Ivy League

Chapter two

Dawn's pov

The conversation with my mom lasted longer than I wanted it to, and ends the way these conversations always end,with both of us pretending it went better than it did.

"We'll figure it out," she said,which is what she says every time, and I believe her the same amount I always do, which is most of the way, with a small hard knot left over that never quite dissolves.

"I'm getting closer to the scholarship," I told her. "Regionals is in eight weeks. If I place, if the pair even qualifies”

"I know, baby." She squeezed my hand across the kitchen table. Her knuckles are cracked from the dry-goods aisle, from stacking boxes all day in a store that keeps the air conditioning at sixty-five to save money. "I know you're doing everything you can."

I didn’t tell her who my partner is. I don't have the energy to watch her face do the complicated thing it does whenever the Whitmore name comes up,half admiration, half something closer to grief, like she's doing math about all the doors that family never had to knock on.

I went to bed replaying the drills in my head instead of the money conversation, because drills I can control.

Monday at four o'clock, I'm on the court fifteen minutes early, which normally I'd say is just discipline, except the honest answer is I wanted to claim the space before he showed up. Get comfortable first. Home field advantage, even though it isn't my field, or his, or anyone's,it's just the school courts, cracked in the corners just like the public ones, except here at least the nets are new.

Brian arrives at 3:58, which somehow annoys me more than if he'd been late. Of course he's punctual. Of course even his arrival is optimized.

"Whitmore," I called.

"Chen," he replied back, and there's something almost formal about it, like we're opposing lawyers instead of tennis players. Which honestly, might be closer to the truth.

Coach Reyes jogs onto the court a minute later, whistle around her neck, clipboard already open to a page covered in diagrams that look like they were drawn by someone plotting a heist.

"Alright," she said. "First thing you both need to understand doubles isn't singles with a friend. It's a completely different sport wearing the same shoes. You don't need to be the best player on the court. You need to be the best “team.”

She has us run formation drills first ,up ,back positioning, poaching, the choreography of two people covering one court without colliding or leaving gaps. It's the kind of thing that should be simple. It is not simple.

Brian and I collide twice in the first twenty minutes.

The first time is my fault.I go for a ball that's clearly his, some old instinct from years of singles telling me every shot on the court is mine to take. We crash shoulder to shoulder and both go down half a step, and he catches my elbow to steady me before either of us really registers what's happening.

"Sorry," I mutter, before I remember I don't have to apologize to him for anything.

"You went for my ball," he said. Not accusing. Just observing, in that clipped, precise way of his, like he's cataloguing data.

"Habit”I said.

"Break it”,he replied. "Fast. We've got eight weeks."

I want to snap at him for the tone. I felt like he's coaching me, like he thinks he gets to coach “me”but the infuriating part is he's right, and I hate it more than almost anything being told something true by someone I've spent four years deciding not to respect.

The second collision is his fault, and I didn’t let him forget it.

He calls a ball that's clearly mine,deep in my half, an easy put away and steps into my path a half-second too late to change his mind, and we ended up in a tangled mess on the court, my racket clattering somewhere near the net post, his hand landing flat against my ribs to keep either of us from actually falling.

For one full second, neither of us moved.

His hand was warm through my shirt. His face is closer than it's been in four years of standing on opposite sides of a net specifically so we wouldn't have to be this close, and up this near I can see things I've never bothered noticing before. A thin white scar through one eyebrow, the fact that his eyes aren't just brown, they're brown with these strange flecks of gold near the center, like something got left behind and never fully faded.

"You're in my head," I said,which came out wrong, came out like an accusation about something that isn't a tennis strategy at all.

He blinks, and for once he doesn't have a smooth, composed answer ready. "That was my fault," he said instead, quieter than before.

"Yeah,it is.” I said

Neither of us moved for another half second longer than we should, and then Coach Reyes's whistle cuts through the moment like a blade, and we both step back so fast,like the ground had gotten hot.

"Water break," Coach Reyes calls, watching us with an expression I can't quite read. "Five minutes."

***

I sat on the bench with my water bottle and didn’t look at him, and he sat three feet away and didn’t look at me either, the silence between us is loud enough that I almost prefer the arguing.

"Can I ask you something," he said.

"Depends what it is." I replied.

"Why tennis. Specifically." He turned towards me,forearms on his knees, and there's something in his face that looks different for the first time since I've known him,actually curious instead of performing curiosity for an audience. "You couldn’t have picked something cheaper. Track. Cross country. You clearly work hard enough for any of them."

The question catches me off guard, mostly because it's a real question, not a rich-boy question dressed up as one.

"My dad taught me," I said,before I can think better of what he asked.”Before he left,It's the only thing of his I kept."I said.

I didn't know why I told him that. I've told exactly three people that fact in my entire life and Brian Whitmore was never supposed to be the fourth.

He didn’t say anything right away,and for a second I brace for pity, for some hollow rich-kid sympathy that'll make me regret opening my mouth.

Instead he just nods, slow, like he's actually turning it over.

"That's the first true thing you've said to me in four years," he said.

"Don't get used to it."

The corner of his mouth moved,not quite the amused smirk from Friday, something smaller and more real and I hate how much I notice the difference.

***

Practice runs another hour, and by the end of it we were not good, not by a long shot, but we're less catastrophic than we started, which Coach Reyes seems to consider a genuine triumph based on how relieved she looks.

"Same time Wednesday," she said,gathering cones. "And for what it's worth,that's the most functional twenty minutes of doubles I've seen out of either of you. Keep going."

Brian and I walked off the court in silence, bags over our shoulders, it's not until we reach the parking lot that either of us said anything.

"My driver is here if you need a ride," he said, nodding towards a black SUV idling near the gate.

"I take the bus," I replied, too fast, too defensive, like he'd insulted me instead of offered something ordinary.

"I know," he said. "I wasn't assuming otherwise. I was offering."

I didn’t know what to do with the offer. The fact that he clearly knew the answer before he asked means he's been paying more attention to my life than I ever gave him credit for.

"I'm good," I said.

He nods, didn’t push it, and stood toward the SUV. Then he stopped,turning halfway back.

"Dawn."

It's the first time he called my actual name instead of Chen, and something about it lands strange in my chest, like a door creaking open that I specifically remember locking.

"What?”

"Your dad," he said. "Did he teach you the backhand too or just the serve?"

It's such a small, specific question, and I don't know why it makes my throat go tight.

"Both," I said.

Something shifts his expression,not pity, not curiosity this time, something closer to understanding and he nods once, like he's filing the answer away somewhere careful.

"He'd be proud of that backhand," he said and then he's gone, climbing into the SUV before I can figure out how to respond to a rich boy who was supposed to be my enemy saying something that quiet, that true, that unbearably kind.

I stood in the parking lot a long time after the SUV drove away, replaying the whole practice in my head, and the thing that scares me isn't the collision, or the hand on my ribs, or even the eight weeks stretching out ahead of us.

It's that for one full hour, I forgot to hate him.

And I don't know what to do with that at all.