Twelfth Knight

11. Press X to Not Die

“You did WHAT?” Bash barks at me, launching to his feet. “You could have named literally any human man that wasn’t me!”

“Okay, I think we can both agree that human man is a stretch,” I scoff, which Bash ignores in favor of rapidly melting through the floors.

“This explains the nods, Viola! The nods!”

“Oh my god, stop it with the nods—”

“Do you realize how weird this could have gotten if he’d ever tried to speak to me?”

“I panicked!” I shout back.

“IDENTITY THEFT IS A CRIME, VI!”

“CALM DOWN!”

“YOU CALM DOWN!”

“Kids?” calls our mom, poking her head in. “I’m heading out, okay, babes? Play nice.”

“HAVE A GOOD TIME,” Bash and I retort in unison.

Mom frowns, but shrugs. “Text me when you finish whatever this is,” she says, leaving Bash and me to stare at each other from our battle positions across the room.

“You’re the dumbest girl in school,” Bash informs me.

“I know that. And shut up,” I remind him. “The Cesario thing’s not even part of this.”

“How is it not the most important part?”

“Because he doesn’t talk to you, does he? He talks to me. And Olivia told me something about their relationship that Jack probably needs to know.” Among the other things she told me, not that I’ve had time to take the temperature of whether I might return her feelings. (I mean really, where on the sexual spectrum do you have to fall in order to consider a smart, gorgeous, and delightfully low-key nerdy girl to be smart, gorgeous, and delightfully low-key nerdy? Truly, the mind reels.) “But—”

“But it’s not your information to tell!” Bash growls.

“Exactly!” I retort. “Hello, it’s a moral quandary!”

“It’s the dumbest moral quandary I’ve ever seen!”

“You’re the dumbest moral quandary I’ve ever seen—”

“You should come clean,” Bash says firmly. “To everyone. Now.”

“Sure,” I scoff, “and tell Olivia that Jack asked me to spy on her and I said yes because I had no idea what he was asking of me? Tell Jack that Olivia’s issue is serious and private and he needs to talk to her, not me?” Okay, it sounds a lot more logical when I say it out loud.

“Yes, exactly,” grumps Bash, who unfortunately gets the high ground for this one (1) conversation only. “And you need to tell Jack who you really are.”

“No,” I say instantly. “No way. The other stuff maybe, but—”

“There’s no chance this doesn’t come back to bite you somehow,” Bash warns in a snotty, know-it-all voice that must be the main reason people don’t like me.

“How? Nobody knows about that, so unless you plan to tell him—”

“Absolutely not.” Bash looks aghast. “I’m clearly going to be busy pretending I had no idea that Jack Orsino thinks he’s been talking to me when instead he’s been pouring his secrets out to my sister—”

“He’s not pouring out his secrets,” I mutter with a grimace, because I have compelling reasons for the deceit. I’m pretty sure I have reasons. Last I checked, I definitely had a defense. “He’s just, I don’t know. Talking.”

“About his life? And feelings?”

Everything sounds much worse from Bash’s perspective. But let’s be honest, has Jack actually told Cesario anything he couldn’t have said in real life? (Yes, a small voice reminds me, and you know it, because you’ve told him things online that you never would have said to him out loud.) “I—”

“YOUR HOUSE OF LIES IS GOING TO CRUMBLE, VIOLA!” Bash says vitriolically.

“Oh my god, calm down.” I take my own calming breath or two. Or four, or six. “It’s fine,” I manage to say. (It’s not fine.)

“It’s not fine! And what does this have to do with Mom?” Bash demands.

“It doesn’t. I just…” I swallow, looking away. “I may have told Jack about how much Pastor Ike sucks.” I left most of the details out—like how my mom is basically a Stepfordian pile of goo since meeting him—but weirdly, Jack seemed to understand. Even weirder, I felt better after talking about it, which I almost never do.

“His name is Isaac?!” Bash informs me hysterically.

“Literally who cares, Bash—”

“HE’S NICE,” Bash bellows. “And what about Antonia?”

“Oh, she hates me, what else is new—”

“Viola, why are you like this?”

“DADDY PROBLEMS, PROBABLY,” I reply, to which Bash rolls his eyes.

“Apologize to Antonia,” he says.

“Uh, no? I’m not sorry.”

“Shut up. Fine. Whatever.” He rubs his temples. “I thought this conversation was going to be completely different. I thought you’d finally—” He gives me a look I’d describe as hurt if I thought there was anything rational to derive from that conclusion. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter what I thought.” Before I can ponder the significance of that tone, Bash hurtles onward. “But you do need to come clean to Olivia and Jack.”

