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Well, yes, I reply defensively, grabbing my dress and shoes, rubbing chlorine off my eyes.But I’ve signed a one-year contract, so I might as well—
I stop dead in my tracks.
I’m not alone anymore. Someone is standing right in front of me. Someone barefooted, who’s wearing swim trunks. I look up, and up, and up, and upeven more, and—
My stomach drops. Nolan Sawyer is staring down at me, a faint scowl between his eyes. I’m dumbfounded by the fact that he’s . . . fit. His chest. His shoulders. His biceps. No one who spends hours a day moving one- ounce pieces around a chessboard has any business looking like that.
“I— Hi,” I stammer. Because he’s standing rightthere, and I don’t know what else to say.
But he doesn’t answer. Just stares down, taking in my nowsee- through bra, my panties with little rainbows all over them. The temperature in the pool increases. The gravity, too. I’m concerned that my legs won’t hold me.
Then I remember what Koch’s friends said:Does he know she’s here?
Well, she’s still alive, so clearly no.Fear pops into me.
Nolan Sawyer despises me. Nolan Sawyer wants to murder me. Nolan Sawyer is staring down at me with the sheer soulcutting intensity one reserves for those he hates with the strength of a million bloodthirsty bears.
Didn’t he once break another player’s nasal septum? I remember hearing some stories. Something had happenedaftera tournament, and . . .
Is he going to tear me to pieces? Will the local morgue not know how to put me together? Will they have to call in a professional makeup artist, one of those YouTube beauty gurus who are always making callout videos about each other—
“Coooooming throuuuuuuuugh!!!!”
Someone runs past us, a blur of dark skin and red trunks, and cannonballs into the pool with a tsunami- like splash. Sawyer mutters something like “Shit, Emil,” and it’s the escape chance I was waiting for. I scamper away, feet slapping against the wet floor. I’m at the door when I make the mistake of looking behind me: Sawyer is staring at me, lips parted, eyes darker than dark.
So I do the only sensible thing: I slam the door in his face, and don’t stop running until I’m in my room, dripping on my bed.
It’s the second time I’ve met Sawyer. And the second time I’ve retreated like a pinned knight.
I sleep poorly, stuck in dreams of chess blunders surveyed by dark, judgmental eyes, and wake up too early with a cramp in my left leg.
“I hate my life,” I mutter as I limp into the bathroom, contemplating chopping off my foot with a meat cleaver. Then I find out that my period just started.
I glare down at my ill- timed, uncooperative, treacherous body, and vow to never feed it leafy vegetables again in revenge.Take that, you little bitch.
I packed another sundress for today, blue with a lace hem and flouncy sleeves, but the second I slide it on, I remember Malte Koch’s leering.
Were you wearing something low-cut?
During sophomore year, Caden Sanfilippo, a junior whom I’d known since grade school and whose mission statement was being a dick, started making fun of me for the way I dressed. My theory is that he had a crush on Easton and was trying to get her attention by annoying her best friend, because the harassment stopped the very day she came out. Either way, whenever I’d walk into physics class, Caden would say creative stuff likeHey, granola,orGood morning, discount hippie,orThis is not a WholeFoods.He did it for months and months. And yet I never once considered altering my fashion choices.
Today, though, I look in the mirror and instantly take off my dress. “Because they’ll be blasting the AC,” I tell myself, adjusting my jeans and flannel shirt, but I don’t quite meet my own eyes before going downstairs.
I win my first match easily, even feeling like a waterlogged corpse. After the abashing performance I gave last night, I’m very careful about each move. It eats up some of my time, but being less reckless pays off.
“Merde,” my opponent murmurs before thrusting his hand at me, presumably to concede defeat. I take it with a shrug.
My second opponent is late. One minute. Two. Five. I’m playing White, and the tournament director encourages me to make the first move and start the clock, but it seems dickish.
As eliminations happen, the number of games per turn is dwindling. I can spot only a handful, all at distant tables, and notice that most of the remaining players seem to be around my age or just a little older. I remember something Defne said the other day, when she checked on whether I had upped my workout schedule (I had not): chess is a young person’s game, so physically, mentally, cognitively taxing, most of the top GMs start declining in their early thirties. The more I train, the more I believe it.
To pass the time, I doodle flowers on the scorecard, thinking about the email Darcy’s school sent: there are two kids with nut allergies in her class, and PB&Js won’t be allowed. They suggested sunflower seed butter, but I have a nonzero number of reasons to believe that if Darcy doesn’t like it, she’ll email CPS that I’m poisoning her—
“I amsosorry,” a British accent says. A tall guy folds into thechair across from mine. “There was a line for the bathroom, and I hadthreecups of coffee.The Hunger Gameshave nothing on the men’s restroom at a chess tournament. I’m Emil Kareem, nice to meet you.”
I straighten. “Mallory Greenleaf.”
“I know.” His smile is open and warm, teeth ivory- white against clean-shaven dark skin. He’s movie-star handsome— and he’s aware.
