❝Because the only people for me are the mad ones.❞
— Jack Kerouac
The swimming evaluation was the slowest thing ever.
It took about forty minutes to finish up with the second year evaluation. On the top was Akeno Aigui, with a time of 23.8, taking the first place overall for now. Reece ranked tenth, which wasn't bad, I suppose, considering the gap between him and the eleventh ranker was of a second and half.
After that began the first year tests. I was in the first group with Hayette, Maia, Ciara and a few other girls in my class. I ended up getting the first position among us, getting a time of 26.7 seconds. If I'd have tried harder, I'd have effortlessly reached 25 but my hand gave me a lot of pain. It's been like that lately - failing me when I need it the most.
However, I didn't care about the swimming results.
The moment I reach the other side and all our names are displayed on the screen, I lift myself up, my right hand immediately giving me a stingy pain. If it was anymore, I'd have fallen down but I get up properly and make my way back inside the changing room. I step into the shower, the water hitting my skin, making me realise that I've already exhausted a lot of my energy.
I don't even like to swim.
I change into the regular uniform, t-shirt and shorts and walk back to the seating area of the pool. When I'm back there, I see that Jude's turn has already passed and she's now in first position with the time of 23.2 seconds. It doesn't take a lot of time for the first years to finish up. After all the students are done, the rankings are displayed.
On the top of it all is Jude, and even with a time of 26 seconds, I've managed to still be in the top twenty with my ranking being the nineteenth. Without saying much, the instructor then calls out for a woman, whom I've seen around a lot during the morning track sessions. She's Aliana Tran, one of the instructors. "Take them to the chess room, now. I'll be there in a moment." She nods and without saying much, starts to walk out of the room.
Chess, huh?
The chess room is in a building called 'Coues', whom I remember as the god of query or questioning. Aliana leads us to the second floor and I'm genuinely surprised to see more than half the floor having an area specifically with chairs and tables and chess boards arranged.
There are two pairs of students from the previous group still engaged in heated games, surrounded by about six students who watch them intently. They're either just friends or genuinely interested in the game. I look away from them when Aliana speaks up.
"Carl has assigned some pairs here," she says, looking down at the sheet of paper. "I'll be announcing your names and you all have to sit accordingly. Do not start before you're told so."
She then starts to call people out. I'm paired up with a girl named Penny Bridgette, who's a third year. When both our names are called out together, there's an audible gasp, after which the representative of the third year, Laura, speaks up.
"Isn't that unfair?" Laura says, "Harley's a first year. Penny's a third year. Most of the other pairs are of people in the same year, so why is she an exception?"
"The pairs have been decided by Carl himself. I have no right to comment over them, though I do think it's a bit unfair to pair up a first year with the third year chess champion of last year," Aliana replies at once and continues to speak, ignoring everything the others said after that and moving on with announcing the pairs.
Penny looks at me, a grin spreading across her lips. The two of us take our seats opposite to each other. She doesn't stop staring at me at all and it begins to go to the point where she's making me uncomfortable. She has blond hair which is dyed a bright pink from the tips. Her eyes are gray and dreamy, and she's rather skinny. She has applied eyeliner as well - which bugged me a lot since it seemed like it wasn't affected by swimming at all. Either that or she reapplied it.
"Hey," she begins, "You the girl who Asher's been obsessed with lately?"
I raise my eyebrows but don't say anything. I'm tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. At this point, I'm sure that people are more obsessed with whatever's happening between us more than we are. Hell, we haven't even seen each other in days and I'm more than happy.
For a few seconds when I'm trying to ignore her and look away towards the person sitting next to me, she begins to poke my arm. I throw her a death glare and she laughs, showing off her perfectly lined teeth and crossing her legs while sitting on her seat. "Ah, I see. You don't want to talk to me. But you have to, Har-ley," she pauses, breaking my name and tilting her head, her smile never fading, "because I'm bored and I don't like to stay quiet."
Her voice becomes whiny towards the end and she reaches for my hand, grabbing it. Her eyes go to my nails, which I'd painted red two days ago. Her face morphs into an expression of awe. "Aw, I like your nails!" she exclaims. "Wanna see mine?"
She drops my hand and shows off her long nails, each of which are painted in pastel colours. They look pretty and I'll admit that they match the way she's done her hair and her personality.
"Cool," is all I say.
She pouts, leaning on her elbows. "You're not allowed to hold one word conversations, Har-ley. Oh my god, wait a second. Your name is Harley. Har-ley. Harley. That's so cool! Can I call you Lee? Please, please, please?"
She leans more towards me, her smile never fading.
I raise my eyebrows, not sure what to say. "Um, okay?"
Her expression changed again and she leaned forward, holding my hands again. "Aw, thank you! I like you, Lee. You're cool. Let's make this game a bit more interesting, shall we? I've heard you're the best first year student in terms of academic ability and intelligence. I want to see just how smart you are."
There it is, again. It seems like my relationship with most people around here is based on constant competition and bets. I don't know how that will change but I guess we'll see that eventually.
"Well?" she urges.
I lean forward towards her, my gaze meeting with hers. My lips curl up in a sweet smile. "What's the bet?"
She hears me and her smile widens. She starts to laugh and leans back, eyeing me. "That's the spirit, Lee. 50 dollars? I wanna go to the movies."
I bite my lip. I didn't think she would be betting for real money here but turns out, she doesn't mind this at all.
Noticing the delay in my reply, she sighs in exasperation. "Lee, I'm sure you're rich. What does 50 dollars even mean to you? Just say yes and move on."