“But—”

“NO BUTS,” Bash hurls at me.

“FINE,” I roar back.

“AND BE NICE TO MOM’S BOYFRIEND! SHE DESERVES TO BE HAPPY!”

“I KNOW THAT, BASH!”

“Stop yelling!”

“You stop yelling—”

“You know, I like you most of the time,” Bash cuts in, now irritable at a normal volume. “And contrary to whatever goes on in your twisted fantasy life, people do care about you.”

I bristle. “So?”

“So! Stop acting like you’re this weird plague of a person and just accept that people have feelings and you do, too! YOU’RE NOT IMMUNE TO HUMAN FRAILTY, VIOLA,” he bellows as a final note, or what I choose to interpret as a final note, because I can’t follow the thread of this conversation at all.

Bash seems genuinely angry with me, which isn’t unreasonable, though I don’t think it’s the so-called identity theft. True, it wasn’t my best moment as a sister or a citizen of the world, but the Bash I know would have no trouble laughing that off at my expense.

It definitely doesn’t explain him looking at me like I’ve let him down.

“Well, you’re…” I stop, frustrated. “Someday you’re going to do something dumb, you know that, Sebastian? It’s not just me.”

“Of course not. I do dumb things all the time.”

“Exactly.”

“Today’s your day, though,” he says, and turns away. “Shut the door on your way out.”

Well, that’s unusually cold for him, though his attention span does have its limits. I walk out of his room and exhale, groaning quietly to myself because he’s right.

It doesn’t matter which part upset him. The point is I can fix this.

Just tell the truth. Easy, right?

I can do that, starting tonight at homecoming.

Okay, but here’s the thing—I can’t do it. From the moment I set foot on campus, I can feel my impending doom pulsing in the air like a ticking clock. Jack, in an apparent attempt by the universe to haunt me like some kind of demonic poltergeist, is already here, helpfully setting up the table outside the gym to take tickets as people start to arrive.

“You look profoundly weird,” Jack tells me, waking me from yet another unsolicited thought spiral. “You okay?”

Of course not. I’m trapped somewhere in ethical limbo, tugged this way and that by my conscience and the two unfairly attractive people situated at either end. Jack, of course, makes a nebulous situation immediately worse. Either he’s finally getting some sleep or that outrageous slim-fit ombre blazer is doing way more work than any garment has a right to. Gone are the violent shadows, the faint but unmistakable hint of malaise. He looks exactly like someone who’s got homecoming king on lock, and I’m 78 percent sure I hate him for it.

“What? I’m fine. Here’s the petty cash.” I practically throw it at him. “And it’s not polite to tell someone they look weird when they put on a dumb dress for this crap.”

It’s not a dumb dress. Actually, my mom picked it out for me, since she knows I have no patience to sift through stuff at the mall. Which isn’t to say I don’t like shopping, but after three homecomings vying for a dress that someone else will inevitably be wearing as well, I’ve kind of given up. The one she picked out is, I have to say, very me, as in it’s not very formal. It’s almost like a simplified Renaissance dress, actually. Short, with peasant sleeves and a corset-y top, in a chiffon pale pink that’s more like blush. Girly, I’ll admit. But at least I can be pretty confident that nobody else will be wearing it.

“Peace offering?” Mom said when she set it on my bed.

“We’re not fighting.” Am I betrayed by her sudden, cringey devotion to romance, which feels like aliens have abducted my actual mother? Yes. But we’re not fighting.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

She had a point, as did Bash when he told me I was being “mercurial.” I have not handled meeting her new boyfriend very well, though that has less to do with Pastor Ike than with the fact that my mom becoming abruptly unrecognizable makes me worry I might be susceptible as well.

“I mean, it’s not armor,” Jack points out, startling me into recalling we’re still talking about my dress, “so obviously I’ve seen better.”

He’s got this grin on his face that’s so uncalled for it makes me want to shriek at him to be less nice, specifically to me.

“Wanna stick around?” he says, patting the chair next to him. “We’re good at this now.”

“What?” I say, alarmed.

“We make a good team.”

“No we don’t.”

He gives me a look like he finds me distinctly amusing. “Okay fine, we don’t, you’re awful. Sit down, Viola.”

“You sit down,” I tell him, and promptly turn to leave.

Unfortunately, I smack directly into someone else, because of course I do.

