A/N: Oh. My. Barking. Spiders. Did Middy Miles actually post a new chapter of Like Tea and Coffee? That's right, folks. I'm back. And, trust me, I've been waiting as long for me to finish this as you guys. On the upside, school is about to start and the rest of this fic is plotted out (it'll probably finish at around 20 chapters, maybe less), so the updates should be coming more frequently from now on. Yes, I write more when there is schoolwork I should be doing instead :)
Enjoy, everyone! I hope it was well worth the wait!
The circumstances under which I end up on the bus to our fencing meet are a bit more complicated than I would have liked. But I find it best not to dwell on that, especially considering that our bus assignments worked delightfully to my favor.
Deryn and I are on the same bus, and Matt isn't.
So I find myself sitting next to Deryn, who seems to be asleep against the window, across the aisle from Fitzroy and Newkirk. Even before she fell asleep she was quiet, but then again everyone is. The bus left entirely too early this morning—six fifteen, which meant my alarm went off much earlier than that—and a drowsy silence pushes down on us.
Newkirk lets out a giant yawn, and though he tries to say something through it I can't understand him. "Could you repeat that?" I ask tiredly.
He clears his throat. "I've been waiting for this all year."
Fitzroy lets out a sharp laugh and elbows his friend. "Of course you have, because you're in looove," he jibes, the least lucid of us. Rehearsal for the school musical went abnormally late last night, he told us as he stumbled up to the bus earlier this morning. Robert doesn't talk about it much, but he has a rather large part and is required to be at rehearsals three nights a week.
His statement wakes me up a little. "What?" I demand, a bit too loud for the hush of the bus. This wakes Deryn up, and she rubs her eyes tiredly.
"Are we at the stadium?"
I grin. "No, but Newkirk's in love."
She brightens immediately at the statement, shifting in the seat so she's facing the boy of interest. "Sounds intriguing. Please, continue."
Newkirk shoves at Robert half-heartedly for bringing the subject up. "It's nothing."
"Not nothing," the other boy counters, slightly more alert. "Definitely not nothing. If you don't tell them, I will."
"I talk to a girl at fencing meets, alright?" Newkirk groans, running a hand through his hair.
"Talk to her?" demands Fitzroy. "You're always texting her, and you bring her coffee and practically massage her shoulders before every match. We all know she's the reason you stayed with the team after you quit." He falters over the last few words, obviously not sure how to refer to the sequence of events that led to the boy's discontinuation of fencing.
"That sounds adorable, Newkirk," Deryn adds, stretching out her arms as much as she can in the tight bus seat. "What's her name?
I watch the question play across Newkirk's face as he decides whether to say. He never has to make the choice, though, because Fitzroy supplies the answer for him. "Rachel."
"Robert Fitzroy, keep your sodding mouth shut," Newkirk groans. "If you had a life—or a girlfriend—of your own, would you still be so irritating?"
His tone holds no menace, and yet Fitzroy jerks back like he's been burned. "Forget I said anything, then," he grumbles, and turns to look out the window.
"I didn't mean that," apologizes the other boy. "Sorry. We're all a bit punchy without sleep, aye?"
Fitzroy shrugs and nods. "Don't worry about it." Newkirk's phone makes a strangled buzzing noise, and he pulls it out of his jacket pocket. Robert looks over his shoulder and grins. "See? Always texting her."
"Sod off," Newkirk says absently, tapping at his keyboard.
I glance at the watch on my wrist; we've been on the road for only twenty minutes now, and the coach's estimated time of arrival at the arena says we have almost another hour.
Deryn, sitting next to me, yawns. "Blisters, this is awful. I'm normally a morning person, but I was up until two Skyping my brother. I literally felt like a zombie when I had to get up; I even let Ma drive me to school instead of walking."
Biting my lip, I think of my car ride. I felt bad lying to the wildcount, but he wouldn't have let me come otherwise. That I'm certain of. And to be honest, I'm afraid of what he'll do when he finds out—the world may not end if I'm on the varsity team, but the count will act like it. I've broken our deal, and I'll suffer the consequences.
But not today.
"Really?" I ask after a moment, genuinely surprised. Deryn doesn't like cars, that much I can tell. She's fine with buses, it would seem, but not cars, though she's never told me why.
"Yeah. And you don't look so bushy-tailed yourself," she accuses, raising an eyebrow. "Up late as well?"
"No," I lie. It wouldn't do for her to know that I was up well past midnight reading reports on the war in my country, and only slept fitfully after that. While the government still holds Vienna, rebels have taken many of the other major cities. My parents' deaths are just two of thousands. I swallow hard.
Deryn eyes me strangely, as if she can sense I'm not telling the truth. Then she shakes her head and changes the subject. "So are you as worried about the biology project as I am? Barlow says it's twenty percent of the quarter's grade, and I know she'll grade hard."
