest, that’s bloody well what I’m feeling like on the inside right now, and while I’d never let anyone see it, there’s no denying I’d like someone to reach out to me.
So instead of fleeing back up the stairs, I walk over to Macy and crouch down next to her.
Then I lay what I hope is a comforting hand on her back.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
She jerks upright, her hands going instinctively to her cheeks to wipe away the tears. But then she sees that it’s me, and instead of hiding her grief, she throws her arms around me and buries her face in my shoulder. Then she cries like her very heart is breaking.
For a moment, I’m frozen under the onslaught of all her pain. Combined with the pain of losing Grace, it’s nearly too much to handle. Nearly.
Awkwardly, I lift my arms and wrap them around Macy, patting her on the back in what I hope is a soothing manner. “I’m sorry,” I whisper again as she sobs all the harder. “I’m so sorry.”
She just cries more, like her heart is breaking for Xavier all over again. I hold her even tighter, rocking her the way I’ve seen mothers rock hurt children in movies. It seems to work, because a few minutes later, the sobs lessen, and eventually she stops crying altogether.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, pulling away from me. “I didn’t want to break down in the room with—” She stops abruptly.
“Grace.” I fill in her name, ignoring the hole deep inside me that somehow grows bigger with just the mention of her. Just the thought of her. “You can say her name.”
Macy shakes her head, tries to surreptitiously wipe her nose with the back of her sleeve, and I set her gently back in her chair. “Give me a sec,” I tell her, then fade to the closest restroom and grab some paper towels. At the last second, I decide to wet a couple so she can wash her face.
I’m back in about ten seconds, towels in hand, and she gives me a grateful look as she takes them. She blows her nose a couple of times, then wipes the damp towels over her cheeks and eyes.
“Thank you,” she tells me.
“You’re welcome.”
The tears are over, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone yet, so I ease into the chair on the other side of the chess table. And ask, “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I can’t sleep, and I couldn’t stand the idea of staring up at the ceiling for one second longer. Some days are good, you know, and I can almost forget how sad I really am, almost forget the pain I’m trying to hide from everyone.”
“I know how that feels.”
She studies my face through tear-swollen eyes. “I bet you do.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
This time she shakes her head vigorously. “There’s nothing more to talk about. He’s dead, and I have to figure out a way to learn to live with that.”
I nod.
“Do you want to talk about why you’re wandering the castle in the middle of the night?” she asks.
“There’s nothing much to talk about there, either,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I figured.” She glances up the staircase. “I can’t go back to bed yet.”
“Absolutely not.”
She nods at the pieces in front of us. “Want to play?”
I hadn’t even thought about it—it’s been a long time since my tutor and I sat in my room playing chess, but the moment she asks, I realize I do want to play. I’m up for anything that might keep my mind off Grace for longer than thirty seconds at a stretch.
“Yeah, I do.” I nod to the dragon pieces on her side of the board. “You can go first.”
She nods again, then moves one of her pawns—diagonally two spaces.
For a second, I just stare at the piece, dumbfounded. Then I start to tell her that pawns only move that way when they’re capturing a piece, but the minute my gaze connects with her still tear-streaked one, I decide it doesn’t matter. Instead, I capture it with one of mine.
She does the same thing to mine a second later, only she doesn’t move her pawn diagonally this time—like she’s supposed to. Again, I start to point it out and again I decide it’s not worth it.
Instead, I move my bishop, and she follows up with her rook—which she also moves diagonally.
“You can’t—” I start to say, but she looks so confused that I don’t have it in me to explain. Not tonight, when she just cried all over me. And when there’s a part of me that feels like returning the favor.
So instead, I move my bishop diagonally—exactly as I am supposed to—and capture her rook.
Macy stares at the board in confusion. “Are you sure you can do that?”
“Yes,” I tell her, because I have no idea what else I’m supposed to say to that.
“Oh.” She shrugs. “Okay.”
Then she moves her bishop forward two and over one, and I give up any vague notion of actually trying to explain to her how the pieces really move.
Instead, we play in silence for ten minutes, the only sound the movement of the heavy chess pieces on the board between us.
In fact, it’s only after I capture Macy’s second knight—after she’s taken my bishop with a very odd and blatantly illegal maneuver by her queen—that she says, “You know, I would do anything to have a little more time with Xavier.”
“I’m sure,” I agree.
She moves her bishop straight backward into what is obviously a sacrifice to lure my queen into a trap—if any of the pieces she was planning to use to spring the trap actually did what she thinks they do.
“You shouldn’t squander the time you have with Grace,” she adds. “You don’t know how much of it you’ll have.”
“It’s not the same thing,” I tell her, moving my queen where she wants it just to see what she’ll do, even as her words go off like bombs inside me.
She knocks into my queen with her king, which she moves five spaces to do, then snatches the vampire queen off the board like she’s a prize—which I can very much assure you, she is not.
Then, outrageously, she looks at me with just a spark of triumph in her eyes. “I knew you weren’t over Grace. I knew you were just licking your wounds.”
“And how exactly did you reach that conclusion?” I ask, brows lifted.
“You’re wandering the school in the middle of the night; you look like hell—”
“Thanks,” I insert dryly.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. When do you of all people walk around in a holey T-shirt and ugly-ass sweats?”
“It’s the middle of the night.”
“I’m still not buying it.” She pins me with a knowing stare. “Plus, I’m about to win this chess game, and I never win at chess.”
“Now, that is shocking. I wonder why.”
She totally misses the sarcasm—or chooses to ignore it—as she answers, “Because you miss Grace and you’re brooding.”
“Of course I miss Grace,” I answer. “She’s my mate, and she consistently rips my fucking heart out of my chest. But I’m not brooding. I’m wallowing. There’s a difference.”
It’s more than I intended to say—more than I’ve ever said to anyone besides Grace about what’s going on inside my head—but Macy doesn’t look like she’s judging me. She just looks sad, in a different way than when I first came down the stairs.
“I know it’s fucking brutal right now,” she says, and it’s so rare to hear Macy swear that I kind of sit back in my chair.
“But, barring some terrible accident or murder, you’re going to live forever.
I think you need to really contemplate how long forever is.
And decide if a couple of months—or maybe even a couple of years—of pain is worth an eternity without your mate. ”
And then, when I’m still reeling from those words, she neatly skips the dragon queen over four pieces so that it lands in front of the vampire king. Then she says, “Checkmate.”
As if I hadn’t already figured that out.