“Oh, sorry—”

“Vi,” says Antonia, and blinks, adjusting her dress. It looks like a version of her Larissa Highbrow costume, which only I would know. “Sorry,” she adds, reddening.

“Sorry, I wasn’t—” I stop, noticing her date.

It’s Matt Das. You know, as in “just go out with him, he’s nice” Matt Das. “I’ve been nice to you, so you owe me something” Matt Das. The Matt Das that Antonia picked over being friends with me. That Matt Das.

I think he says my name when we accidentally make eye contact, but all I can hear out of his mouth is “bitch.”

As in, You really are a bitch, Vi Reyes.

Any hope I had of apologizing to Antonia, or of talking to her at all, escapes me like a collapsed lung.

“Right. Have fun.” I turn around and gruffly take the seat next to Jack, trying to look like that was my intention all along.

To my relief, Jack doesn’t say anything.

For a while, anyway.

“So,” he says, after at least fifty people check in with their tickets. “You and Antonia.”

“Please don’t.” I already have Bash in my head yelling at me, but I can’t talk to Antonia now. Not here. Not if it means pulling her away from Matt Das on the gossamer, insubstantial hope that she doesn’t go back and snicker with him about how desperate I was to be her friend again.

“Fair enough,” says Jack.

More students show up. A whole train of them. At this point anyone who arrives is late, but whatever, we’re in high school. Such is life.

Jack reaches for his phone. I assume he’s going to scroll through his social media or something, but instead he holds it out for me.

“Look.”

I glance down and it’s the shot of us with Cesario, which I already saw featured on the MagiCon blog. “Did you just see this now?”

“Yeah,” he says, too insistently, so I think it’s a lie. “It’s not like I check this blog regularly.”

Except he totally does now. “Le fame, am I right?”

“I know, exactly. Finally, my moment.”

“You have moments all the time.” I gesture up to the banner with his name on it in the gym’s foyer. It hangs below his father’s banner, next to his brother’s banner. The royal line of Orsino. “Your life is full of moments.”

“All lives are full of moments, Viola,” he says with an obnoxious gravity, just before another group of people shows up to have their tickets scanned.

I lift a hand to rub my eyes before remembering that my mom talked me into a full face of makeup. She insisted, saying it had been a long time since we’d played makeover like we used to. It’s why Bash is so good at his own stage makeup; he’s somewhere on the dance floor now, which is where he’ll be for the rest of the night. I let him drag me off to his multiple pre-dance picture-taking extravaganzas where I did most of the photography, so hopefully he’s forgiven me for my offenses. Personally, I’d call my penance made.

“So anyway,” Jack says. “About you looking weird—”

I groan. “Okay, that’s enough from you.”

He slides me a sidelong, slanted grin and I fiddle with my phone, opening and closing apps for no reason. “How long are you supposed to just sit here?” I ask him.

“Dunno. Until someone relieves me, I guess.” He shrugs, sinking farther down into his chair.

“I can do it. You can go—” I wave a hand. “Socialize.”

“Socialize?”

“Survey your kingdom.”

“Nah,” he says. “Not my kingdom anymore.”

I drum my fingers absently on the table as more people show up. They’re trickling in now: giggling dates with their lipstick smeared off, trying (not very hard) to hide things they’re bringing in their jacket pockets. I have a system for this—I call it the stumble system. Anyone who stumbles up the stairs gets stopped, but nobody’s that far gone. And anyway, I’m careful, not a narc.

“You know,” Jack says, “we don’t have to just sit here all night.”

“I’ll probably check out the bathrooms later.”

“For what?”

I shrug. “Shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans, Viola?”

“Hijinks.”

“We’re all much too mature for hijinks,” Jack says solemnly.

“Stop.”

“I imagine we’ve elevated.”

“What comes after hijinks? Crimes?”

“Always the darkest possible outcome.” He tuts at me. “Terrible.”

“I have a calamitous imagination.”

“What?”

“Calamitous. Calamity.”

“Bad? Sounds bad.”

“Yes, bad,” I confirm with an irritable sigh.

“So if I asked you to dance or something instead of haunting the bathrooms, you’d probably say no,” Jack muses aloud.

Something locks in my throat.

“Yeah, probably,” I manage. “I’d just assume one of us would get shot. Or kidnapped.”

“That is catastrophic.”

“Calamitous.”

“Same thing. It is the same thing, right?”

The thing in my throat won’t go away and I don’t know why. “Yeah.”

He looks at me, grinning like I’m being funny.

