Ivy League

Dawn's pov. The ball comes at me like it's got something to prove, and so do I. I plant my back foot, twist, and put everything I have into the return. Every hour I've spent out here since I was eight years old, every callus on my palm, every time my mom worked a double shift so I could afford new strings instead of taping the old ones back together. All of it goes into that one shot. It lands an inch inside the line. "Out!" the line judge calls. "That was in," I snapped,before I can stop myself. Coach Reyes doesn't even look up from her clipboard. "Dawn. Play the point." I don't argue again, because arguing costs me focus, and focus is the only thing I've got that money can't buy. I wipe the sweat off my jaw with my wrist and reset at the baseline, and that's when I saw him. Brian Whitmore is standing at the fence in his pristine white polo, watching my match like he's already decided how it ends. He's not even sweating. Of course he isn't. His match finished twenty minutes ago, straight sets, the kind of clean, boring win that comes from a childhood of private coaches and a home court literally named after his family. He catches me looking and something that isn't quite a smile moves across his face. It's worse than a smirk. It's “amusement”. I want to put a ball through his teeth. Here's what you need to understand about Brian Whitmore: he has never once, in four years of being ranked either one or two spots above or below me, had to actually want anything. I've watched him lose matches and shrug it off like losing costs him nothing, because it doesn't. There's no scholarship riding on his backhand. There's no single mother back home doing inventory at a hardware store, coming home smelling like drywall dust, asking careful, hopeful questions about how practice went. There's no water bill sitting unopened on our kitchen counter because opening it means knowing exactly how bad it is. For Brian, tennis is a hobby that happens to come with a trophy case. For me, it's the only door I've got. I finished the match 6-4, 7-5, which is closer than it should have been, and I know exactly why, because for one and a half set,my brain kept doing this thing where it left the court and went and stood next to him at the fence instead, running through everything I hate about the way he watches me play, like I'm a puzzle he already solved. I towel off and didn’t look at him again. I didn’t need to. I can feel him there anyway, the same way you can feel a wasp in the room even with your eyes closed. Coach Reyes calls the whole team in after practice, and I already know from the tightness in her shoulders that something's coming. She's not a woman who wastes energy on suspense unless the news is either very good or very bad. "Regionals qualifying changed this year," she said. "The conference is requiring every school to field a mixed pair. No exceptions. No mixed doubles, no team entry. Which means "no singles bids for anyone, including our two ranked players." My stomach does something complicated. "I've spent the last week thinking about who to pair," she continues, "and I'm not going to pretend this is a popular choice. But I need our two strongest players on the same side of the net, not opposite it. Dawn. Brian. You're doubles partners starting Monday." For a second the words didn't fully land, like she's speaking a language I almost understand. Then they landed. "You're joking," I said,before I can stop myself for the second time today. "I don't joke about entry requirements," Coach Reyes says, and something in her face tells me she's already braced for exactly this reaction. "You two are the best players on this team by a wide margin. Regionals is in eight weeks. I need a pair that can actually compete, not two single players resenting each other across a net." I glance sideways. Brian's jaw has gone tight in a way I've genuinely never seen before,not amused, not unbothered, not any of the expressions I've spent four years memorizing on him. He looks like someone just told him he has to share his room with a stranger. Good, I think. Misery loves company. "With respect, Coach," he said,and his voice has that clipped, careful quality that rich boys get when they're trying very hard not to sound like they're complaining, "Dawn and I don't exactly have chemistry." "You don't need chemistry," Coach Reyes says. "You need to not double-fault. Chemistry is optional. Winning is not." She looked between the two of us, and for a second her expression softens into something almost sympathetic. "Look. I know you two have history. I don't need to know the details, and honestly, I don't care. What I care about is that this team has one shot at regionals, and you're both too talented for me to waste that shot on pride. Monday. Four o'clock. Don't be late, either of you." She walks off toward the equipment shed before either of us can argue further, which I realize, watching her go,was probably the entire strategy. *** I was shoving my racket bag into my locker murmuring to myself in confusion when Brian's voice comes from somewhere behind my left shoulder, closer than I expected. "For what it's worth," he said, "I didn't request this." I did turn around. "Didn't think you did." I replied,then continued with my racket bag. "You could at least pretend this isn't a personal insult to you." That gets me to turn around. He's standing there with his arms crossed, that same too-composed expression on his face, like he practiced it in a mirror somewhere between his family's tennis court and his family's second tennis court. "You want to know what's a personal insult?" I asked. "I've worked for every single ranking point I have. You've been handed lessons since you were in diapers, and somehow you still think we're starting from the same place?.We're not doing this because we're equals, Brian. We're doing this because Coach Reyes needs a pairing that wins, and apparently my talent is finally useful enough to get stapled to yours." Something flickers across his face,too fast for me to name it before it's gone, replaced by that same unreadable calm. "You really think that's all I think of you," he said.It's not quite a question. "I think you've never had to think about me at all," I replied. "That's kind of the point." I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked past him, and I told myself the tight, hot feeling in my chest is anger. Just anger. Nothing more complicated than that. My phone buzzes on the walk to the bus stop. It's my mom. **Mom:Water company called again. Can we talk tonight? I stare at the message for a long moment, my thumb hovering over the reply, feeling the whole day rearrange itself in my head from Coach Reyes's announcement, Brian's face at the fence, and now this, landing on top of everything else like it's just one more ball I'm supposed to somehow get back over the net. Regionals could mean a scholarship. A scholarship could mean actually getting out. Getting out could mean my mom not lying awake doing math in her head every night. And now the only way through it runs directly through Brian Whitmore. I typed back: “Yeah,tonight.” Then I put my phone away and start walking, already dreading Monday at four o'clock and hating it more than anything, the small, traitorous part of me that's already thinking about the way his face changed for half a second back there, like I'd hit a nerve he didn't know he had. I shove the thought down where it belongs. Whatever that was, it doesn't matter. We have eight weeks to become a team. I just have to survive them first.