chapter 11
1203 Words
chapter 11
The room never really settled after that.
Harvey kept talking, louder than before, like he was trying to pull the attention back to himself. Joan and Jess laughed, but their eyes kept drifting between Sandra and Tim, picking up on something neither of them said out loud.
Sandra felt it too.
A shift.
Like an invisible line had been drawn — and Tim had stepped just slightly to her side of it.
She hated that her chest felt warm because of it.
She focused on the chip in her hand, crunching it too loudly, nodding at the right moments in Harvey’s story. But her awareness kept stretching, pulling toward the desk where Tim leaned like he wasn’t paying attention to anything at all.
Except he was.
Every time Harvey got a little too close while talking, Tim’s posture changed — not obvious, not dramatic. Just subtle adjustments. A straightening of his shoulders. Arms crossing tighter. Eyes sharpening for a second before going lazy again.
No one else would notice.
Sandra did.
And it confused her more than his teasing ever had.
Why does he care?
She wasn’t used to people stepping in for her unless they wanted something in return. Protection usually came with strings, expectations, reminders of debt.
But Tim hadn’t even looked at her when he said it.
You do realize she’s not a trophy, right?
He’d said it like it was obvious. Like it was annoying that anyone would think otherwise.
Like her worth wasn’t even up for discussion.
That feeling sat strangely in her chest. Unfamiliar. Unsettling.
Safe.
She risked another glance at him.
Bad idea.
He was already looking at her.
Not smiling. Not teasing. Just watching, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle he couldn’t solve. The moment their eyes met, something tightened low in her stomach.
He raised one eyebrow slowly.
What? the look said.
She rolled her eyes, turning away quickly, but her lips betrayed her with the smallest smile.
Across the room, Joan saw it. Her grin widened like she’d just discovered gossip gold.
“So,” Joan said loudly, clapping her hands once, “tennis rematch when? Or are we all pretending we didn’t witness the fall of a legend?”
Tim scoffed. “Relax. One win doesn’t make history.”
Sandra looked up sharply. “I won twice.”
“Exactly,” he said, pointing at her like she’d proven his point. “Statistical anomaly.”
She stood straighter. “You barely survived the second match.”
“Survived?” He pushed off the desk, stepping a little closer. “You were wheezing.”
“I was pacing myself.”
“You were dying.”
“I still won.”
Their voices weren’t loud, but the air between them crackled again, the others fading into the background.
Harvey muttered, “Here we go,” but there was no real heat in it.
Sandra crossed her arms. “You just got lucky today.”
Tim leaned in slightly, not enough to invade her space — just enough that she felt the shift. “Luck doesn’t adjust strategy.”
Her pulse jumped. “You think you’ve figured me out?”
His eyes dropped briefly — to her mouth, then back to her eyes. Quick. Almost accidental.
“Working on it,” he said quietly.
The noise in the room seemed to blur for a second.
Sandra’s breath caught, and she hated that he could do that with just two words.
She forced a scoff. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, but the corner of his mouth curved like he absolutely would.
Jess flopped back on the bed dramatically. “Can you two either kiss or schedule the next match? This tension is exhausting.”
Sandra choked. “We are not—”
“At least buy us snacks first,” Joan added.
Tim didn’t look away from Sandra. “Next Saturday,” he said. “Same court.”
She held his gaze, refusing to blink first. “You’re on.”
But beneath the challenge, beneath the pride, something else had slipped in quietly and taken root.
Not softness.
Not yet.
Just awareness.
The kind that made her notice the way his voice dropped when he was serious. The way he watched her like she was worth studying. The way being near him felt less like a threat… and more like standing too close to the edge of something she didn’t fully understand.
And that scared her more than losing ever could.
Sandra left the boys’ dorm earlier than the others.
She blamed homework. Fatigue. Anything that sounded normal.
The truth was, her chest felt too full, like the air in that room had followed her out and wrapped around her ribs.
The hallway was quieter now, lights dimmer, footsteps echoing softly as she walked back toward the girls’ side of the Dome. Her fingers were still warm.
She flexed them like she could shake the feeling loose.
It was nothing, she told herself.
People brushed hands all the time. Knees bumped. Eyes met.
Normal.
So why did it replay in her head in sharp, slow fragments?
The way Tim had said Next Saturday like it meant more than a game.
The way his voice dipped when he said he was “working on” figuring her out.
The way he’d defended her without looking at her, like her dignity was just… obvious.
She wasn’t used to that.
Growing up, attention had always come with a hook. People wanted something. Approval. Access. A favor. Even pity had expectations attached.
But Tim didn’t act like he was trying to win her.
If anything, he acted like he was trying not to.
And that made her more aware of him than if he’d flirted outright.
She pushed open the door to her dorm room quietly. Monica was already in bed, headphones on, eyes closed but not asleep.
Sandra changed in the dark, moving slowly, her mind nowhere near the room.
When she finally lay down, staring at the ceiling, the day caught up to her all at once.
The match. The loss. The committee. The room. Tim’s eyes on her like she was something he couldn’t quite look away from.
Her stomach flipped again.
Annoying.
She rolled onto her side, burying her face halfway into her pillow.
He’s just competitive, she told herself.
He respects your game. That’s it.
But respect didn’t explain the way her heart had stuttered when he stepped closer.
Didn’t explain why she remembered the exact shape of his half-smile.
Didn’t explain why, when Jess joked about them kissing, she had panicked… not because it was ridiculous—
—but because it didn’t feel impossible.
Sandra squeezed her eyes shut.
This was dangerous territory.
Feelings made you careless. Distracted. Soft in places you couldn’t afford to be soft. She had worked too hard to build herself into someone solid, someone who didn’t need anyone else to feel steady.
And yet…
For the first time in a long time, the thought of someone standing beside her didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like balance.
That scared her more than anything.
- Writer
