Chapter 19 #3
“Did you have to buy this?” I asked, sitting down next to her on the sofa and accepted the tiny controller she held out to me.
She shook her head. “I got a free game with the console, so I chose this one.”
“Is that what you would have bought for yourself?”
She grimaced. “Not exactly.”
I must have looked as horrified as I felt that she’d used her free game on me, knowing there was no way I’d play beyond today, because she rushed to say more before I could protest.
“It’s okay!” she insisted. “Phil will be thrilled. He loved this game when we were kids.”
“What would you have normally bought?” I asked. “Surely you had something in mind?”
An embarrassed look flickered across Chloe’s face for the briefest moment.
“What?!” I demanded, already imagining all the sordid or embarrassing things she could be playing in the privacy of her own home.
“No, nothing like that,” she protested. “It’s just … have you heard of a game called Stardew Valley?”
I frowned; I had heard of it. My ex had played it on her computer, I was pretty sure, which she’d only told me about because we’d been discussing … no. There was no way.
“You want to pretend to be a farmer?!” I asked, incredulous. She buried her face in her hands. “If you want to be a farmer, let’s just go outside! You don’t need some expensive game console for that.”
“It’s not the same,” she insisted. “It’s mindless. Cosy, even. And there are significantly fewer blisters involved.”
I rolled my eyes; maybe I was just incapable of understanding the appeal. I decided to drop it.
“Okay, then, how do I do it?” I asked, looking down at the tiny controller in my hand. “We’re racing, right? Which button makes me go forward?”
Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t played this game in years, and never on this console.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do?” I asked, throwing my hands up.
“It’s fine,” she said as she selected a race for us, then took my controller back to choose a character for me – a cute little mushroom-looking dude – and a car. Clearly, I was just along for the ride. “I’ll tell you as I figure it out. Just watch the right-hand side of the screen.”
A little cloud carried a turtle-looking guy to the starting line, where he held a traffic light on the end of a fishing line – I couldn’t have made up something more absurd if I’d tried.
As soon as the race started, I began moving forward with no input.
“How do I steer?” I asked, looking at Chloe’s side of the screen; she was already miles ahead, a little number three in the bottom corner of her frame. There was a number twenty-four on mine, and the little mushroom guy was running directly into a wall.
“Just tilt your controller,” she said, and I did, finally getting the mushroom to turn the way he needed to go. I did my best to navigate, though the other characters were long gone.
“How are you meant to avoid these rainbow boxes?” I asked. “They’re everywhere.”
“You want to hit them,” Chloe said, focused on her own screen. “They’re power-ups.”
“How do I use them?”
Chloe glanced down briefly at the controller in my hands and then seemed to make a decision, pausing the game.
“Let’s do this differently,” she said, exiting the race and going back to the menu. She took the controller off me and connected it to the other one in a little holder, then selected a single-player race. She handed the controller back to me.
“Wait, what?” I asked, retracting my hands. “Surely you should be the one playing so I can watch.”
She shrugged. “Best way to learn is by doing. And plus, this way I can watch what you’re doing and help you without having to worry about my own screen.”
I accepted the controller begrudgingly, then followed her instructions to get back into a race. I chose the same mushroom guy and whatever car Chloe told me to pick, then waited for the cloud turtle to start the race.
This time, things were a bit easier. Chloe told me what to press and when, pointed to the parts of the screen where I needed to look, and explained the items as I collected and used them.
It was frustrating, being so bad, and the number twenty-four didn’t budge from my screen, even with Chloe’s guidance.
But every time I felt myself getting annoyed and wanting to quit, Chloe would make a joke or shriek as we got hit by an item, and I would laugh.
By the last race of the cup, I was just as into it as she was, even if I didn’t get any better.
And by the time my little mushroom literally cried in disgrace at my last-place finish, we were in a fit of giggles on the sofa.
“So?” Chloe asked when we calmed down a bit. “What do you think?”
“I think this is very much not for me,” I said, handing it back to her. “But I had fun.”
“Good,” she said, smiling as she turned off the console. “That’s the point. It can be a lot of fun.”
But I knew that it wasn’t the game that I’d found fun; it was spending time with her. It was weird, because it was the first time we’d hung out without a single awkward, tense moment. And it was nice. I was no more keen on video games than I had been an hour ago, but that was beside the point.
As Chloe boxed up the console, I turned my attention to dinner – it was my turn to cook, and I’d need to cook for four. Maggie was joining us, like she did more and more, and now Chloe would be here, too. Taking inventory, I had enough for a shepherd’s pie or a pasta bake.
But by the time I came back into the lounge to ask Chloe which she’d prefer, she was headed out the front door, her console back in its box, tucked under her arm.
And the moment the door swung shut behind her, the light-hearted, giggly feeling I’d had swept away with her.
I wanted it back as soon as it was gone.