Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

“And you don’t have them?”

“No. Though I do have that Mallory the Car Mechaness comic Darcy drew me when she was eight. Think that might count?”

She sighs. “You know you have another option, right?”

I ignore her, and spend the following day looking for something else— anything else. Paterson is the third- biggest city in New Jersey, dammit. There has got to be a job, any job for me, dammit. Though it also happens to have the third- highest density in the United States, meaning lots of competition. Dammit.

Also, dammit: the red numbers that blink at me later that night when I peek at the online bank account Mom gave me access to once Dad wasn’t in the picture anymore. My belly knots over.

“Hey,” I tell Sabrina when I find her alone in the living room. I shove my hands down into my pockets to avoid wringing them. “About those derby fees.”

She looks up from her phone, eyes scared wide open, and blurts out, “You’re going to pay them, right?”

My eyes are scratchy from staring at a screen all day, and for a moment— a horrible, terrifying, disorienting moment—I am angry with her. With my beautiful, intelligent, talented fourteenyear- old sister who doesn’t know, doesn’t understand how hard I’m trying. When I turned fourteen— on the very stupid day of my stupid birthday— everything changed, and I lost Dad, I lost chess, I lost the very me I’d been, and since then all I’ve done is try to—

“Mal, can you please not screw this one thing up for me?”

The “unlike everything else” is unsaid, and the swelling bubble of anger bursts into guilt. Guilt that Sabrina has to ask for what is due to her. If it hadn’t been for my stupid decisions, we’d have had no problem affording her fees.

I clear my throat. “There’s been a mix-up at the credit union. I’ll go check tomorrow, but could you ask for an extension? Just a couple of days.”

She gives me a level stare. “Mal.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll pay as soon as I can.”

“It’s okay.” She rolls her eyes. “Deadline’s next Wednesday.”

“What?”

“I just told you a few days earlier because I know you.”

“You little— ” I gasp, relieved, and flop on the couch to tickle her. In thirty seconds I have maneuvered her into a hug, and she laughs while saying yikes and gross and Seriously, Mal, you’re embarrassing yourself.

“Why do you smell like old books and apple juice?” she asks. “Do we have apple juice?” I nod silently and go to the kitchen to pour her a glass, choked in my throat because of how much I love my sisters, and how little I can give them.

That night, my Gmail snoozes an unanswered message from [email protected]. Received 5 days ago. Reply? I stare at it for a long time, but don’t open it.

On Saturday and Sunday I get a lucky break: a couple gigs— yard work for a neighbor I sometimes babysit for; dog walking— and it’s nice to have some cash, but it’s not sustainable, not long term and not with a mortgage.

“It just needs to be paid,” the credit union teller says on Monday morning, when I show her the reminder, urgent, you are behind and failing at taking care of your family, you useless member of society letter. “Preferably, all three overdue months.” She gives me an assessing look. “How old are you?” I don’t think I look younger than my age, but it doesn’t matter, because eighteen’s plenty young, even when it feels anything but. Maybe I’m just a child playing at grown-up. If that’s the case, I’m losing. “You should probably let your mom handle this,” the teller says, not unkindly. But Mom’s having a terrible week, one of the worst since the nightmare of her diagnosis started, and we probably need to change her meds again, but that’s expensive. I told her to rest, that I had everything under control, that I was picking up extra shifts.

You know, like a liar.

“You look tired,” Gianna tells me when I show up at her place later that night, in desperate need of a distraction from thinking about money. She and I used to take calculus together. We’d have study sessions in this very house that’s probably a McMansion, and would spend approximately one minute working on functions and two hours having lots of fun in her room. Her parents are out of town on a sailing trip, and she’s leaving for some small liberal arts college in less than a week. Hasan, my other good friend, the week after.

“Tired is my default state,” I tell her with a forced smile.

When I get home, not nearly as relaxed as I’d hoped, I find Easton’s text (Just take the fellowship, Mal) and force myself to look at the sample contract.

It’s good money. Good hours. The commute wouldn’t be ideal, but not impossible once my sisters’ school starts. Defne might allow for a flexible schedule, too.

Still, there’s lots to consider. My feelings about chess, for one, which I cannot disentangle from my feelings for Dad. They are twisted, knotted together. There’s pain. Regret. Nostalgia. Guilt. Hate. Above all, there’s anger. So much anger inside me. Mountains of it, entire blazing landscapes without a single furyless corner in them.

I’m angry with Dad, angry with chess, and therefore I cannot play it. Pretty straightforward.

And setting that aside, am I even good enough? I know I’m talented— I’ve been told too many times, and by too many people not to. But I haven’t trained in years, and I honestly believe that beating Nolan Sawyer (who in my latest dream broke off a piece of his queen and offered it to me like a KitKat) was nothing more than a stroke of luck.