Check & Mate

by Ali Hazelwood

I smile my thanks to the girl holding out my order. We went out twice, maybe three times last summer, and I have vague, pleasant memories of her. Raspberry ChapStick lips; Bon Iver purring in her Hyundai Elantra; a soft hand, cool under my tank top. Sadly, none of said memories include her name. But she wrote Melanie across my boba, so that’s okay.

“Nuh-uh.” I suck on my tea. Divine. “I’ve forgotten the rules. What does the little horsie do, again?” “Very funny.” “No, really, which one is chess? The queen conquers Catan without passing Go—”

“What charity?” “Does it matter?” “Of course. Is it for a right-wing think tank? The next Woody Allen movie? A made-up disease, like hysteria or gluten sensitivity?” “Gluten sensitivity is not made-up.” “Really?” “Yes. And the tournament is for—” She taps furiously on her phone. “I can’t find it, but can we cut this short? We both know you’re going to say yes.” I scowl. “We know no such thing.” “Maybe you don’t.” “I have a spine, Easton.” “Sure.” She chews on her tapioca balls, aggressive, daring, suddenly more grizzly bear than guinea pig.

But Mom’s having a terrible week, one of the worst since the nightmare of her diagnosis started, and we probably need to change her meds again, but that’s expensive. I told her to rest, that I had everything under control, that I was picking up extra shifts.

“You have to come visit,” Easton says. “Yeah,” I say, knowing that I won’t. “When I’m back, we’re going to New York. Get that macaron you don’t deserve.” “I can’t wait,” I say, knowing that we won’t. She just sighs, like she knows exactly what I’m thinking, and hugs me, and orders me to text her every day and watch out for STDs.

The hotel is a five-minute walk from campus. My room is nothing to write home about, except that it is because: privacy. I cannot remember the last time I had access to a bed without the audience of a twelve-year-old goblin and the three-thousand-year-old demon who possesses her guinea pig.

Oz Nothomb: unexpectedly, an emotional eater. “I had no intention of introducing you. No one should ever talk to them. Their place is on a top-secret mining colony on Mars, if you ask me. Sadly, no one ever asks.” He chews on his mushroom for a moment and then mumbles a stilted “Sorry about that.”

And Sawyer, but he’s a better brand. I’m not gonna make a friendship bracelet for him, but I’ll take a sphincter-clenchingly scary asshole like Sawyer over a slug-slurping-moisture-after-a-rainstorm slimy asshole like Koch any day.”

“The Wikipedia entry was very thorough. Did you know that he once played Jeff Bezos for charity? He beat him in twenty seconds, then asked if the water bottle next to the chessboard was for peeing.” “A true hero of the working class. Darcy—” “Also, there’s tons of fanfiction on AO3, mostly of him making out with some Emil Kareem guy, but—” “What? How do you know what fanfiction is?” “I read it all the time.”

I turn around, but my body already knows, like my atoms vibrate differently when he’s near. Which probably just means that his presence gives me radiation poisoning.