Chapter Eighteen
The Omaha Board Game Expo is at a large convention center, with different booths on the main floor and several breakout rooms where tournament matches are taking place.
Amelia managed to scrounge up a basic attendee badge.
Meanwhile, my badge identifies me as both a competitor and a contest entrant, so a few of the more extroverted attendees have very nicely asked about my creation while telling me about their own.
The exchanges have all been lovely and friendly, but the other games sound so incredible that I doubt Craft a Witch will amount to much.
After an initial hour of exploring, I refresh the app to see if I’ve been assigned to my first match in the Rivalry tournament yet.
I have been assigned. “Ugh.”
“What?” Amelia asks, peering over my shoulder. She’s holding the clear plastic tote bag with my Fortune Teller character kit inside.
I zoom in on my phone screen and hold up the large-text name on my screen.
“Oh, you’re playing Declan?” she says, confused by my reaction.
“Yeah, and I was kind of hoping to be able to avoid him today.” I shake my head but start walking us toward breakout room number three, where my playing table will be.
“All right, so are you going to tell me what exactly happened there?” Amelia asks. “You two were getting along so well.”
“I thought we were, too, but not well enough, I guess.”
Amelia nods knowingly. “I’m sure the stuff with his parents is—”
I consult the convention center map in the hallway and discover that we have to go up the nearby flight of stairs. “How do you know about that?”
“Grady told me.”
Sure, because she and Grady are still flirty friends. Glad that situation is working out for them. I’m not bitter at all.
“Right,” I say, slightly out of breath after ascending to the second floor.
My sister continues to share what she learned from Declan’s brother. “Grady felt bad about how much Declan had to deal with on his own these past two years.”
“Yeah, it does seem tough,” I admit, pushing through the double doors to the room that has a sheet of paper taped outside labeling it number three.
Though I knew he’d be there, I’m not quite ready to see Declan and Grady checking in at the front table.
Declan’s in his usual yellow sweatshirt, his Space Pirate box in hand, looking so familiar it hurts.
I wish I could just snap my fingers and erase the entire road trip so that this could be completely normal.
But it’s not like our Space Pirate or Fortunate Teller decks realize that anything between us is different.
“Hey,” Declan says quietly, slipping into his chair at the table.
I nod in return, taking my place.
“I’m rooting for both of you,” Grady says with a large smile, pointing enthusiastically at us with each hand.
“You know they’re playing against each other,” Amelia corrects, some of her original snark returning, but she seems happy to see him. “Is there anywhere for us to sit?”
Grady leads her over to a row of chairs along the wall, where they won’t actually be able to watch any of the matches, so I suspect it’ll be a fairly boring time. But Amelia insisted on coming to the expo, so ah well.
A member of the tournament staff stops by to give Declan and me the official score card. The only stat it asks for is the winner and each player’s final health result.
“Less data than you’re used to,” I say to Declan. “You didn’t bring your notebook?”
He hesitates, unpacking his box. “I didn’t think it was likely that I’d be up against someone I knew.”
Right, because that’s all I am to him. Just someone he knows. I never should’ve expected to be anything more than that.
We roll our starting dice, and he goes first, and quickly enough we fall back into routine, but it’s as if we’re passively watching ourselves play. I leverage an action card, he rolls dice and hopes for the best, and repeat ad nauseam.
Sometimes I glance toward him when I feel certain I won’t catch his eye, and when I focus on reading a card, I can feel his gaze watching me closely, but if I look back up, his eyes dart away. It’s almost like it could be so easy to break the ice between us, but we don’t know how. Or don’t want to.
My heart isn’t in it. I don’t even care if I lose…which I do.
“Sorry,” Declan whispers as I lower my final health status.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, grabbing the pen to record our final scores on the paper.
I sign my name at the bottom; Declan signs his and waves over the staff to come attest and collect our results card.
Amelia and Grady are at their seats, whispering conspiratorially.
I motion for my sister to meet me at the door and leave the table without saying goodbye.
.....
Since I’m not advancing in the tournament, there’s a lot of time to kill until the board game creation winners are announced, so Amelia and I explore the Artists’ Alley. My sister buys a little crochet fox that she finds adorable even though it’s a character in a board game she’s never played.
I’m dragging my feet from booth to booth, not wanting to be here. “We might as well go home,” I say.
“What? No, we have to wait for the announcements!” Amelia holds up the little fox and uses a baby voice. “We gotta see if you win!”
“Do you remember everyone we’ve talked to and all their much better-sounding games? I’m not going to win.” There isn’t much seating on the main floor, so I walk over to the wall and slide down to the ground.
Amelia points to the nearby food window. “Okay, I’m going to get us some sugar, then you’ll be excited again.”