I nod. "I haven't the faintest idea what she's talking about most days. Biology confuses me so much," I admit, honest this time.
"If you want help, I'd be glad to give it," Deryn offers. "I need a partner, anyway."
My stomach tightens. "I'd like that. I really don't want to fail. And If you ever need help with auto mechanics, I'm your guy," I add, feeling as though I should return her favor.
She nods and repositions herself in the seat so she's angled toward me. "So you're a clanker, huh?"
"A what?" I blink, confused by a word I don't recognize.
"Oh—sorry. It's what we called all the kids who were into mechanics at my old school. I forget we're from different places." Her shoulders lift in a shrug just as the bus goes over a bump, jostling us all. A few people mutter tiredly, but for the most part no one seems to mind. I take a moment to adjust my legs, cramped in the small space between my seat and the one in front. "Come to think of it," Deryn says, dark blond eyebrows lowering, "I don't know where you're from."
Opening and closing my mouth several times, I find that I can't form words. It should be easy—my file says I moved here from Benešov, a town southeast of Prague in the Czech Republic. But I don't want to lie, not to Deryn, not anymore. If I could just tell someone about everything that's running through my head at a thousand kilometers an hour and pushing down on my shoulders with the weight of a mountain, then maybe it wouldn't all seem so awful. "I—"
No. Even if I trust her, even if saying I spent most of my winters in Vienna will mean nothing, I can't. It could still go wrong. Any chance at all it too much of a chance. "I'm from the Czech Republic, near Prague," I say.
"Exotic," jokes Deryn, not seeming to have noticed my hesitation. "I like it. I'm from Glasgow, by the way. I don't know if I ever told you."
I shake my head. "No, you hadn't. That's north of here, isn't it? In Scotland?"
"It is. Way north. The winters there are awfully cold. And the snow! You've never seen the like. Ma and I would have to dig ourselves out some mornings, and I would be so late for school..."
We fall into easy conversation, voices low to match the quiet of the school bus. It feels good to be able to talk to someone, even if I can't say anything that really matters. I can almost feel normal when I talk to her.
An hour that feels like minutes later, the bus creaks to a halt in the circle drive of a low brick building, the words "University of Essex at Colchester" spelled out proudly in red and purple on the side. The coach looks from a paper in his hand to the driver, then leans over to give her a few directions, pointing to a massive building and corresponding parking lot. We rattle into motion again, waking up most of the students.
More and more heads pop up from between the seats, headphones are pulled from ears, and arms appear in stretches as the bus slowly comes to life. A sense of anticipation creeps over us all, and I find myself picking at my fingernails and chewing on my lip. Deryn wrings out her hands and gives me a reassuring nod; I wonder if my worry is clear on my face.
It's not the idea of competition that scares me, really. I'm certain I could do fairly well, maybe even place in the top two. But that's Aleksandar Hohenberg—I need to decide how good at fencing Ryan Thompson is. Before, it wouldn't have been an issue because I wasn't on varsity, but now I have to do well enough that it won't hurt my team, though not so much that it would draw attention from places that would recognize me. It's probably stupid that I'm even here—it was never a secret that I could fence, in my old life—so I have to be careful.
I shake my head and pop my knuckles, trying to rid myself of the anxiety. My breath leaves a spot of moisture on the fake leather of the seat in front of me, and I watch it fade away slowly.
"Ow! Are we here?" Robert yelps suddenly, and I look over to see him rubbing his shoulder and Newkirk with a wide grin on his face.
"Yes, we're here," he replies smugly.
Fitzroy blows a bit of hair off his forehead. "That's my fencing arm, thank you very much. I need that for things."
With a grin, Newkirk hefts a faded green duffel bag over his shoulder and stands, just as the bus jerks to a stop. He stumbles forward a bit, but between the closeness of the seat in front and his sense of balance, he manages to stay upright.
He's earned a sideways glance from Robert. "We're at the back of the bus, Newkirk. No need to be in such a hurry."
Newkirk scowls. "I'm not in a hurry," he argues, but soon realizes that he's the only person standing. He sinks back into his seat slowly. "Maybe just a squick. And it's not my fault you're all moving at the pace of a comatose snail."
I shake my head, reaching down to pull my own bag off the floor. It's identical to those of everyone on the team, with "Leviathan" in block letters on the sides. My gear in the bag is, again, exactly like the rest of my team's. Maybe blending in will help me stay unnoticed.
Deryn's duffel is already hung by its strap over her shoulder, and she has one hand on the back of the seat ahead of us. She looks almost as anxious as Newkirk, though I assume her nerves are purely from excitement about competing.