Viola, you are not a bitch.

Or, like, you are, but it doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Oh, I think through the sudden pain in my chest. Oh.

Oh, no.

“I’m gonna go,” I say, shooting upright. The chair falls behind me with a clatter.

“You okay?” Jack says with—ugh—concern.

“Fine. I’m fine.” I can’t tell him the truth about Bash. I have to, I know, for both their sakes, but not right now. “I’m… yeah.” Ruin his night? No way.

Maybe later.

Yeah, later.

“You sure?”

I blink, realizing he’s staring at me in obvious bemusement while I’m still lingering next to my overturned chair.

“Bye,” I blurt out, fumbling away. Someone, anyone else, can have his attention. I don’t need it. I don’t want it.

And I definitely don’t deserve it, I think, exhaling as I walk swiftly away.

I’m almost relieved when, as usual, no one wants to stay to clean up at the end of the dance. Half the volunteers conveniently vanish. I’m able to wave off a conciliatory Bash—who, at the peak of his dance-enthused extroversion, tries to persuade me that what my life really needs is an evening at IHOP with the rest of the band kids (half of which are aggressively making out)—and Kayla, who is making a responsible but perfunctory effort. I’m positive she’d rather bask in the success of her evening than stay behind, so I shoo her away and prowl the gym, picking up decorations that wound up on the floor and making sure the DJ got paid. You know, things that relax me.

“Need help?”

I jump when I realize Jack’s behind me. “What?”

He bends to pick up a garbage bag, motioning like he’ll follow while I finish picking things up.

“Oh. You don’t have t—”

He lifts a brow. “It’s my job, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s—”

“If you’re doing it, then it’s probably someone’s job,” he jokes.

“I—” Fine. Whatever, fine. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

It goes quickly, so much so that our leadership teacher is already motioning us out the doors, assuring us the weekend custodial staff will take care of the rest.

Before I know it, I’m outside the gym alone with Jack. There’s a small parking lot back here, which is where I parked when I arrived. Certain perks to being ASB vice president, I guess. Good parking.

“You don’t need a ride, do you?” I say, forcing conversation.

He looks at me, one brow lifted. “Is that an offer?”

“Is that a request?” He’s tormenting me on purpose, I know it.

“Paranoid much, Viola?”

Honestly. “Just get in the car, Orsino.”

But he doesn’t move. He just stares at me, half smiling.

“What?” I grumble.

“You’re funny.”

This time, I’m indignant. “What?”

“You’re so prickly all the time, but you’re thoughtful, aren’t you? You”—he leans closer, dropping his voice—“care.”

“Okay, shut up,” I say violently, and he smirks.

“Why? Worried I’ll tell people?”

“Nobody would believe you,” I mutter, and I move for the driver door, but he catches my wrist.

Well, tries to catch my wrist. Instead, his fingers inadvertently brush my palm.

Even he looks surprised; maybe even startled, like a jolt of static shock just passed from me to him.

But then he looks at me and says, “I believe you.”

My chest punctures. “What?”

“Whatever happened with you and Antonia. I believe you.”

I bristle. “I never said—”

“You didn’t have to.” He’s not joking now. Not smiling his usual king-of-campus smile, and still, somehow, it’s unfair. How good he looks. How much better, actually, when the spark in his eyes is real. When the look on his face is true.

“Orsino,” I sigh, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No, you’re right, I don’t. But if you ever want to tell me—”

He steps closer to me and my heart drums, battering itself in answer to a question he hasn’t asked. Finishing his sentence for him.

“You can’t convince me that you’re heartless, Viola,” he says, and it’s low and soft, close to my ear, a little rustle through my hair like a breeze. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re not as cleverly disguised as you think.”

My eyes flutter shut from the irony. “You don’t actually know me.” It’s almost a confession.

“No, but I could,” he says, and my pulse stutters again, recklessly, until he takes a step back. “But you’re right,” he adds, “not now. Not like this.”

I feel the loss of him like a splintering in space. “Not like what?”

He tilts his head, opening his mouth like he’ll answer, but then he just smiles at me.

He smiles, and I ache.

“My car’s over there,” he says, pointing to it. “My knee’s operational now, so I don’t need any more rides.” He gestures and I look down.

“Oh.” Cool. I feel like an idiot. “Okay, then.”

He nods, uncertain. “Get home safe?”

I roll my eyes, looking up again. “Do I have another option?”

“No.” He shakes his head, surer this time, then reaches for my door. I swat his hand away before he can open it for me.