Rolling my eyes, I let out a defeated sigh. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. 50 dollars. You're up."
She doesn't reply anymore. She just smiles. On the table right next to us, Julian and Elliot are sitting together, not talking to each other. On our other side are two second years, Mia and Pix, who're engaged in a conversation together. A few minutes later, Carl enters the room and uses his whistle once, silencing everyone.
"Y'all really love to talk, don't you?" he scoffs, then stares at his notepad for a second before looking back at us. "All of you know the rules of chess? Good, because if it isn't obvious to you, you're playing chess now. I want you all to finish this up as quickly as possible and move to the basketball court. Don't even think about bunking. Now begin."
Penny claps her hands in excitement, taking a black pawn and a white pawn in either of her hands and shuffling them. She presents me with her closed hands and says, "Choose." I choose without any second choice and end up with the black one. She lets out a sigh. "Pity. Guess I'm starting."
I nod and she keeps one of her pawns forward, her eyes never leaving me.
"In chess," she begins, her voice so low that only the two of us could hear, "The first move is the most important one. Moreover, there's an advantage to the one who begins first. That doesn't mean that the other player cannot catch up."
I make my move and she makes hers. I have no intention of winning this, but I decide to ask her a question just for the sake of passing time. Our game would be over in no time, judging by the quick moves we're both making.
"Penny," I say her name out loud for the first time, "you like chess?"
"I thought that was pretty obvious but yeah, I do."
"Why do you like it?"
She makes her move, shifting the knight up a bit. Her eyes are now on the chessboard and the pawns, and there's a kind of amusement in her expression that only someone who's addicted can have. I didn't know that people could be addicted to a sport like this but I'm questioning that judgement as I watch her play.
"Strategies," she whispers. "The planning, the layout, the groundwork, everything about it is so exciting," she continues, her eyes momentarily flicking up to me, "What makes it better is the fact that there's a bet between the two of us. I like betting. It's motivating. Now that there's a prize, I'm sure I'll win."
The confidence in her voice doesn't go unnoticed.
I stare just as my turn comes and I'm debating whether to play to win or for the sake of winning. Sports like these have never been exciting for me - they were just mere chores I needed to do to get better at them.
"Be quick, Lee. Don't make me wait."
At that moment, I make a decision. I don't know why I'm doing this - maybe it's because I want to evaluate her myself, to see whether she figures it out or not. I make my move and look at her with my hands folded. The path of the game is decided now, neither of us can turn the tides until I want to. However, I know I won't change anything now. I've made my call.
Her lips curl up in a satisfying grin.
She doesn't say anything, though. She just sighs and moves her own queen. "Two turns." She looks at me, showing me two with her fingers. "Two turns and it's over. Come on, Lee, I thought you could do better. I had been waiting to meet for so long since he-" she abruptly stops, realising what she's saying.
I raise my eyebrows. "Since?"
"Nothing."
I lean on my elbows, looking at her and matching her gaze. "Oh, no, no, sweetheart, you can't turn back like that," I whisper, making sure the others around us can't hear us. "Say it."
"I said it's nothing, so it's nothing. Shut your cakehole," she snaps, then gets back to her game. I sit straight, getting a gist of the situation. I can't help but smile at everything that's going on even though it should be making me stressed instead. The thrill of it is making me feel alive and human.
On her second move, she moves her queen to kill my knight and upon seeing the other pieces, I know it's over. "Checkmate," Penny sings and leans back, laughing. "Ah, you disappointed me so much. I've never played a more boring game in my life." And just like that, her smile immediately fades. Slapping her hands against the table and almost throwing everything off the table, she gets up. All eyes around the room rest on us.
I don't flinch.
She reaches forward to grab my collar pulling me towards her and leaning in herself. She's so close to me that I want to kick her in the face but I keep my calm, waiting for her to begin speaking.
"You," she rasps, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
I keep my face neutral this time. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Seeing the commotion, Carl sends Aliana to us but she's as slow as ever.
"You fuckwit, you damn well know what I'm talking about!" Her voice is louder now, attracting the attention of the students who were previously focused on themselves. "You lost on purpose. Why did you lose on purpose? Why did you-"
"What's your proof, Penny?"
"I- Shut up! I want to play a fair match with you. Why the fuck did you lose?"
I scoff. "Well, it's a game. One of us had to lose. I just took the initiative."
Her grip on me tightens. "That's not how it's supposed to work. I want a fair match with you. I want it now."
"Penny, calm down," Aliana comes up from behind and keeps a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down as if a mere action like this would. "Let go of her."
"You heard her," I say, "Let go of me."
Her grip loosens a little. "Just tell me one thing. Did you do it on purpose?"
Now, I smile. "Yes," I mouth, and that's all it takes for her to let go of me. She shoves me down on the chair and Aliana taps on her shoulder repeatedly, whispering something to her. Penny just looks at me with an expression I can't quite decipher.
Finally, Aliana turns to face me, a small, kind smile on her face. "You're done, right? Proceed to the basketball room. Don't skip, okay?"
I return her smile and nod, getting up and starting to walk away. I just walk past Penny when she speaks up again. "Maybe you're more interesting than I thought you would be."
I turn my face to glance at her but she's not looking at me anymore. I scoff and turn back, walking out of the room. I walk down the stairs of the building and once I'm out, I find a bunch of Euterpe students just hanging around, probably skipping the classes.
I sigh, ignoring them and making my way towards the basketball gym. One thing I'm sure of now is that Asher is not going to back off now. The second thing, well . . .
We may have a traitor in our hands.