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We only placed third in the challenge, but we managed to steal Pippa Portnoy’s flag, an affront that didn’t go unnoticed.
I often find her watching me now, sly and silent, her lips quirked up in a perpetual smirk. When she’s not actually around, it’s almost worse, like when you lose sight of the spider in your room. I’d rather have her in plain view where at least I can see what she’s up to.
I’m drawing glares and mutters everywhere I go on campus, and a couple of not-so-joking threats.
Miles seems to find it all hilarious. He couldn’t care less that his own Sophomore team is out of the challenge.
“They don’t know what a desperate little psycho you are,” he tells me, cheerfully. “They don’t know you’d literally rather die than lose.”
“Right,” I say dully.
Winning has always been the most important thing in the world to me. When we arrived at Kingmakers, there was nothing I wanted more than to get the Captainship and be the first Freshman to ever win theQuartum Bellum.
But with each week that passes, I struggle to feel even basic enthusiasm about the next challenge.
My competitors don’t share my ennui.
Calvin Caccia has gone from friendly rival to all-out enemy. He didn’t appreciate my stunt in the dining hall, which fulfilled the terms of our bet, but not quite the spirit.
For me, that was the last day I felt anything approaching happiness.
The cheers and back-slapping from my fellow Freshmen gave me a burst of triumph. But it faded away almost immediately, and I sank back into the gloom that’s been suffocating me for the last two months.
I feel dull and drained, and I’m finding it hard to care about what I’ll be facing next.
“The first one was sort of a warm-up,” Matteo says, “but they won’t go so easy on us next time.”
“You thought that was easy?” Ares cries. “We almost lost.”
“Yeah, well it’s gonna get a lot worse,” Matteo says darkly. “Last year in the second challenge one of my brothers broke his leg so bad they almost had to amputate it.”
“Why in the fuck are we even doing this?” Ares shakes his head in wonder.
“Why did we come to Kingmakers at all?” Matteo grins. “To live a life less ordinary.”
“Ordinary life was nice,” Ares says wistfully.
Since I’ve been in such a low mood myself, I’m becoming more cognizant of the fact that Ares isn’t always as cheerful as I thought. What I’d first taken for a laid-back attitude, I’m now realizing might actually be a carefully-cultivated sense of calm to conceal the more turbulent emotions underneath.
I thought that Ares disappears into our room or the library because he gets tired of the constant socialization required to live, eat, sleep, and study on campus. But now I think it might be something else. I think he might be depressed. When I come across him unexpectedly, when he doesn’t know anyone is watching, he sometimes looks discouraged or even upset.
When I try to talk to him about it he brushes me off, smiling and telling me I’m imagining things.
“I’m just tired,” he says, pushing his hair back out of his eyes with a sweep of his hand. “It’s all this homework. I never did that great in school. Probably never wrote so many words in my life as I did last semester.”
I can tell that Ares isn’t going to open up to me. He doesn’t want to confide in me. And that makes me realize I’m not as good a friend to him as I thought.
Maybe I’m not that great a friend to anybody.
I was blazing through life with me at the center of my own universe, and everybody else in orbit around me. I took for granted that they were all as happy and content as they seemed. I never bothered to look that deep below the surface.
I thought of myself as the star of the show, and honestly, Ares was a sidekick. I hadn’t really considered him as a person with struggles as acute or complex as my own.
The same was true with Anna. I made assumptions about her feelings and her goals. I wasn’t careful to find out what she really wanted. I took her for granted.
I don’t think I can win her back, but at least I can treat Ares better. I try my best to help him with his schoolwork, introducehim to pretty girls, and ask him a hundred questions about his family and his home, hoping I can figure out what’s bothering him.
It’s probably too much, because after a week or two of this, Ares says, “Do you need a kidney or something? You’re being too nice, and it’s freaking me out.”