“I’ve got it—”

“Of course you do.” He looks amused again while I shove myself into the driver’s seat, reaching for my seat belt.

Now is when I’d reach out to close the door, but I don’t.

And he… lingers.

Like someone who has no idea who or what I really am.

“You’re an idiot,” I sigh, and I think I’m relieved when he merely smirks at me.

“I know. It’s how I lead such a blissfully non-calamitous life.” He reaches out, giving my seat belt a snap to irritate me, which it does. “For what it’s worth,” he adds, still smirking, “you almost looked passably normal tonight. Probably just a trick of the light, though.”

From my vantage point, he looks infuriating. And perfect.

“You,” I inform him, “are the bane of my existence, Jack Orsino.”

“As you are mine,” he assures me, and shuts my door for me.

He takes a few backward strides in retreat, eyes locked on mine before turning away, and the moment slips out from under me. It’s drawn out and fleeting at the same time, acute like a throbbing pain, and then my headlights are momentarily blinding, the outline of his face still there when I blink.

DUKEORSINO12:something weird happened tonight

I jiggle my foot, then my entire leg. I’m relieved Cesario’s online; not sure who else to talk to.

C354R10:it was a school dance what did you expect

Typical Cesario answer.

C354R10:I assume you’re going to tell me about it so you might as well do it quickly

C354R10:I’d like to make it out of celyddon without getting burned alive

Celyddon, the ancestral realm of Kay, is the most mythical part of the quest so far. There are dragons here, and spellcasting, and people continuously trying to rob us of our most valuable relic aside from the Ring of Dispell: the Shield of Maccabee, which coincidentally protects the wearer from dragon flame.

DUKEORSINO12:I think I had a moment

DUKEORSINO12:with someone

I fidget again, unsure if I should say more.

The whole night was kind of strange. Once Vi darted off from the ticket booth, I wound up with some of the guys on the team, including Curio.

“Been a long time,” he pointed out. “You don’t come around much aside from practice.”

“Just busy.” That was a lie, of course. I can’t exactly admit to him how much I feel like an outsider. He deserves to enjoy his success; with seven consecutive wins, this is definitely Curio’s season.

But it was supposed to be mine.

“Gotcha.” He didn’t push me. “How’s PT going?”

“Pretty good. Should be able to run soon.” Couple weeks if I’m lucky.

“Oh, no way, that’s great. Feeling good?”

“Yeah, almost back to normal.” I feel like I’m relearning how to walk.

“Well, the guys miss you.”

Not Volio, that’s for sure. He’s making the most of his time in the sun. “Yeah, I miss them, too.”

“You should come out with us after this,” Curio suggested.

“Afterparty?”

A shrug. “Volio’s parents are out of town.”

“Ah.” I glanced around the room. “I’ll have to do some cleanup for ASB, but maybe.”

“Really? No shit.”

“Yeah, well, I’m told I have to pull my weight around here.” That part was true, at least.

“Well, if you change your mind.”

Fast-forward a couple of hours and all of a sudden I’m standing in the doorway telling Curio I’m not gonna make it, I’ve got somewhere else to be. Fast-forward a few more minutes to the harsh bright lights on Vi Reyes’s dark hair, and the look of concentration on her face while she ordered around some adults.

She didn’t need my help—she never does—but I stayed.

Why did I stay?

Cesario points out the obvious.

C354R10:I thought you were still trying to get back with olivia

I am. I was. No, I am. But in some ways it does feel like she steps further and further into my rearview with every day she actively avoids me. It was only recently that I realized how long it’s been since she and I had an actual conversation. Not just since she asked for a break, but before then.

DUKEORSINO12:I’m still with olivia, yeah

DUKEORSINO12:but I don’t know if it still feels… right

DUKEORSINO12:I mean is it supposed to be this complicated?

I feel like all my relationships are fraught right now. My mom wants me to take this knee injury as some kind of sign from above that I should move on and give up football. My dad wants me to come back stronger and faster than ever. My friends want me to move backward but I can’t, I can only move forward, which is going a lot slower than I thought.

But things are weirdly easy with Vi. For someone so harsh, she’s not actually judgmental. She’s a lot more sensitive than she lets on, and still, I’ve never known a person to be so unafraid of who they are. As much as she’s constantly pushing me, she also makes it easier for me to be who I am—whoever that is at any given time. I don’t have a relationship like that with anyone else.

Well, except Cesario.

C354R10:well

He types, then deletes.

Types again, then stops.

Types. Stops.

