The Slut's Guide to Chess

chapter 15

"Hey, what do you think happens to you when you're asleep?" I called to Arwyn while sprawled out across my bed.

I turned my neck to watch him as he stood stiffly in the bathroom doorway. His lips moved slightly as though he were speaking to himself. With flushed cheeks and twitching fingers, he only stood and surveyed the wall by Eliott's bed.

"Isn't it crazy that when you're sleeping, anyone could just walk in and be in your room and you just wouldn't know? I mean, where do you go while asleep?" I continued babbling along while twirling the ends of my hair around my finger. Wrapping and unwrapping the ringlet over and over with only the chorus of Arwyn's deep breaths that kept me company.

"If somebody steals something from you and you don't notice, does it still count? I mean- hey! Where are you going?"

Arwyn had turned on his heel and rushed back into the bathroom. I wouldn't admit it, but I regretted going in there. My heart still hadn't returned to a normal pace after finding the blood spatter. I tried to convince myself that it was just a bit of blood. It didn't mean anything, right? My stomach disagreed though as it wrapped around itself, painfully twisting and tugging back forth until I felt bile rising to my throat.

Arwyn soon returned with the three pill bottles in hand. He slammed the bathroom door shut and threw the bottles onto my bed. I sat up and watched as he went to his bag and pulled out a silver laptop.

"Can I sit?" He asked uneasily.

I rolled my eyes. "Don't ask, just sit, weirdo."

He stiffly sat at the edge of my bed and opened his device up on his lap. It filled with light slowly and Arwyn's fingers ran along the keyboard impatiently.

My gaze fell to the pill bottles and I dropped my head to the side to read the writing. I didn't know that Eliott took pills. Maybe they weren't even hers at all.

When he finally got onto Google, Arwyn picked up a bottle and scanned it. He typed some buttons on the laptop and the sound of the keys pressing eerily resounded around the room, the sound conveyed the anticipation and nervousness that festered dangerously between us.

He clicked a few buttons before turning the screen towards me. I furrowed my eyebrows as I tried to understand what he was showing. It was a Google Earth street view of what looked like three terraced houses where the entire bottom was made up of a shop. Above was the sign 'Sonny's Pharmacy' in thick, bold lettering faded with time.

"It's where the pills are from. Sonny's Pharmacy is in a town about an hour and a half away from here and they deliver from there to Blackwell. That's probably where Eliott is," Arwyn spoke and my eyes burnt with realisation.

"Oh my God! You're a genius!" I exploded with a grin. "Is this it? Do I even have to go to the chess competition? Surely, this is it."

Arwyn smiled shyly and shrugged his shoulders. "I think you should go to the tournament to speak to Everett. If that's a dead-end then we can go to Sonny's Pharmacy. Okay?"

"Great! Better than great. It's grand! You're grand, Arwyn!"

He smiled shyly as his ears shone pink.

"When we were in year seven, my friends and I would waste lessons looking on Google Streetview and showing each other where we lived," Arwyn reminisced. His voice was quieter - careful.

"You should show me where you live," I suggested. "Not in a creepy way, though."

He hummed while I stood only to throw myself down to lie on the bed beside Arwyn. The mattress rippled under my weight and he groaned while being thrown into the air. I laughed.