The Grandest Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

She’d coasted through her classes like an academically inclined zombie. She was just treading water. But that was better than drowning.

I don’t get to make you feel like that? Like what, precisely, love?

“Love is a strange and wild beast,” the old woman said. “It’s a gift and a comfort and a curse. Remember that.” She looked toward Grayson. “Both of you.”