Midnight Chess
I’ve got one hand on a bottle of wine. Windthrow might be virtually nonexistent, but someone had enough sense to build a 24-hour convenience store on the street corner, and the blinding whiteness of the LED lights feels familiar, at least. All convenience stores are the same building; I swear you could enter one in L.A. and walk out only to find yourself in Reno or Detroit. Or in this case, Windthrow. They're some kind of in-between space where it’s always dark outside and the young person behind the counter never looks you in the eye. I almost buy two bottles of wine, but settle on one and, on a whim, a bag of frosted animal crackers.
If I could, I would be at some club where I could be anonymous, but I don’t think anonymity is an option in a place with approximately ten people in it. I’d already been to the only bar on the block yesterday, and let’s be honest, it sucked. And turned out poorly. So instead I walk down the street in the dark, pretending there are people around to make it feel more like a city. Everything is darker and colder and emptier here, and there’s nowhere to blend in.
It’s actually cold out, so I tuck my face into what little collar exists on my fur vest. I’m not sure why I brought it or if it’s real fur, but it looks good with flare jeans and platform tennis shoes. It makes me look like a Bratz doll. I take a swig of the wine and wash it down with a handful of the animal crackers, almost spilling the bag all over the street but managing to catch it just in time.
I find myself suddenly standing outside the bookshop where I’d first found Darian and Keigan. It seems taller in the dark, and dirtier. The ivy on the outside looks like it’s strangling the bricks, like a giant beast’s tentacles are about to crush the whole thing without a shred of remorse. I get an itch to write, but now’s not the time.
I squint up at the sign above the door: Midnight Strikes Books. I hadn’t noticed that before. Stuffing the bag of animal crackers into my vest pocket--yes, it’s fantastic, it has pockets--I pat one-handedly around my vest and pants pockets until I find my phone. It says it’s 12:11 AM. I’m disappointed because I kind of thought it might be precisely midnight, but now I’ve missed it. Wasted all evening pretending to be asleep in my room at the inn, just waiting until it was late enough that no one would notice me leave.
I stare at my phone for a minute. I’m a bit annoyed, really, that I hadn’t missed any messages from when I’d lost it. Two emails, neither important; quite a few missed calls from Bram, which I knew would be there; and an Instagram friend request from someone I’ve never heard of. I was anticipating a flood of messages: Masie, listen to what just happened! Masie, where are you? Pick up! Are you dead? Hello?! I guess now I know that if I were to be kidnapped no one would actually notice. A comforting thought.
I dial a number and tuck my phone between my shoulder and my ear, staring up into the bookstore’s second-story windows. It picks up on the second ring.
"Masie?" I like the way Darian says my name. That’s the alcohol talking, sure, but also the memories of his lips on mine.
I shake it off. "Does Keigan live at the bookstore?"
"Does Keigan--" he begins to repeat.
"I want to talk to Keigan!" I clarify somewhat petulantly.
Darian's voice sounds far away from the phone. “...wants to talk to Keigan…” Someone else's voice, too, is muffled on the other end.
"Bram wants to know why," Darian finally replies.
"Don't tell her I--!" comes from the other side of the line. I recognize the voice in the background now.
"Why're you with Bram?"
There's a shuffling on the other side of the phone, like it's being passed--or taken--from one place to another. "Are you drunk?" Bram.
"Why are you always asking me that?" I ask, annoyed, holding up my wine bottle to the light of the street lamp to check how empty it is. Mostly, but not completely.
There's more noise on the other end, muffled speech back and forth. "--to me," comes Darian's voice, louder now. "I just texted you his number. But he might not pick up; he’ll be asleep. I’m sure he’ll call you back in the morning."
"Ask her where she is." I can still hear Bram.
"Tell Bram to fuck the fuck off," I say, thinking I sound clever.
I can hear a smile in Darian's voice. "I will, Masie."
“I don’t regret sleeping with you,” I tell him, my brain too slow to realize that maybe now’s not the time. He doesn’t get a chance to respond, because I hang up.
Turns out Darian did text me a number, so I call that next, tipping back the rest of the wine as the dial tone trills. No answer, so I try again. On the third try, I drop the wine bottle, which was an accident, and it shatters into shimmery sharp bits on the sidewalk. I pound both fists on the bookshop’s front door now that they’re both free. I forgot which pocket I put my phone into already.
A dim light turns on inside. I cup my hands around my eyes and press my face against the glass to see, but it’s smudgy. Then the door creaks and I kind of fall inside, but I stay upright. Mostly because someone has grabbed me by both elbows, but that’ll do.
“Keigan!” I say happily, patting his chin as he puts me back on my feet. It’s definitely him because his hair’s up in a falling-apart bun, and he makes that look attractive. But he looks different, because he doesn’t normally have glasses.
“Aren’t your arms freezing?” is the first thing he says, shutting the door behind me. I was going to ask him something, but I’m still trying to remember what.
“It’s called fashion. I thought you liked vests.” In the dim light from a single bulb near the stairs, I watch the shape of him go to the counter and flip a switch. All the fairy lights in the shop begin to glow.
“I do, but you have goosebumps. The temperature drops when the sun’s gone.” Keigan turns back to me, his fine features now warmly lit from the fairy lights above. He’s wearing a crinkly, loose t-shirt and tie-dyed sweatpants.
I remember. “What happens at midnight?”
Keigan lifts one side of his tortoise-shell glasses to rub his eye. “What?”
I point at the door I just came through. “Midnight Strikes. What happens at midnight?” I find the animal crackers in my pocket. “Animal cookie?”
“Why don’t we go sit down, Masie?” He leads me into the shop, which goes on way further than I’d anticipated. Everything smells like paper. There’s a corner with cushy pastel chairs and a chess table whose base is shaped like a rook. We sit, and I eat animal cracker crumbs because I pretty thoroughly smashed them all at some point. Keigan doesn’t want any.
Keigan doesn’t speak, just rearranges the pieces on the chessboard--mismatched, like they're from different sets--back into a starting position.
“I don't know how to play chess,” I inform him. He looks up at me. “I pushed Walker down a flight of stairs,” I add.
Keigan scoffs and sits back in his chair. “I’m sure he deserved it.”
“Thank you! I knew I'd like you.” I pick up a queen off the chess board and roll it between my fingers.
“What did he do?”
I inspect the queen, resisting the urge to bite it. “He threw me into the lake. I thought I was going to drown.”
Keigan’s hand is warm when he pats my forearm. “Sorry. He really has a tough time with women.”
Pieces of Keigan’s hair are falling in front of his face, and I reach up to touch them. “Will you kiss me?”
He just smiles at me, sleepy lines forming around the edges of his mouth. And pulls away. “No, Masie.”
I toss the queen back onto the chess board, knocking over some of the other pieces. I’m very good at taking rejection, actually. I’m not making a scene. I stand. “Then I will need more alcohol, I think.”
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(next chapter)
pt 17: https://www.theprose.com/post/783495/risque-discoveries
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(previous chapter)
pt 15: https://www.theprose.com/post/780631/a-little-bit-of-revenge