Game, Set and Match

Word Count: 997

Game Set and Match

She wore a tank top and pleated skirt the first time I saw her – brilliant white of the fabric against a back drop of sun-kissed skin. Her hair, tied up in a high ponytail, darted to and fro as she moved. As she ran her legs tensed as flexed – muscles sliding beneath bare flesh and a thin film of sweat. Her eyes were fixed in a gaze of steely concentration – a look of strength and the drive to conquer.

It was the summer and, as was the tradition, I was at tennis camp. I was a promising up and comer – my game praised for its flair and drive. In five years time I saw myself at the top of the game – grand slams aplenty, a worldwide sensation, unbeatable. A few years down the line I would break an ankle and that dream would be over – but I didn’t know that yet. So I kept on training, attending tennis camp and beating the middling offspring of the well-to-do who attended. I was focused – eyes on the prize – success in sight. That was, until I saw her.

Her features were strong, not conventionally beautiful, but exuding an air of supreme assurance and confidence that made her near irresistible. She seemed to radiate a kind of human catnip – some scent or tantalising pheromone that drew everyone to her – like bewildered moths to a mesmerising flame. Before long her tennis matches were attended by half the camp – not long after that her audience over spilled the stands that surrounded the court.

It was not that her technique was particularly impressive. She possessed neither the elegance nor the fierce speed of many of her opponents – but she moved with a dogged determination that while graceless was undeniably effective and strangely captivating. She swung with a power and supreme authority that was unrivalled, with an intensity that was as disarming as the best of drop shots or forehand smashes.

Despite her popularity she kept herself apart from the group, spurning the friendship of the girls and distancing herself, with a pitying eye, from the wild adulation of the boys. She was insular, as self-contained as she was self-assured. It seemed none of us would even get to speak to our idol – our athletically styled Venus. The storm changed all that.

It came in billowing clouds of angry wrath – one of those freak summer storms – that lashed thick waves of rain onto the baked ground. For a week the tennis courts were nothing more than thick brown sludge – chewed up by the ferocious winds - dotted with the yellowing remains of uprooted grass. We were all forced inside – playing games, telling stories – or, in my case, sat waiting for the weather to clear – for my training to begin again. I sat, alone at one of the canteen tables, chewing drudgingly through the remnants of my lunch – a raisin salad – testament to the ‘healthy’ diet that was forced upon us, the closet thing to excitement an overripe banana. My gaze was fixed on the window – praying for the clouds to pass on.

Unexpectedly my view was obscured – there she sat in a pink top and grey tracksuit bottoms a look of indifferent nonchalance on her face – barely acknowledging my presence. In her hand she held a bag of salted peanuts, that with surreptious delicacy she popped into her mouth. There was silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by the dull crunch of crushed peanut, until finally I spewed a nervous “Hello?”. No reply. Only the slightest of smiles, a faint uplifting of the mouth, giving the briefest hint of white beneath. Indignantly, I tried again, “Hi I’m Jake” – my voice rising to a near falsetto from the nerves. Still there was no response. Humiliated I slumped in my seat – despondent and rejected.

Suddenly she leaned towards me. An enigmatic smile flickered across her face and with no word of warning she kissed me. It was the most fleeting of contacts – long enough only to leave the salty trace of peanuts on my lips – a bittersweet tang to a perfect moment. She settled down again, holding my stunned gawk with eyes of serene cool. For the first time I noticed the blueness of her eyes – the deep almost abyssal sapphire that seemed like vast oceans – in which our kiss was only the tiniest of drops, causing barely a ripple of apprehension. Seas in which an inexperienced sailor could easily become lost. I was in love.

From then the summer passed fleetingly. We spent many hours and few words together. She spoke little – merely basking in the light of my frenzied worship. I did not mind the silence, for in my head was a vast cacophony – a panicked inner monologue exploring every possibility – waiting with a reigned in impatience for the next kiss of those plump honeysuckle, the next touch of that bronzed skin, the next look into those mysterious eyes.

Finally came the day to depart from camp. Heart in mouth I gulped that I would write letters, call her, come to visit. She nodded and murmured that she would do the same. For one last time before we parted I allowed myself to be lulled into those siren-like eyes, every part of them, from jet black pupil to crystalline blue iris etched into my memory. With on final kiss she was gone.

As soon as I was home I wrote my letters sending them off in a feverish rush – less she should be displeased by the delay. I frantically phoned her – left messages when I could not get through – telling adolescent bards of our undying love.

Days, weeks, months passed. No reply.

I became like an incompetent fortune teller, waiting desperately by the phone, predicting THIS would be the day she would call. But there was nothing. Slowly it dawned on me. I had been beaten. I had faced my greatest adversary, in love, and my heart had been defeated.
Game, Set and Match.