Types.

Stops.

A minute goes by.

Typing.

More typing.

Stops.

C354R10:what kind of moment was it

I sit back in my chair, thinking about it. It was when I realized Vi was offering me a ride home just because she thought I needed it.

No. No, it was before that.

It was when I noticed Vi shrinking up for the first time when she saw Antonia with that dude, the kid who was Olivia’s first kiss. When Olivia told me about it, she said it didn’t count because she hadn’t been ready for it; they went out for a week in middle school and then he just grabbed her and took it. “Stole it” were her words for it. She broke up with him later and he told everyone she was a snob.

No, but it wasn’t that moment, either. It was when I realized that if I’m the kind of person who is never allowed to get angry, then Vi is never allowed to be sad. And something about that made me feel like the girl standing next to me was braver and bolder than anyone I’d ever met. And that she was lonelier, too.

Like me.

DUKEORSINO12:synchronicity I guess

C354R10:gonna go out on a limb and suggest you not have any moments with anyone until after you talk to your girlfriend

Sensible advice.

DUKEORSINO12:assuming I can get my girlfriend to talk to me

C354R10:maybe you need to do the talking

C354R10:you’ve either got to tell her that you’re in this no matter what

C354R10:or…

I wait, but Cesario doesn’t finish his sentence. Not that he needs to—point made.

DUKEORSINO12:it’s probably too soon to say if anything would ever happen with vi anyway

Oh shit. Whoops. Man, it is way too easy to say things online.

DUKEORSINO12:sorry dude I know that’s your sister

DUKEORSINO12:didn’t mean to just throw that one at you

C354R10:why would it matter what I think? she’s her own person

C354R10:but either way I don’t think she wants to be your second choice

DUKEORSINO12:she’s not

DUKEORSINO12:I mean…

DUKEORSINO12:I don’t know what I mean

I sigh, shaking my head.

DUKEORSINO12:I guess I’m just trying to say that you’re right, I need to talk to olivia, whether or not I feel something for vi

Cesario types, then stops. A repeat of his earlier halting pause.

C354R10:DO you feel something for vi?

Part of me thinks it’s impossible not to feel something about Vi. It’s hard to feel neutral about someone as brash and relentless and generally unconcerned with feelings as she is.

But there’s also part of me that thinks that maybe it’s a good thing that she isn’t for everyone. It feels like maybe being someone who gets to actually know her, even in a small way, is something I’ve earned.

DUKEORSINO12:doesn’t matter, right?

DUKEORSINO12:not until I clear things up with olivia

Which is going to be hard. Or maybe I just haven’t tried hard enough. Or tried correctly.

C354R10:okay well whatever

C354R10:can we play now

Typical.

DUKEORSINO12:you know, you and your sister are weirdly alike

C354R10:shows what you know

It’s a good thing he never lets me get too sentimental, because right around then a pack of mages shows up to challenge us to a round of combat.

It’s funny that earlier today I got a text from Nick asking me if I’d gotten bored of Twelfth Knight yet. According to him it was a good use of a couple of weeks, maybe a month. But I’m getting close to two months now and honestly, I’m increasingly uninterested in whether or not what I’m doing is cool. Again, it’s nowhere near the state championship I was prophesied to win, but one football title being all I am or was or ever will be suddenly feels like an unacceptable position, even if some people might believe it’s true.

Besides, maybe Vi’s commitment to nerddom has rubbed off on me in a socially reckless way, but I kind of wish more people knew about this game. I’ve been watching some technical reviews of it online and it’s kind of staggering how much better it is than other MMORPGs like it. I find it so fascinating to know that everything I’m seeing is, like, millions of triangles in a few blocks of code.

dude,Nick said when I accidentally went off on a ramble. you know you could study this, right?

what, the psychology of getting unhealthily obsessed with video games??

no, genius. computer science. the CS kids at my school are always doing hackathons and shit, maybe you’d be into that

I mean, maybe, but still. I’m pretty sure everyone wants to make video games

no. EVERYONE wants to play football at Illyria. so if you can do one of those things, why not both?

I told him he was reading a little too much into my interest in this one thing, which he was. But it’s hard not to admire again how cool it is that I can move as an avatar better than I can in real life. There’s something freeing about the fact that there’s an entire world out there where my imagination is my only constraint. Or that it could even be this world, if I could just learn to imagine something like this. It makes the future seem limitless and vast—just like Vi said.

Infinite versions. Endless possibilities.

C354R10:a little help, please?

Right. Back to work.