Chapter 80: The Boy Who Kept Winning

For several seconds, Dominic couldn’t move.

Hair lay across his palm.

Not one strand.

Not two.

Enough that his mind immediately rejected what his eyes were seeing.

"No."

He rubbed his fingers together.

The strands remained.

"No, no, no."

Dominic turned toward the mirror.

His other hand went immediately to his head, searching.

He combed through once.

More strands came loose.

His breathing changed.

"Fuck."

He leaned closer to the mirror.

Nothing looked dramatically different.

That almost made it worse.

If he couldn’t see where the hair had come from, how much had he already lost?

He checked the sink.

His shirt.

The towel.

His pillow.

By the time he returned to the bathroom, his heart was pounding harder than it had at the reunion.

His phone was in his hand before he consciously decided to pick it up.

Victoria answered on the fourth ring.

"Dominic?"

"Mom."

A pause.

"What’s wrong?"

"My hair is falling out."

Silence.

"What?"

"My hair."

He stared at the strands still caught against his palm.

"It’s falling out."

"How much?"

"I don’t know!"

"Dominic, calm down."

"Don’t tell me to calm down."

"Then tell me what happened."

He did.

Or tried to.

The reunion.

Coffee.

Alcohol.

The drive.

The bathroom.

Victoria listened.

Then said, "We’ll call a doctor in the morning."

"What if I lose all of it?"

"You don’t know that you will."

"Look at what stress has already done to me."

That silenced her.

They both knew what he meant.

The staged medical crisis.

The humiliation.

The Board.

The sabbatical that everyone politely pretended wasn’t the consequence of his own behavior.

Alexander.

Always Alexander.

And now Giovanni.

"I’ll come over," Victoria said.

"No."

"Dominic."

"I said no."

He didn’t want his mother seeing him like this.

Perhaps that was ridiculous considering she’d seen him at considerably worse moments.

But this was different.

Dominic had always been vain enough to know exactly how he looked.

Clothes.

Hair.

Skin.

Weight.

Presentation mattered.

People treated attractive, confident people differently.

He’d learned that early.

His appearance was something he could control.

Apparently, even that was beginning to slip away.

"We’ll arrange an appointment," Victoria said. "Dermatologist first. Let someone qualified tell us what’s happening before you decide you’re going bald overnight."

Dominic closed his eyes.

"Fine."

"Try to sleep."

He almost laughed.

"Sure."

Sleep didn’t come.

Instead, Dominic lay awake remembering Giovanni Mercer.

Not the man.

The boy.

That was somehow worse.

Giovanni had been irritating long before either of them knew enough about adulthood to understand why.

Dominic remembered their first serious academic competition.

He’d studied for weeks.

Giovanni won.

Not by much.

One point.

Dominic had gone home furious.

The following year, he entered again.

Giovanni did too.

Dominic won.

The satisfaction lasted until Giovanni congratulated him.

Not sarcastically.

Not reluctantly.

Genuinely.

"Good job."

Dominic had stared at him.

"That’s it?"

Giovanni looked confused.

"What else?"

"You lost."

"I know."

"Aren’t you upset?"

"A little."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"Because I did better than last year."

Dominic hadn’t understood that answer.

Even now, part of him hated it.

How could someone compete without needing to win?

What was the point?

Then debate.

Dominic joined.

Giovanni joined later.

Swimming.

Dominic trained.

Giovanni suddenly began training too.

Science competitions.

Essay writing.

Mathematics.

One event after another.

Where Dominic went, Giovanni seemed to follow.

And Alexander watched both of them.

That was the part Dominic rarely admitted.

Alex had always been there.

Sometimes participating.

Sometimes watching.

Sometimes helping them practice.

Giovanni could pretend otherwise all he wanted, but Dominic had noticed how often his eyes searched for Alexander after a result was announced.

Had he been competing for Alex even then?

The thought made Dominic sit up.

Maybe he’d always known.

Maybe that was why Giovanni bothered him so much.

He had never viewed Samuel as a threat.

Or Patrick.

Or Adrian.

Only Giovanni.

Because Giovanni was the one person who could beat him without appearing to care that he’d done it.

And Alexander liked him anyway.

Dominic remembered the river.

The three of them used to disappear there after school whenever the weather was warm enough.

They’d leave their uniforms and clothes hanging from branches well above the waterline, then race into the river before any adult could discover where they’d gone.

The first few times, none of them were particularly good swimmers.

Alexander was cautious.

Giovanni was stubborn.

Dominic hated being last.

"Race to the rock," Dominic announced one afternoon.

Alexander looked toward the large rock protruding from the calmer section downstream.

"No."

Dominic stared at him.

"Why?"

"Because Mr. Arturo told us not to swim that far."

Giovanni was already wading deeper.

"He said not to go beyond it."

"Same thing," Alex replied.

"It literally isn’t."

Dominic grinned.

"Scared?"

Alex gave him a look.

"No. Sensible."

"Same thing."

"It literally isn’t," Giovanni repeated.

Dominic splashed him.

Giovanni splashed back.

Within seconds, the race had begun anyway.

Dominic remembered pushing himself until his arms burned.

He reached the rock.

Then turned.

Giovanni arrived barely a second later.

Alexander came last because he’d apparently decided ensuring neither of them drowned was more important than winning.

Even then, Giovanni had been there.

Always close.

Always catching up.

Years later, Giovanni joined competitive swimming in college.

Dominic had heard about it through someone else.

Naturally.

Another thing Giovanni was good at.

Another arena Dominic wasn’t part of anymore.

By morning, Dominic hadn’t slept.

He stood in front of the mirror again.

The strands in the sink looked less catastrophic in daylight.

That didn’t make him feel better.

His phone buzzed.

The reunion group chat.

Patrick had uploaded another collection of photographs.

Dominic should’ve ignored them.

He didn’t.

There was Giovanni beside Mr. Arturo.

Another with Elena.

One with Samuel.

Then a group photograph with Giovanni standing near Alexander.

Dominic enlarged it.

There it was again.

That ease.

He’d spent years trying to understand what Giovanni had that he didn’t.

Money?

Eventually.

Intelligence?

They were comparable.

Looks?

Subjective.

Business ability?

Dominic would’ve once argued that too.

But none of those explained it.

Maybe the real difference was simpler.

Dominic entered every room looking for the person he needed to beat.

Giovanni apparently entered looking for something he needed to learn.

Dominic stared at the photograph.

He didn’t like that conclusion.

So he rejected it.

There had to be more.

Giovanni had competed with him.

He knew it.

He’d watched it happen.

What Dominic didn’t know was that, across the city, Giovanni Mercer had woken that morning remembering many of those same competitions.

And in Giovanni’s version of their childhood, Dominic Sebastian had barely been the reason he’d entered them at all.