Dana didn’t move her hands away from her face, and stood staring at Alice for a substantial amount of time before realising that she was indeed, still looking at the reported through a slit in her fingers.

“Sure, whatever,” Dana replied in an uncertain tone, dropping her hands from her face. She looked at the reported for a second more before motioning to a place next to her on the bench.

“Oh thank you so much. All the other competitors were such cows. They didn’t even look up to tell me to ***** off” Alice joked as she sat down next to the brunette. “Sorry if any of them are your friends or anything,” she added in quickly.

Alice‘s comment had reminded Dana of Trisha’s advice, and after hearing that all the other competitors were acting bitchy, reinforced in Dana’s mind that maybe she should be a ***** too.

“No you’re not,” Dana replied in her best ‘mean’ tone. She knew it had had its desired effect as she saw Alice cringe at her comment, immediately making Dana feel guilty. ‘Why couldn’t an old fat man interview me?’ Dana thought, searching for something in the locker room to concentrate on through the interview. Anything to keep her from staring at Alice, who looked unbelievably cute. “Well, have you got any questions? I do have a tournament in twenty minutes.”

“Ok… well firstly why did you choose to play professional tennis?” Alice asked, ignoring Dana’s rude comment.

Dana kicked herself inside as she answered. “Obviously because I was good at it.” She didn’t want to take Trisha’s advice anymore but as she looked around the locker room once more she saw the other tennis players almost looking anxious as they listened to the interview. Even if she hated being mean like this, it was working. “Next question.”

“Right.” ‘The nerve of this woman!’ Alice thought, her eyes searing into the side of Dana’s head as the tennis player looked around the room. ‘She doesn’t even have the common decency to look at me.’ “I heard this is your first big game. How are you feeling about it all?”

“I deserve to win, so I’m going to.” Dana was even beginning to hate herself as she fired back these awful comments, wishing with all her heart that they wouldn’t backfire on her.