SEVEN
Emma
I’m playing OtherLANDS again. Mom would be so proud.
Some of the joy has been sucked out of it, though. It’s not just that idiot troll—whom I’ve banned a second time. It’s this bizarre tension with Cait, who used to sign on and play with me but who’s probably doing a live video about false eyelashes. It’s Mom’s comments this morning about how dreams won’t pay the mortgage, like I don’t know that.
I don’t understand what her whole deal is anyway. Dad makes a good living. He works long hours, too. Just because he’s crouched over a computer and she’s crouched over a hospital bed doesn’t mean his time is worthless.
Ethan’s voice comes through my headphones. “You seem distracted.”
We’re running a mission in the elven realm. I’ve never played with him one-on-one before, but after what happened with Nightmare, when Ethan added me, I said, “Can we just keep it to two? I want to check for more holes in my code.”
He didn’t say anything; just activated the mission.
I didn’t realize how tense I’d been about it until the knot in my stomach uncurled.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“School or parents?” His avatar quickly slashes through an elf that steps from behind a tree.
“What?”
“Are you distracted by school, or by your parents?” He pauses. “Or a boyfriend?”
“No boyfriend.” My cheeks warm, though his voice wasn’t in the least bit flirtatious. This feels solidly friend-zone. If it’s even that.
“Or girlfriend?” he adds. “I don’t want to assume.”
I laugh. “No girlfriend either. And school is fine. It’s parents. Well, Mom. Dad’s okay.” My avatar follows his, running across the green terrain. “Hold on. I want to add more texture here. I need to make a note.”
His avatar stops. “Let me guess. Too much gaming, not enough focus on school, get some sunshine before you need vitamin D supplements—”
“Yes! How do you know that?”
A disgusted noise. “I live it.” He pauses. “But I just play. Does she know you’re actually writing these games? I think my mom would back off if she found any of this productive.”
I make my own disgusted noise. “My mom would find a scholarship to Harvard Medical School productive.”
“Who wouldn’t?” His character moves forward a few steps. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” We run. Well, our avatars do. “No, she doesn’t know about OtherLANDS.”
“Are you kidding me? You wrote a game.”
“I know.” I pause. “She thinks it’s stupid. I’m worried she’d make me delete it.”
“She wants you to be a doctor?”
“I think she knows I don’t want to go into medicine.”
“I have no idea what kind of doctor you’d be, but as a game designer, I think you’re pretty badass.”
His voice is just as dispassionate as everything else he’s said, but the comment lights me with a little glow. No one has ever called me badass before. Certainly not in a game.
Then he says, “I mean, it’s kind of basic, and the graphics aren’t that intense, but—”
“No, no,” I say. “Leave it at badass.”
He laughs.
He has a nice laugh.
I need to stop blushing.
My in-game in-box flashes with a message. I freeze. On the screen, my avatar stops running.
“M?” says Ethan.
“Hold on. I have a message.” I click the flashing button.
Friday, March 16 7:29 p.m.
From: N1ghtmare3
To: Azure M
I can do this all day, baby. Tell me, do you charge for sucking?
My breathing goes shallow. I hate this.
I can’t ban him from here. I have to log in to my admin dashboard.
“I have to go,” I say to Ethan.
“Are you okay?” He must hear the change in my voice, because he sounds concerned.
“I’m okay. I just—I have to go.”
The laptop slams shut.
I should reopen it. I should log in and ban that jackass.
I just can’t look at it again. Not right now.
My eyes are burning again. I need to get out of the house. I shove my phone in my pocket and jog down the steps. Texy is waiting at the bottom of the steps with a wagging tail.
“Come on,” I say to her. My voice breaks. My eyes have blurred over. The dog follows dutifully, ignoring my fumbling hands as I struggle to clip the leash to her collar. She’s excited to be going, and her nails click all over the marble floor of the entryway.
“Emma?” Mom calls from the kitchen. She appears in the doorway with a glass of wine in her hand. “Where are you going?”
I can’t look at her. “I’m taking the dog for a walk.” I hope I sound congested instead of emotional.
“Good!” she says. “I’m glad you’re getting some exercise.”
Mission accomplished. I guess.
Then we’re outside.
I need to calm down. I’m being ridiculous. Women get these messages all the time. It’s not right, it’s not acceptable, but I can’t fix it. I can only block him. My game is free and publicly available. It’s not like people need a credit card to play. Like Ethan said, it’s pretty basic. All my efforts at security went into making sure no one could hack my network. Not making sure I knew the identity of players. I never thought I’d have a reason to care.
And I don’t really care now. I don’t care who he is. I just want him to stop.
Ethan’s voice rings in my ears, but now it sounds like a joke. I think you’re pretty badass.
The last thing I feel right now is badass. My breath hitches. I need to get it together.
My phone vibrates in my hand, so suddenly that I almost drop it. The display is lit up with an incoming call. Dad.
I swipe to answer. “Hello?” My voice sounds thick with tears and I can’t help it.