She returns with fried dough covered in an excessive amount of powdered sugar that admittedly does make me feel a lot better as I scarf it down in what must be a record number of bites.
“We can get another one,” she suggests.
“Nah, we don’t have to.”
“I’m starving; we’re getting another one.”
After we finish eating, content and happy and absolutely riding the sugar rush, Amelia and I find our way over to the announcement area.
It’s a platform stage, where there are four small circular tables with the winning games displayed under a navy sheet, to be revealed.
They must also each be under some sort of box, too, unless all the winners are the exact same size, in which case, Craft a Witch is definitely not there, but I allow myself to maintain a smidge of optimism.
There are about fifteen rows of chairs for attendees to sit and watch the results, but I stand with Amelia along the side, not wanting to get stuck watching the team results after I lose the solo entries.
That unfortunately means I notice when Declan and Grady show up and take their seats, within view of where we’re standing.
A woman in her forties wearing a purple suit takes the stage with a gaggle of other somewhat eccentric but professional-looking adults.
They introduce themselves and then kick things off.
“Thank you all for joining us! I’m very passionate about up-and-coming board game creation, so it was such an honor to be on the selection committee.
Truly, all your submissions were wonderful, and it was so difficult narrowing this down, but we’re delighted to share our winners today. ”
She hands over the microphone to a short guy wearing a Tetris T-shirt.
“For each category,” he says, “we have an honorable mention, then a silver and a gold winner, both of which will get demo versions of their games produced by our local indie publisher, with crowdfunding established for production based on consumer demand. So, without further delay, for the individual category, our honorable mention is Cascading Atrium, submitted by Jian Zheng.”
I deflate, not sure Craft a Witch could’ve done better than third place, and my suspicions are confirmed as silver and gold go to other competitors, neither from Roll Again, which means Declan didn’t win either. I glance through the crowd and notice him. We lock eyes but immediately look away.
“Okay, well, let’s go,” I mutter to Amelia, but she shakes her head.
“We might as well hear about the team entries.”
I shake my head. “I’d rather not.”
“No, I’m curious,” Amelia says. “Please?”
“Fine.” At least I don’t have any skin in the game here.
The microphone is handed back to the purple-suit lady.
“And now for our team submissions, our honorable mention is Plant Guardian, submitted by Kassie Everly and Adrianna Oktawiusz. The silver winner is Stops Along the Way, submitted by Iris Biagi and Declan Weber. Our gold winner is—” But I don’t register the rest.
Was that my name? My mouth hangs open while Ameila enthusiastically shakes my shoulders. “What is happening?”
Declan is walking over here. Did he somehow submit the game without me? But he doesn’t have the files.
“Did you—” Declan and I both ask at the same time, equally confused. Until our giddy, beside-themselves siblings make their secret endeavors known.
Grady holds out a thumbs-up. “You like the title we came up with?” He nods toward Amelia.
“It seemed fitting,” my sister agrees with a smile, tackling me with a hug.
“But it was…” I have no idea how any of this happened.
“It was mostly ready to go,” Amelia explains. “I found the files on my laptop, and Grady and I put it together. We figured we wouldn’t say anything, because if it didn’t win, no harm no foul. But—”
Grady nudges Declan and points up to the stage, where the other winners are now all gathering. “You kids got to get up there!”
“Oh,” I say, but still in shock, I can’t quite seem to find my way. Declan grabs my hand, and we walk together.
At the stage, we immediately separate again but are intrigued and head right up to the table where our board game creation is waiting, having been put together by our siblings.
It’s two laptop-sized cardboard pieces, back-to-back, with our mock-up play area pasted to the horizontal piece and a design with various different stops, including a giant mustard bottle, on the viewing area.
My favorite part is the little alien tokens that you move around to designated areas on the map. Amelia must’ve made these out of clay. They’re grayish green with large eyes and wide mouths. They’re terrifyingly adorable.
I hold one of the aliens up to Declan. “Look at this!”
He chuckles. “Better than I would’ve expected.”
One of the judges walks by with their young kid, who is eager to stop by our board.
“She loves it,” the judge says, “and so do I. It’s a simple round-the-board game, but with an unexpected ability to scale up the complexity.
We playtested it several times and had a blast. Loved every second of it.
The interplay between the cards and the dice works so well here. Congratulations.”
“Thank you so much,” I say as they move on to congratulate the other winners.
I turn to Declan, and we share a genuine smile.
I’m so excited I have no idea what to do with all these emotions.
This road trip game, aptly named by our siblings, is going to be turned into an actual board game.
I have to pinch myself to know this is real.
Declan opens his mouth, about to say something, but the words escape him. I don’t say anything, either. Today’s not about us; it’s about our game.