Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,192

for a fleeting moment. “Are you? I’ve been feeling like the evil witch in a story.”

Her pain was there, just beneath the surface of her coiffed and elegant exterior and I realized that on top of everything, she was mourning her child.

“I’m sorry about Molly,” I said.

Tears filled her eyes at the name; the name that she’d said a million times over her child’s life, and was now imbedded in her soul. It had meaning and conjured memories only she could know.

“Where did we go wrong?” she whispered, more to herself than me. “We did everything right. Good schools, opportunities, and we loved her. God, we loved her.”

In my mind, I saw Max leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, smiling at me expectantly. I drew in a breath.

“When I was sixteen, I was in the running for a dance scholarship to an academy in New York. My parents weren’t one hundred percent on board, but a scholarship meant something to them. They were proud of me, in their own way. And my teachers and friends were sure I’d get it. But I was petrified. I felt like I was so close to catching something I’d wanted even before I had a name for it.”

I toyed with the cuff of my ratty gray sweater.

“The night before the audition, I went to a party. Some guy offered me Ecstasy and I took it, even knowing it would keep me up all night and wreck me for the audition in the morning. I took it because that euphoria was right there and I didn’t have to do anything but take a pill. I wasn’t scared any more. I didn’t have to care so hard about…everything. The desire I had in me to be, and do, and dance…I filled it up with that drug. Of course, I blew the audition, and once the X wore off, the pain of that failure swooped in. So I did the only thing I could think to do to make it go away.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I took more.”

I looked up to see Alice watching me with a mother’s eyes; full of concern and care, and I wished, just then, she’d had the chance to talk to her own daughter like this.

“I can’t speak for Molly, but maybe she was chasing something too. Something in her she couldn’t catch and she filled that emptiness the best she could.”

“We could have done more,” she said. “We should have tried harder to find her.”

“Addicts don’t always like to be found,” I said. “Sometimes it’s just as simple and awful as that.”

Alice stared at me a moment, then wiped her eyes. “Darlene, I’d like to hug you right now. May I?”

A sudden warmth spread through every part of me. My head bobbed. “Sure, yeah,” I whispered.

She pulled me into a warm embrace full of her expensive perfume, but beneath that her arms were soft and I held her tight.

She hugged me for long moments, then pulled away, laughing sheepishly. “Well. I’m suddenly very hungry. Shall we have dinner?”

I grinned. “How do you feel about tuna casserole?”

Chapter 27

Sawyer

I typed the final sentence on my second of two Performance Tests. I was instructed to research, analyze, and support a solution to the case as if I were a practicing attorney. Earlier that day, I had written three essays, each requiring a demonstrated knowledge of law and relevant precedents. The day before that I had written three others. Monday, I had answered two hundred Multistate Bar Exam questions over the course of six hours. My brain was fried, but I was done.

I read over the final draft of the PT, my eyes burning. I made a few changes, and then, with aching fingers and my stomach twisting in knots, I hit ‘save.’

Done. There’s no going back now.

A red light on the specialized testing computer lit up. In another room, the test proctor’s computer lit up with the same light, and the guy arrived at my closet-sized test space a few moments later.

“Finished?”

“That’s the exact right word,” I said.

“Yeah, you look pretty done,” he said. He checked my area one last time for any contraband items—especially those of the digital persuasion—but all my stuff was locked away in another room, including my cell phone, wallet, and even my watch.

I shuffled out of the testing center in the Sacramento Hilton, and through the lobby. Other potential attorneys had gathered in the bar for drinks at three in the afternoon. Their laughter was loud; years of