Page 86 of The Bargain

Because love is a punishment, the kind of risk I could never afford, the one error I never thought I would make. And now⁠—

“Hey, are you alright?”

I turn, startled, caught off-guard. A girl frowns up at me. She’s wearing black tights and a short denim skirt and a black jumper with frayed sleeves and hems. Her brown eyes are rimmed thickly with kohl, and they’re a little red and a little puffy, as if she’s been crying.

I recognise her instantly, of course. Though her hair is a dark, deep brown, her eyes are the exact same shape and colour as her sister’s.

“Hey, Ophelia.” I quickly take in her fingernails, which are bitten to the quick, her puffy eyes, the downturned corners of her mouth. “You alright?”

“Are you?” she says with a defiant thrust of her chin. “You kinda sounded like you were having a breakdown or something.”

And just like that, I feel myself shoved back through time: I’m standing in the busy rec room of a care home, facing off some defiant younger kid. One of those kids that wanted comfort so much that all they could ever do was push away anyone that might give it to them.

Help me, those kids seemed to say with their eyes, fuck off far away from me and help me.

“And you look like you’ve been crying all night,” I answer Ophelia, raising an eyebrow. “So what gives?”

She drops her gaze. I can’t help but notice the stiffness of her shoulders, her straight posture. That streak of pride all those Sutton-Knights seem to have inherited from their mother—the only family member who’s not here for Christmas because she’s taking on some enormous case in New York, sacrificing her time with her family to save someone else’s.

Ophelia looks back up, pulling nervously at a fraying bit of her sleeve as she gathers her courage.

“You do favours for people at school, right?” She swallows, and her waterline gleams as it fills with dewdrops of tears. “I—I don’t know who else to ask. I need your help.”

Fuck.

And once again—see how quickly one mistake can snowball into absolute catastrophe?

33

Cool Dad

Desdemona

The air is so cold it burns a little when I breathe it in, opening my lungs up wide. Around the tennis court, the frost hasn’t quite melted off the grass, but the sun is out and the sky is a startling, cloudless blue—my favourite colour.

This is also my favourite weather for tennis: the air feels light and hard, the ball cuts clean and sharp, and the cold keeps you moving without ever letting you get sluggish.

“Come on, Dess!” Dad calls from the other side of the net, his breath puffing out in the crisp air. “If this is your A game, I might actually win one for once.”

I snort and serve so hard and fast he has to leap backwards to return it—which he does without fumbling. Dad never fumbles. It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about playing against him, ever since I was a little girl: no matter how tired he is, or how many mistakes he makes, he always puts up a proper fight.

“Keep dreaming!” I call back, whacking the ball with a clean, short arc of my arms.

He laughs, head thrown back, boyish despite the silver hair peppering the gold at his temples. Some of my earliest memories are of afternoons like this: Dad’s jubilant laughter, the satisfying thwack of the ball against the strings, the bright blue sky and the clean green court.

Even now, all these years later, now that my serves are faster and my forehand sharper than his, there’s still something childishly comforting about the rhythm of it—the back and forth, the muscle memory, the bond between us that feels like a string of muscle connecting us.

“You’re getting slow, old man,” I call as he lunges for a return and finally misses.

“Old?” he exclaims, but he’s grinning, eyes the same colour as the sky, cheeks flushed pink from exertion. “I’ll have you know I’m still in my prime.”

I laugh. I feel free and young and light as I move up and down the court, trading points and barbs, beautiful and perfect in Dad’s eyes in a way I can never quite achieve when I’m away from him. At Spearcrest, I’m only ever pretending to be perfect, and I never, ever feel like I am.

Around Dad, I never even have to try to still feel like it.

After the game, when we sit by our bags to catch our breath and drink water, Dad tosses me a snack bar and says without prelude, “So. Are you going to tell me about this boy or am I supposed to drag it out of you?”

I almost choke on my water, eyes widening.