The students begins filing off the bus, and conversations buzz around, dropping off as more exit. Finally we've made our way to the door, and I step out between Fitzroy and Deryn. My tennis shoes make a wet crunching noise against the pavement, and a breeze nudges its way through my blazer. I have to skirt around puddles from this morning's rain on my way to the building.
"How many teams are here?" I ask, noting the fleet of buses in the parking lot.
"Five, I think," Newkirk replies. "Some schools have massive JV teams, though. And it's co-ed, so that doubles the people."
I grimace. "Do we all fence at the same time?"
"No. Girls in the morning, guys after lunch. They usually post a bracket in the gym so you know when and where your matches are." He's about to say something else, but the coach's voice booms over us.
"Drop your bags off in the locker rooms and then meet in the gym, at our usual spot on the bleachers," he orders, and the group splits apart into our respective locker rooms. Most of us double up our bags because there aren't nearly enough lockers for as many boys that are here. I end up sharing with a freshman on JV, who walks in a few minutes after the rest of us because it's the underclassmen's job to carry the foils and water jugs. His name is Scott, but that's all I know about him.
I follow Fitzroy and Newkirk—who still has his duffel, because he's the team manager and carries the Tylenol, athletic wrap, and other such things—down the hall and through a door on our right, which opens up into a gym that looks even more massive on the inside than out. It's not quite a stadium, but it comes close.
The ceiling here is much higher than the one in Leviathan's fencing gym, which allows rows of bleachers to be stacked along the walls. A section is marked off for teams, and I can see a few of my teammates gathered in the top few rows. I start toward the stairs, but Newkirk catches my arm.
"Let's look at the bracket, and see where Deryn fences first."
His voice seems quiet in the low roar of the gym, but I quickly adjust to the noise to tune most of it out. We maneuver around the dozen pistes that are laid out on the floor and to the far side of the gym, where a giant white board with two brackets—one JV and one Varsity—on it stands out boldly against the red-and-purple painted wall. The first round of matches all have names written on the lines, conveniently color-coded for each of the five schools here.
After a few minutes, Fitzroy finds her name. "Ah! Right here. Deryn's up against someone named 'Helen' at piste five. And... varsity girls matches start at ten, looks that mean's we've got two hours to kill while JV fences. We don't have a girls JV team, do we?"
Newkirk shakes his head. "We barely have varsity. The only reason we have to show up so early is because check-in is at seven forty-five."
"So we've got nothing to do for two hours." Robert sighs, glancing down at his watch.
The corners of Newkirk's mouth tug into a smile. "Correction: you don't. I do." He ducks past Fitzroy and me, and raises a hand above his head, calling, "Rachel!"
A head pops up from looking at a phone screen, and her green eyes light on Newkirk. "Eugene! It's been so long! How are you?" Her blond pony sways as she walks toward him.
Fitzroy sighs. "That's our cue to leave," he whispers, tugging at my sleeve.
"Why does she get to call him Eugene?" I wonder aloud.
"Because he's so taken with her he's never told her otherwise." He shrugs. Over my shoulder, I see the pair walking toward the concession stand that boasts coffee for a pound. "Come on, let's go find Deryn."
She jumps lightly on her toes, shifting the weight between her feet nervously. In a few minutes, they'll hook her up to the electronic scoring system, but for the moment she's free to wander around the area by the piste at will. Even now, with her bleached-white gear on, identical to all the other fencers about to compete, she looks distinctly like herself.
I check my watch. Nine fifty-five. For the last two hours, we've mostly sat around and worked on homework, so I'm glad to finally have some action, but Deryn looks like she'd much rather finish the trig assignment. I can feel her nervous energy from here.
"You'll be fine," I tell her, laying a hand on her shoulder.
"Yeah, I know." She jumps a few more times, and rolls her head around. "I don't know why this is freaking me out so much—I did tons of sports at my old school."
I smirk. "Why am I not surprised?"
She scowls and punches me in the shoulder. "Ouch! See what I mean?" I rub my arm and give her a pouty face. As I'd hoped, she surrenders to a reluctant grin.
"So what about you? Much of a sports kid?" Deryn glances at the digital clock on the other side of the piste and reaches back to try and adjust her plastron, which isn't fastened quite right.
"Here, let me," I say, stepping around her and re-buttoning the straps that go around her middle and her neck. The school-supplied plastrons have one sleeve and don't go all the way around the body, so they have a habit of getting tangled up in the back. "And I was home-schooled, so I haven't done many sports."
"Other than fencing." She quirks a half smile again. "You've done quite a bit of that."
"Yes, other than fencing." I turn her around to face me again, and I can see that her face is a little paler than usual. "Do you want me to get you some water? Or—rub your shoulders or something?"
She's about to reply when she's called over to be attached to the electronic scoring system. "Maybe next time," she says over her shoulder. "And, Alek—thank you."
