The Slut's Guide to Chess

chapter 1

Aleena Khan was my favourite person to watch. While flailing her arms around passionately, she threw out her strong opinions with wide eyes and a powerful voice you couldn't help but stop and listen to.

Now, she was stood on top of the bench in the courtyard, spouting out statistics and inspirational words as her voice weaved past the people in attendance and echoed from every tree.

Aleena Khan was also my best friend. So, though the air held a dangerous chill that raked through my bones within the autumn breeze, I stayed to watch. Sitting quietly on the picnic bench that she stood on, I listened carefully and shouted out my words of agreement every so often.

Today's hot topic was the global climate crisis.

"Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace!" She roared. From the tick in her clenched jaw, I could tell she was holding back the swears that threatened to tumble from her lips.

Aleena tugged at her navy blazer, the colour that matched her hijab so elegantly, and pulled at the sleeves until she'd slipped it off. "As we power our modern lives, we are contributing to the destruction of our home. Soon, we'll go too far and when that day comes, it'll be too late to solve this problem. As humans, we have been put onto this beautiful Earth to look after it and if we continue with this reckless and ignorant behaviour, we have failed in our duty. We'll just be counting down the hours until doomsday."

Aleena dropped her blazer down into my open arms like she did every time her blood boiled with passion. I looked down at Aleena's blazer and marvelled at it.

The breast pockets were lined with an array of pretty pins that I loved to no end. Each one read Aleena well and I was jealous that she'd found herself so easily. She so effortlessly expressed herself and her opinions while my head was stuck in the clouds. I couldn't sit for two seconds to even think about who I was let alone find a collection of pins to represent that.

Aleena had the music pins, the pride pins, the feminism pins, the inspirational pins, the 'BLM' pins. She had it all. She understood it all and spoke from the heart. But as I looked up at her, I saw the way her light brown skin glistened in the golden sun, the way her eyes blazed with a contagious passion and her voice like a lighthouse of hope; I couldn't stay jealous for long.

She had a 'stick-it-to-the-man' sort of attitude that you either loved or hated. I happened to be very fond of it. We'd met in year eight when Christian Pierce began throwing pieces of paper at my hair from behind to see what would get stuck in the curls. Back then I had been shy and scared of my own voice. Aleena trudged over, threw all the paper back at him and strung together a few colourful swears which left us all gaping. She then led me to the seat beside her and from there, we discussed anything and everything.

Aleena taught me a lot of things about myself and others, one of which was how to tell Christian Pierce to 'fuck off'. I'd never stopped thinking that Aleena Khan was one of the coolest people I knew.

The crowd roared in support at something she'd said and I joined, feeling my legs bounce up and down with nerves that festered quietly through my body.

"Thank you," Aleena smiled before stepping down from the bench.

As I helped her slip her arms back into the blazer, the crowd slowly dispersed.

"Very well said, prime minister," I joked.

She rolled her eyes. "Pigs will fly the day they let a hijabi woman be PM."

I shrugged, not wanting to elaborate further as politics was something I wasn't very good at. I'd openly admit that, too. Aleena had enough determination for the two of us.