A Million Mistakes

Chapter 37

Kendallyn's POV
Epilogue 4 of 4

"Let it go...Let it go..."

Our eyes darted to one another, each of us trying to gather what everyone else had as their letters, the competition thick between us.

I slowly reached forward and flipped over the top card, reading it out. "Fairytale characters."

"That's an easy one!" Charlie yelled out.

"Shhh, Charlie. We're trying to focus," My mother shushed, examining her tiles with great focus.

The classic Schreave board game, still without an official title had become a family staple over the years of us playing it. As more family members became old enough to play the game, it only became more interesting. And the stakes only got higher. My mom and I are trained professionals, and also the creators of the game, which has always given us an edge but I have always been better at the game than mom has. My dad has become a worthy adversary to me, his understanding of the game seeming to increase each time we played it and his number of wins over losses only ever climbing higher.

A surprise twist, and something that bothered me to no end, was that Charlie was weirdly good at this game. Charlie, of mud puddles and skipping his etiquette classes, is good at a word game. I'm not sure how he does it or why I'm being punished by some higher entity, but it's sucks. There is literally nothing worse than when I smugly reveal my word, confident that it will win me the game, and then Charlie, my younger and inferior brother, comes in and reveals a better one. It sucks. He sucks.

I lined my tiles up, confident in my word but eyeing Charlie warily. I never knew what he had up his sleeve.

"Stop glaring at me, Kenny," Charlie accused.

"I'm not glaring," I defended.

"Kendallyn, stop glaring at your brother," Dad said seriously, his eyes never leaving his tiles as he lined them up.

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Okay who's up first?" Mom asked, placing her final tile in place.

"I'll go," Zoe said happily, laying her word down. Lying along my bedroom carpet was the name
E-L-S-A. It made me laugh because playing in the background of our family movie and game night was frozen, and it didn't take much creativity on her part to come up with that character.

"I didn't have good letters so I'd rather get it over with," Mom mumbled, begrudgingly showing us her word.

"Hansel," Zoe read aloud.

"My word is Rapunzel," Charlie announced, showing us his word.

"Pinocchio," Dad said.

"Cinderella," I followed.

The one thing about this game is that it was up to us to decide who won and my dad, brother, and I seemed to be neck to neck.

"Mine is the longest," I observed. "10 letters."

"But I used a Z so I get extra points," Charlie argued.