Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Andi
I’ve been playing D&D since I was fifteen, DM’ing since freshman year of college. Over the years, I’ve turned dozens of acquaintances into lifelong comrades through encounters set in abandoned manticore lairs and sunken mires. I’ve officiated an in-game wedding between a bugbear and a goblin, and I’ve even lost a few friends over rules spats that turned ugly. But until today, I’ve never wanted to throw the towel in on a campaign.
It’s not that I hated DM’ing for Cat. I’ve coached my fair share of newbies who can’t tell the difference between a d20 and a Gusher. It’s that watching her interact with my ex made my chest hurt in a way it hasn’t since three years ago, when Sally and I broke up in the midst of the doxing.
We’d been dating for less than six months. Suddenly, I couldn’t sleep at my place, at first because people would cruise by my windows and shout, and later because every stray sound would keep me up at night, hugging my knees to my chest. Sally’s solution was to have me over more often, which helped, but she could never be bothered to stay with me at mine. “Why does it matter?” she said when I brought it up. “Your place is smaller and—let’s face it—not exactly welcoming right now. Wouldn’t you rather avoid it altogether?”
I shrugged like I agreed, because it was too hard to explain what I wanted. Why retreating to hers felt like admitting defeat. How I needed someone to stay up with me until tiredness forced my eyelids to droop. How every time she chose her convenience over my comfort, it felt like I was in a relationship with my ex-fianc é e Iris all over again.
In the end, it didn’t matter. I left Seattle without telling Sally where I was going and fell off the grid with my mom. By the time I felt up to facing the world again, we were over. We didn’t fight—that’s not Sally’s style—but she called me difficult and overdramatic, I called her self-centered, and we decided to go our separate ways.
Little did I know that a year and a half later, we’d find ourselves in the same city once more: me for Heartrender, Sally for Cords & Beige. By chance, we ran into each other at a Trader Joe’s in downtown Denver. When Sally asked me by the nineteen-cent bananas if I was still playing D&D, I invited her to my table, reasoning that even though we hadn’t made for a good couple, maybe we could still give friendship a go.
Based on how tonight went, though, neither of us has changed much as a person. If Sally realized how uncomfortable Cat was, she didn’t show it. I cringe, thinking about the way Cat’s face closed up every time Sally listed in toward her.
But maybe I’m being “overdramatic.”
It’s none of my business whom Sal dates and how plugged in she is to their emotional state. It’s not like Cat’s given me any reason to be her knight in shining armor. All I can do is help her with the rules of D&D as her DM … which I’ll be better about. Next time.
My apartment feels cavernous without voices filling it. Getting up from my couch, I shovel plates and greasy pizza boxes into a black trash bag before shouldering the whole thing outside. Upwind from the dumpsters, I linger for a while in the cool night air. Shivering, I hug my elbows. Fall is definitely on its languorous way.
A buzzing saws through the velvety quiet. Slipping my phone out of my back pocket, I slide up on the call without checking the screen. “Hey, Mom.”
“Andi. Mommy’s just calling to say hi.”
“Everything okay?” I ask. “Is anything wrong?”
“Ai, can’t I call my only child without her dialing 911 on me?”
Maybe if you lived in society, got an annual physical, and ate a vegetable once in a while. My mom isn’t quite a survivalist, but in her old age she’s swerved closer and closer, stocking the corners of her trailer with Spam and Shin Ramyun and leaving her phone dead for whole weeks at a time. I don’t know where she gets off telling me I should join the mainstream, but then again, people aren’t rational in real life. Not like in fiction.
As my mom tells me about her day—the mule deer she spotted on her morning hike, her once-a-month trip to Costco, the 312-count box of tea she bought there—I make my way back inside. I pick the pineapple off the remaining slices of pizza (apparently the flavor was a hit with both Ferret and Cat … weirdos) and wrap them in foil. Between putting away the folding chairs and wiping beer stains off the table, I grunt into my phone so my mom knows I’m listening. It’s half past one by the time she runs out of details to share, but I don’t mind. This is the longest we’ve gone without her asking me about my job, or my tattoos, or getting married.
“Hey,” I say during a lull in the conversation. “Remember how we used to warm up Twinkies on the hood of our car outside of Granite?” I trace my right thumb along my left wrist, waiting to see if she’ll take the hand I’m holding out.
The line goes quiet, which is how I know she remembers. “Let’s not go there, Andi,” she says a long pause later.
I hesitate. Should I push? Remind her that she —not my dad—introduced me to video games, at an arcade in a strip mall an hour from the base of Mount Elbert? Tell her how I still sometimes go out there when the world gets to be too much?
