Back in my guest room, I still felt all sorts of broken. I searched for something to hold for comfort, and found it in a very unamused Carmine. I hauled him out of his doggy bed (yes, doggy bed) and onto my lap, petting his fur. Carmine is 100% domestic at this point, the only trace of wild and only remains of feral wolf left are his slightly different-from-a-dog's appearance and his superior strength and power. It's like having a medium/large sized dog, just harder to handle. Due to my wolf blood, I was qualified to handle it.
"Cerise, you okay?" Darling asked, settling on the floor next to me. "What happened back there?"
I sniffed back a possible tear, and wiped my eyes out of instinct and habit. There wasn't anything there but a little dried mascara I hadn't gotten off from before. "Nothing... Just your selfish older brother, being your selfish older brother, playing me and Lizzie like a game of cards, that's all. Is this part of a strategy or something? Is he trying to make me want to cry whenever I look at him? Is he trying to make Lizzie's heartbreak just that much worse when he's finally done with her?"I cried.
Lizzie might be the next Queen of Hearts, but Daring is a future King, and a King surpasses a queen, always. Even at her own game.
Except, it isn't the same game. The game Lizzie played was fair and cordial. The game Daring played was a game based off of pure impulse, the only rule being that there are no rules, much like in Wonderland. A boy's heart can be much like Wonderland at times. A maze of beautiful and terrible places, creatures, moments and things, where there aren't any real limitations and if you spend a long enough time inside, you run the risk of going mad. Here I was, going mad for Daring Charming.
Darling smiled and nodded, "yeah, he is pretty stupid."
"I said selfish," I pointed out.
"I translated it to stupid," she admitted, both of us laughing.
Carmine chimed in with a large belch that sent Darling and I fleeing from the air around which we'd sat.
There was an unexpected knock on the door just as Darling and I dropped onto the gold plush recliners.
I groaned loudly and threw a pillow at Darling, shouting "you get it, it's your house."
She rolled his eyes and tossed it back, hitting me in the face. "I hate you," she joked.
As she put her hand on the doorknob, I remembered something and added "if it's Daring, tell him I'm not here."
She opened the door for her other brother, a messy haired Dexter in thick black rimmed glasses, a royal blue tee shirt and blue plaid flannel pajama pants.
There wasn't much of a resemblance between Darling and her twin. She shared her so blond-almost white hair with her eldest brother, and she stood at only 5'1", very short in comparison to her twin (at 5'8") and Daring (6 foot). All three Charming children had blue eyes, but Dexter's had a more powerful property to them. While Dexter's eyes could instantly charm any damsel, he never seemed to learn that- he couldn't see much but big blobs without his glasses anyway. Darling's hair, when flipped in just the right speed, could slow down time. While absolutely everything about Daring Charming screamed absolute perfection, specifically his teeth shined bright enough to cause temporary blindness, to which I'd fallen victim to many times before somehow becoming immune.
"It's Dexter, should I tell him you're out getting tacos or moved to Canada?" Darling called from the doorway.
"Both," I said sarcastically, knowing he could see me from where I stood. "I'm not here right now, I'm out getting Canadian tacos, please leave a message after the woof. Woof," I continued, this time aiming a pillow at Dexter, which he caught with one hand. Not bad.
"Nice throw," he said, coming in and sitting next to his twin and across from me on the white fluffy couch.
"Nice catch," I responded, high fiving him. Us athletes were always trying to keep our skills sharp, even out of season. We practiced every school day throughout the whole year, only taking breaks one Friday a month. It was not one of those Fridays. "So, what's up, Raven's boyfriend?"
"You know about that?" He cried, seeming surprised.
"Duh, we're really close with Raven," Darling tried, lying. It was true, but it wasn't how we knew.
"Or because Darling has insisted on eavesdropping on your phone conversations at more than one point tonight," I said, smirking.
"She has a tendency to do that." He made a face at his sister, who made one back. Then he expressed a more serious tone. "Raven's having a problem."
"Okay, what kind of problem?" I asked, flicking one of the dysfunctional grippies on the bottom of my clean red fuzzy socks. In school, they'd already be filthy.
"An Apple problem. Someone told Apple that Raven and I might be dating. Since that's even more off-book than Raven has been, she's threatening to get us both expelled unless we break up," Dexter explained.
"Well don't listen to Apple. What does she know? She can't even prove you're a thing anyway," I reasoned, sick of hearing innocent, jealous Apple White's not-so-innocent threats.
"We can't hide it forever," Dexter said, having a point.
I covered my eyes with one hand. "Why is life so complicated?" I complained.
"Whoa, what happened to you?" He asked. "You're always so focused and on your a-game."
"Your brother."
"You're the girlfriend he's been keeping a secret for months?" Dexter gasped.
"Nope," Darling corrected, "that's Lizzie Hearts."
"Okay?" He said, his face twisting in confusion.
"It's a long story. Let's just say... He might be dating Lizzie, but he's done some pretty stupid things in the past few hours that prove he probably never really liked her in the first place," I summarized, feeling awful and guilty for Daring's stupid actions. Poor Lizzie.
"Oh... That's why he asked about... Okay..." Dexter pieced together.
"We eavesdropped on that conversation too," Darling pitched in, I guess also feeling guilty.
The guilt hit just about everyone in a sweet spot except exactly who it should have aimed for. Dexter was feeling guilty for Apple's threat to Raven, Darling was feeling guilty for being so interested in everyone's lives, and I was feeling guilty for being part of the web of lies Daring was weaving. I guess that's just how it works when the king always wins. Except the king doesn't... We needed an ace.