“Emma?” He sounds concerned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” My voice breaks.
“You’re not okay.” His voice is rich and warm in my ear. “What’s going on?”
I can’t tell him without telling him about the game.
And even then, I know what he’ll say. I’ve heard it before.
It’s horrible, he’ll say. But people get online and they take out all their rage, just because they can. It makes me sick. But the only thing you can do is block and ban.
And he’d be right. That’s the only thing I can do.
“I’m okay,” I say. “Some jerk is trolling me online. I keep blocking him but he keeps coming back with new screen names.”
“Have you reported him to the admin? Sometimes they can block a user from registering with an e-mail address.”
Great idea. Too bad I’m the admin. And I don’t require an e-mail address.
“I’ll try that,” I say. I sniff.
“How bad was it?” he says. “Is he threatening you?”
“Well, it’s kind of—”
“Hold on, M&M. Someone just walked in.” He must have put his hand over the phone because his voice gets muffled. A minute goes by. The tears on my cheek go dry.
I begin to wonder if he forgot I’m on the line.
Finally, he comes back. “Hey, kiddo, I need to go. We just discovered a critical issue on the server, and you know it’s crunch time until release. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“I’ll probably be late, but I’ll see you in the morning, okay? Don’t let the dragon lady get you down while I’m gone.”
The dragon lady is Mom. When I was small, it used to make me laugh. Lately, it sounds a little too real. “Okay, Dad.”
“I just wanted to hear your voice, baby. Okay?”
These moments are so few and far between now. When his words are just for me. “Okay, Daddy. I love you.”
“I love you, too. No
matter what.” He disconnects the call.
No matter what? What does that mean?
Texy bounces on her front paws and woofs. She must see a squirrel. I’ve barely got a grip on her leash, but I give it a tug. “Come on.” I sniff. “Leave it.”
She barks full out. Then she bolts. The leash snaps out of my hand.
UGH.
She doesn’t go far. She tears across the street to stop on the opposite corner, leaping against a guy who stands just out of range of the streetlight. Her entire body wags.
I jog after her. She’s still on her hind legs, her front paws against his chest, but the man is rubbing behind her ears. Sneakers and black track pants—a jogger. Her head hangs sideways, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. She’s like, Don’t you see? This is why I was so excited.
I bend to scoop up her leash. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Texas. Texy. Down.”
“She’s okay.”
I recognize his voice, and my head snaps up again. The ever-present hoodie blocks most of his features from the light, but it’s definitely him.
“Oh,” I say in surprise. “It’s you.”
“It’s me.”
“Rev Fletcher,” I say without thinking. Like he doesn’t know his own name.
He’s still rubbing Texy behind her ears, but that draws his attention up. “Yes.” A pause. “Rev Fletcher.” The way he says it is interesting, like he’s reminding himself. Which is weird.
Then he leans forward, just enough for the light to catch his eyes. “Are you crying?”
I jerk back and swipe at my face. I forgot. “No.” My voice sounds nasally. Of course I have to sniff. “It’s just—it’s allergies.”
But standing this close to him, with his face turned toward me, I see that his cheeks are flushed, too, his eyes a little wild.
It’s enough to chase me off my own drama. I think of the letter he shared last night, the fear in the air. “Are you crying?” I ask in surprise.
“No,” he says, a dry mimic of my own tone. “It’s just allergies.”
I don’t buy that for a minute.
Texy finally drops to the ground, and Rev hides his hands in his sweatshirt pockets.
The night wraps around us like a cloak, pooling all this emotion in the space between us. I know I build walls around myself, but I’ve never met someone whose own walls seemed equally impenetrable.
For the first time ever, a little prick of fear sets up shop in my chest. I’m reminded of Nightmare’s message.
Don’t make me find you, bitch.
But Rev didn’t find me. I found him. Well, Texy did. And when he speaks, his tone is rich and full, almost tangible. Nothing like Nightmare in the game.
The hoodie seems unfair. I squint at him. “Can you put the hood down so I can see you?”
I expect him to refuse, but Rev lifts a hand and shoves it back. “Nothing to see,” he says.
He’s wrong. There’s a lot to see.
His hair hangs just past his chin, the color dark and muted in the moonlight. There must not be an ounce of body fat on him, because his features are sharp, from the angle of his jaw to the slope of his cheekbones. Dark eyes, their color a mystery in the moonlight. He’s built and moves like an athlete, but nothing about him screams team spirit, so I’m not sure.
“You’re staring,” he says.
“So are you.”
His eyes flick away. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I say quickly. “You’re allowed to look.”
Ugh, I’m so awkward. This is why I’m better with a keyboard and a screen, especially when my thoughts have been shaken and scattered like Scrabble tiles.
I fidget and glance away. “I mean—it’s fine. We’re standing here. I wasn’t complaining. I expect you to see me.”
His eyes find mine again, and he doesn’t say anything to that. I can’t read his expression.
Oh, good. I’ve made it more awkward.
I give Texy’s leash a tug and start to move away. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”
“Wait.”