With a sigh, my mom shuts down any chance of us actually talking. “I’m tired, Andi. Good night.”
“G’night,” I mumble.
Left in the dark, I lie on my back over the covers, a silent phone next to my left ear. A car screeches past outside and I jolt, half expecting an egg to shatter against my window. That’s impossible, though. I’m in a different apartment, in a different city , than I was three years ago, and I’ve done nothing since remarkable enough to make the whole of the internet hate me. Kneading my fists into my stomach, I curl onto my right side and try to fall asleep.
The next morning, I go on a five-mile run followed by an arctic shower. The physical discomfort shakes loose some of my mopiness, and with my workout and personal hygiene in the rearview mirror, I stop by a fabric store to buy materials for my IAX cosplay. Several yards of dark-green fabric later, I tap my Heartrender badge on the RFID reader and let myself into a blessedly empty office. Gabe is out of town speaking at his alma mater and there’s no risk of Philo, Dom, or anyone else coming in on a Saturday, so I connect my phone to the floor-wide speakers and pipe music throughout the open space. As an electric melody begins to trickle out, I lean my head back and bask in the echo.
Peace. Quiet. (Well, from people anyway.) I have only one email I need to reply to before I can get on with writing. With eagerness thrumming through my veins, I decline Ainsley Ray’s latest request for an exclusive interview and pop open a fresh doc.
My reverie doesn’t last long. No more than thirty minutes in, the elevator across the way lets out a soft ding. I peer up from the lines I’ve been wrestling with to see someone getting out. Gabe, back early? Or an ambitious janitor? A wayward instinct makes me duck right as a messy ponytail comes into view.
No, no, no . Cat? What the hell is she doing here? Doesn’t she have an apartment to work from on the weekends (at least two, if we’re counting Sally’s)? Why does she have to be here, invading my sanctuary, ruining my perfect Saturday? Saturdays aren’t for confrontations with people who hate your guts and are now dating your ex. Saturdays aren’t for people, period. As a matter of principle, I don’t see anyone on Saturdays who isn’t Val.
At the mouth of the D-pad, Cat pauses and looks around like she knows she’s not alone. Well, duh. There’s music playing, and not just normal-people music but the discordant opening chords to “Dancing Mad” from Final Fantasy VI , which is basically the gaming world’s answer to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Thanks for nothing, Spotify. Crouching down, I hide underneath my desk and fiddle with my phone to stop the playback. I feel like a fool, but it’s like I’m not in control of my body.
“Hello?”
She sounds so tentative that I can’t in good conscience remain bunkered down like I’m waiting for an earthquake to shatter the world open. Besides, what if she comes up here and finds me Svengali’d below my laptop and monitors? I might actually have to quit this job and move out of the country … either that or fire her.
“Come in,” I semishout. My tone’s not as confident as I’d like, but given I’m at the same time emerging from the bowels of my desk, I give myself a pass.
She appears in my peripheral vision, tiptoeing up the stairs. For once, she’s not in a hoodie but a blue sack dress with deep pockets. The color looks good against her fair skin, and as she moves, my eyes latch on to the series of yellow gold bangles she’s wearing on her left wrist. Are those new? Or is this just the first time I’m noticing them, given how she usually shrinks her hands up her hoodie’s sleeves?
Either way, she looks nice. Almost … cute.
Darting my gaze back toward my screens, I bite down and type more loudly than is necessary. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet … I’m screwed if she comes around to see what I’m working on, but my fingers decide to take that risk for me.
“Oh,” she says when she hears my clacking. “You.”
“One sec. Just have to get. This. Out.” I punctuate my words by hitting enter like an asshole. If Cat notices the obvious lie, she doesn’t let on. I blink at her, as if taking her in for the first time. “What’re you doing here? Sally too busy?”
For the love of— It takes all I have to restrain myself from face-palming. I sound bitter. Or worse, jealous. Even though I haven’t had a thing for Sally in years.
“I came in to get some work done,” Cat says, lifting her chin. “Isn’t that why you’re here?” She flits her eyes over to the lump of fabric in my armchair and reconsiders her question. “Or maybe not.”
Standing, I shove the evidence of my upcoming cosplay out of sight behind my desk. “That is why I’m here, yeah. So how about we both leave each other alone and get to it?”
Reddening, Cat spins on her heel. I don’t get a chance to apologize before she’s gone, marching toward her corner cubicle. Helplessly, I watch her ponytail swing away from me.
So much for avoiding confrontation.