sicilian defence (august/flo day 2)

august steps forward, his face catching in the moonlight: he looks as decimated as i feel, although he seems unhurt. with shaking hands he produces the chess set i gave him yesterday, or a million years ago. i am surprised to see it, shocked it hasn't turned to dust. 

my joke falls flat; he acts as though i have slapped him in the face. there is a moment during which we hang suspended, and then the dam breaks and he disintegrates, collapsing beneath the weight of some burden i cannot see. he cries real human-boy tears, and his wrecked frame forms a crumpled heap on the ground. i step backward, instinctively attempting to distance myself from whatever pain he is experiencing. i raise my hands, submit to his sobbing; i know it wasn't funny, but it wasn't that bad, was it? i want to say, but i fear that another murmur from me will break him completely. 

instead i watch cautiously, as though he is a wild animal with a broken leg and i am a hapless, well-meaning explorer who values my own good health. 

i have never been maternal - it's part and parcel of having a mother willing to hand you over to the wolves for the price of a handbag. i let him run himself dry without touching him. 

eventually, he speaks, sorry, uh, where do the pieces go? i didn't find time to study. hope you can forgive me. i am relieved to be reunited with an august who speaks in english rather than strangled gasps, and i move forward again to meet him on the ground, take my place at the other side of the sodden chess board. 

bad day, huh? me too, i say empathetically. 

i begin setting up the board as though nothing has happened. it seems gracious to pretend i have not seen what just transpired; usually, boys do not like it when you know that they cry, too. 

i want to grab august by the shoulders and shake him. i want to shout, to tell him that if he doesn't get it together then he's not going to make it, and he's going to ruin everything, get himself killed - but i know that if i do this he will falter again, and i will find myself alone with a brick wall of a boy who i cannot talk to; more than anything, i do not want to be alone right now, so instead i go gently, focus on the game. 

it starts like this, i say, and point to the pawn. i explain the moves piece by piece, as if we have all the time in the world rather than possibly just this one fragile night. the trick is, of course, that you always have to be thinking several moves ahead. you can't just figure it out as you go.

i lift a tiny white pawn between my fingers, and slide it forward. your turn, i tell him, providing an encouraging smile, cursing him inside my head. i fear that he does not have time for the character arc required, but there is a stubborn part of me still determined to play my self-appointed role in the whole ordeal. 

it is flagellation; ill-advised, and yet - well, i've always loved an underdog.

_[DARS]

he is learning quickly; he falters at the behest of the knight, but, bolstered by my nod of encouragement, makes an acceptable first and second move. i study his face, trying to work out if he has taken on my suggestion - is he planning for the fourth move, for the fifth? i bring my own knights forward to meet his, a gallant defence. 

he comes to the party with a pawn; i narrow my eyes. he has set me up to take the piece - the sacrifice, i think, may be willing. i accept it, scooping up the plastic figurine with a tight smile that says, well, what next? i can clearly see his upcoming pattern of mistakes laid out in front of me, but i still hold hope that he will be a good student, adapt to the demands of the fight. 

what made you decide to teach me? he asks. for a moment i frown, and then realise that he is trying to distract me from the next move, in which he captures my pawn with his knight. i pretend i haven't heard him, focus instead on the sequence of plays that will lead to the ruin of his king, but instead my mind has been toppled from its superior perch. 

i line up my options like milk bottles, ready to shatter at the foot of a wall. 

there is the truth; this, of course, is already in shards and pieces - i cannot give him this, not here, not now. 

there are a thousand more lies that tumble around in my brain. they come easily; they are my mother tongue, my bread and butter. they form the skeleton that holds me up, provides structure to all of my soft parts. i lean back on this reliantly, let it catch me when i fall. 

i make my move and look up to find august still looking at me. his question has not slipped through the cracks, forgotten, but rather remains suspended over the board between us, its heartbeat strong. i am obliged to give it answer of some sort, it seems, so i swallow and again curse the ground that august vance walks on. 

"if i answered that," i say, a deep breath slipping from my grasp. "i'd have to lie to you. and i don't want to lie to you, august." 

it is the truest thing i have said since my name was called on reaping morning.

i take another of his pawns; a punishment. 

inside of me blooms something bright and painful. there is a twist in the pit of my stomach, where the sword came out, and i get the sudden urge to turn away, to run from august and this stupid chess game, to scatter the whole thing in the dirt and never see him again - to let him die, because it will hurt less if its sooner rather than later. i have made a mistake, i know. of course, i am here to liberate people like august, to crumble the stronghold of the careers, to humiliate them so that one of august-kind can take the mantle, can stomp on all of our graves. but it was not supposed to be like this. he is ruining my impartiality. any poor unfortunate sod should do, it should not have to be him.

i shift myself closer to the board-barrier between us, although my whole body screams at me to run away. i look him directly in the eye - this, an action associated with honesty, with honour, to underpin what i must do next. 

his lips are hot and soft from the crying. for a moment, i almost forget to do it.

when we part, i feel like i have fallen into another world and been thrown forcefully back again. i am a child weeping at the foot of a wardrobe, banging my fists against it's solid wooden back. fuck you, august vance. 

i look down to see that my body has misplaced all of the pieces; the knights lay on their sides, felled. august's king has rolled off the board and into the grass.

"you were going to lose, anyway," i say, and it is true. he'd have been checkmate in seven moves, if he made no mistakes.

of course, the game was rigged, it always is.

_[DARS]