I wait.
He’s frowning. “I find it interesting that we’ve run into each other twice now.”
“Like I’m stalking you?”
That startles a smile out of him, but it’s hesitant. “No. Not like that at all.”
It takes me a second to figure him out. Considering our conversation last night, it’s a second too long. “Are you talking about fate?” I study him. “Or God? You think there’s someone up there controlling my dog?”
“Not exactly.” He pauses. “But I’m not sure we should run away from it.”
I don’t know what to say. Maybe he doesn’t either, because we stand there for the longest moment just sharing the night air.
When he speaks, his voice is quiet. “Do you want to go sit by the stained glass windows again?”
“To talk?”
“Either that, or we can bury a body.”
His voice is deadpan. He’s teasing me, after what I said last night.
“Yes,” he adds, his tone deliberate, as if I might have misunderstood that was a joke. “To talk.”
Let me make a list of the times a boy has ever asked me to sit and talk.
1. Right now.
If fate does exist, maybe this is her way of telling me to take control of my own destiny.
God, I’m starting to sound like him. I’m not sure I mind.
“Sure.” I look up at him in the darkness. “Let’s go.”
EIGHT
Rev
The girl follows me to the grass behind the church, and we sit, hiding in the darkness where streetlights won’t find us. We lean against the brick wall, and the cool masonry feels good against the heat of my back.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t even know this girl’s name.
The dog flops in the grass beside me, and I bury my fingers in her fur. She shifts closer to me, laying her head in my lap. I’ve always wanted a dog, but Geoff and Kristin worry about small children being afraid or having an allergy, so we’ve never gotten one.
I peek over at the girl. Auburn hair hangs over one shoulder in a long, loose braid, and she fiddles with the end, twisting the strands between her fingers. Soft features, though her eyes are guarded, framed by dark glasses. Freckles are everywhere. She’s used a metallic marker to create constellations out of them on the back of her hand. She’s relaxed against the wall, looking out at the street.
It’s some kind of miracle she agreed to sit and talk. I’m such a freak. Declan would never let me hear the end of this.
So you finally asked a girl to talk to you … and you chose the grass beside a church? Dude.
Then again, this is probably exactly what he’d expect.
I glance over again. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Shoot.”
“What’s your name?”
“Emma Blue. That’s not really a personal question.”
“You knew mine. I felt bad for not knowing yours.”
“I only know yours because I asked a friend—” Emma blushes and breaks off, but she must know there’s no point in backpedaling. “We saw you in the cafeteria this morning. She’s in your Sociology class.”
“I saw you, too.”
She winces and glances over. “Sorry for staring. Again.”
“I’m used to people staring.” A pause. “I wondered if it was a sign I should talk to you.”
She turns her head and looks at me in the dark. “You could have talked to me.”
“You could have talked to me, too.” I pause. “I thought maybe I weirded you out last night.”
“I think I’ve got a different standard on what’s considered weird.” Her blush deepens. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not the kind of girl who walks up to boys and starts talking.”
“We have that in common.”
“You get nervous talking to boys, too?”
“I lose sleep over
it.”
She smiles. I don’t know if this is teasing or flirting but I do know it’s the first time in two days that I haven’t been on the verge of a panic attack.
Then she says, “Can I ask you a personal question?”
I hesitate. I know what it’s going to be. “Sure.”
“What’s with the hoodies?”
I have to resist the urge to curl in on myself. To hide. “That … has a long and complicated answer.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then makes a guess. “Are you super hairy?”
It’s so unexpected that I laugh. “No.”
She thinks for another moment. “Cyborg?”
I like that she’s keeping this light. “Now that you know, I might have to kill you.”
She smiles, but her voice turns serious. “Scars?”
I hesitate. That’s closer to the mark. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“Well.” I pause as tension latches into my shoulders again. Thinking about my scars makes me think about my father. I draw my knees up and rest one arm on them. The other hand stays buried in the dog’s fur. “Some scars. I had … a rough childhood. But that’s not why I wear them.”
I brace myself for her to push, because she knows about the letter—but she doesn’t. She crosses her legs and leans back. “Okay. Your turn.”
I frown. “My turn?”
“Personal question.”
She reminds me of Declan. A little. In a good way. “Why were you crying?”
She hesitates. “That … has a long and complicated answer.”
I deserve that. I sigh and look out at the night.
Beside me, she does the same thing.
“Your turn,” I say quietly.
She’s quiet for a few beats. “Is your father the reason for the rough childhood?”
“Yes.”
“Did he send you another letter?”
I swallow. “An e-mail.”
“An e-mail?”
“I wrote to him.” I pause. “I told him to leave me alone. He wrote back.”
“Is he the reason for the hoodies?”
“Yes.” My tension dials one notch higher, my fingers gripping tight on my knees.
But then she says, “Aren’t you hot all the time?”
I let out a breath. “Sometimes.”
“Are you hot now?”
“A little.” I was running before her dog found me, and that was after an hour of attacking the heavy bag.