"No problem. Good luck, Deryn."
With a nod to me, she accepts a foil from coach Wrathbone and steps up to the edge of the piste. Her opponent is shorter than her by a substantial amount, and the tanned skin of her face stands out starkly against the white of her gear. Angled eyes glance nervously at Deryn, and she blows a stray strand of black hair out of her face. She looks fifteen at best, probably only a freshman.
A voice booms through the speakers on the ceiling, sounding too cheery and rather American. "Welcome everyone, to the two-thousand thirteen University of Essex at Colchester qualifying fencing tournament. I'm Edward Malone, and you'd all better get used to my voice because I will be covering all qualifying meets on the radio and in London's number one newspaper, The Times."
Bile rises in my throat. God's wounds, newspaper coverage? I'll have to keep an even lower profile now than I thought, and make sure that count Volger never learns of this. I'd be off the team for sure.
"About ten minutes ago, we wrapped up the girls junior varsity portion of our day, andAshbourne's Fighting Bear, Charlotte Walker, came out on top. Congratulations, Charlotte, and maybe now your coach will think twice about keeping you on the JV team.
"Right now, the varsity matches are about to begin. Before you all start waving those foils around, let me take a moment to remind you all that of the five schools here, only the top three will be advancing to the next qualifying meet. So good luck to all of you, and may the best fencers win."
When the referee signals them, Deryn and her opponent step onto the piste simultaneously, and after saluting they put their masks on. The call to begin is small and seemingly insignificant in comparison to all the noise in the gym, but Deryn relaxes visibly. Sometimes the anticipation is worse than anything else, really. The idea is more terrifying than the reality.
But for me, I can only hope that's true. I live in the constant fear of being discovered, all of it piling up inside me like there's a balloon inflating inside my chest, and at some times I think I'll explode from the stress of it all.
That balloon rises into my throat, and I swallow hard and refocus on Deryn's match. Though she's still far from professional, she really isn't bad. Her skills have improved a lot in the weeks since my schedule changed and I'm no longer in her class. She keeps her sword arm at the right level and her stance and posture are better than they were. Deryn's novice shows through only in her hesitation to strike and the lapse in her form when she does, as well as the skill level of her moves. But she's good, considering how long she's been fencing.
I feel as though Deryn fully deserves it when she wins.
At first, she doesn't realize it. She nods, and goes to take her place at the starting line again. I can't see Deryn's face when the other girl slumps and pulls off her mask, but there is a moment of stillness in her, and then she almost leaps off the piste in excitement. She tears off her own mask, and the grin that splits her face looks almost painful it's so big.
I can't help but break into a smile of my own at the look of her. Fitzroy, on my left, claps and cheers with me, and even sings something cheerful under his breath, like he often does. I suppose that's a side-effect of being in choir, always singing. It doesn't bother me, though, and I couldn't care less as Deryn steps off the piste and toward us.
My eyes narrow when I realize she isn't looking at Fitzroy and me, but past us. I turn, confused, and my stomach hardens.
Matt.
His team captain meeting must have finished sometime during Deryn's match, because he certainly wasn't here when it started. He takes a few steps toward Deryn, conveniently placing himself between us and her. I scowl as Matt pulls her into an embrace, and leans down to whisper something into her ear.
Her lips curl into a smile, showing white and slightly crooked teeth. She's flushed, though I'd like to think that's only from the match. Most of her hair has fallen out of its ponytail, dropping off to one side and revealing a scar on her neck several centimeters long.
My eyes narrow. How did she get that scar? Why don't I know about it? Does Matt know she has it? With a mark that large, there has to be a significant story behind it.
Fitzroy's cheers have stopped as abruptly as mine. He gives me a knowing look and says, "Ouch, man. That's rough."
I blink at him a few times, trying to paste an innocent expression on my face. He shrugs. "Ah, well. Let's go see how the rest of the team did, then. Melissa's over at piste eleven, and she looks pretty happy; maybe she won, too." When I hesitate, eyes lingering on Matt's arm wrapped around Deryn's waist, Robert tugs on my sleeve. "Come on, Alek."
"Yeah," I say. "I'm coming."
A/N: I just have a few things to say before I let you all get back to your lives. First off, I'd sincerely like to thank you for clicking that link in your email (or however you got here), even though it's been two months since my last update. If I were my own reader, I would probably have been like "I don't even remember what's happening in that story. *Deletes email*" So thank you guys a ton.
Secondly, for all you competitive fencers out there, don't despair. I really did do my research on fencing tournaments and how they're run, I just took a lot of creative license with them. I hope it was still as enjoyable for you as it was for me :)
And lastly, please, please, PLEASE leave me a review! I love them so much, and they absolutely make my day. They also may or may not motivate me to write faster, which means an update sooner :) So review!