by Alexis Nedd
“Who ya talking to?” Sweet Christmas, I was so in my head that I didn’t even notice Connor pulling into the parking space behind me. His windows are rolled down, and he’s using his soccer captain voice to project through the glass of my very closed door.
Conner used to park a lot farther away. He bribed another junior to switch spots with him and acts like he made a great sacrifice, saying nothing of the part where I didn’t ask him to do that for me. It’s clear that his love language is being directly in my face as much as possible, whereas mine is something I’ve yet to discover.
“Hey! No one!” I shout back. The curtain rises on today’s performance. I get out of the car and meet him out in the lot.
I liked Connor a lot more before I knew he liked me. He’s a good guy, a Hillford West athlete who drinks that respect women juice (eh, maybe a respect women juice concentrate), and I could probably do a lot worse. It’s just that now that he’s asked me out and we’ve gone on a grand total of two dates since the school year started, I’m learning what it’s like to be the single object in Sauron’s all-seeing eye. Not in a “destroy Middle-earth” way, just the red-hot inescapable attention of it all. No one’s ever tried to be my boyfriend before this, and it’s freaking exhausting.
And okay, Connor does look like one of those impossibly sculpted twenty-four-year-olds they cast to play high schoolers on the CW, except he’s actually in high school and just looks like that, so that’s nice. I’m not afraid to admit that it’s nice. Especially when he’s playing soccer and his shirt is off and he looks all . . . shiny. Let she among us who wouldn’t get a little stupid around IRL Archie Andrews cast the first stone.
“Gotcha matcha,” he says when I emerge from the space between our cars. He’s holding two matching Starbucks cups that undoubtedly contain a matcha latte for me and a whatever-the-hell he likes for him. This is unbelievably nice of him, but also not what I need this morning.
“Thanks. Sorry I was so zoned out just now. I was up forever.” I sniff the latte before I try to take a sip. It smells like hot, fresh grass cuttings. I don’t remember ever telling Connor I liked matcha lattes, but I’m too far in to say anything now. Who knows? Maybe I’ll come around on him. Them. Maybe I’ll come around on them.
“Studying for the English quiz?”
“English quiz? I don’t have an—English quiz!” Frick. I knew there was something I was forgetting. I’m usually so much better about this! Fricking Wizzard and fricking Pharaoh. I’m completely off my game in more ways than one.
“You’re not telling me you forgot? Do you want me to help you study before? I took American lit last year, and I still remember some stuff. What are you reading now?”
The idea of spending the rest of my free period with Connor poring over . . . whatever book we’re reading in class is already giving me a headache. Last year it would have been fine; over this summer we texted about summer reading, and that was fine too. When he asked to hang out at the diner last month, I’d assumed it was a pre–junior year group hang thing. It was actually, in his mind, our first “date.” And yes, in retrospect it was obvious what he was up to—no one texts a girl his thoughts on The Picture of Dorian Gray (“yo, these bros are totally banging”) for a month solely because he’s super into Wilde, but I still felt trapped. I almost didn’t say yes to the second date, but having the excuse of talking to boys is a better cover for GLO than holing up in my room with the lights off for no discernable reason, so I went along with it.
Dating Connor has its perks at school too. He shines so bright in the Hillford West constellation of stars that the details of my life look dim in comparison. We’re only a few weeks into the school year, and all anyone wants to know is if we’re dating. He’s concealer for my less respectable habits.
“I didn’t forget the quiz,” I say quickly. “I studied last night. So much, like all night. Obviously that’s what I was doing. But you know me! I love grades. And I promised Penny I’d go over some chapters with her. Gotta get to the library right now, actually.”
“Yeah, sure.” He nods. “Tell Penny I say hi.”
“Of course!” I shout back, leaving him in my dust. “Thanks for the coffee!”
I think he finds this charming in a “there she goes again, the girl who is always running away from me” sort of way.
The hallways are pretty deserted since most students are in class by now. I don’t have a ton of time to refresh my memory for this quiz, so I’m grateful not to have to stop to talk with anyone else on my way to the library. Hillford gives at least one free period to everyone except freshmen, but only a few of us were lucky enough to get free period first—the library is mostly empty except for a few scattered seniors flopped on the couches in the lounge area and a handful of nerds huddled around a box of cupcakes near the old computer lab, which no one but the gaming club uses. Must be someone’s birthday.
Just beyond them is Penny. She’s alone at a study table, not because no one wants to sit near her, but because they know better. Penny Darwin has ruled our year since middle school with the fierceness of a Habsburg empress and the fear-inducing poise of a lioness. She’s top five in our class, the lead in every school musical, and has more Instagram followers than anyone I’ve ever met in person. Penny is terrifying. She is my best friend in the world.
“Hey, I got you a latte.” I slide Connor’s unloved gift onto the table in front of Penny, a tithe for the queen. She gives me a look that says I’m full of shit, but she’s never said no to a Connor matcha before.
“You know if you actually try one of these, you might like it.” She says that but licks the rim so I can’t take the latte back even if I want to.
“Pretty sure you said that about Connor too. Also, what are we reading in English right now?”
Penny rolls her eyes at me and picks up the book in front of her on the table. “The Great Gatsby, you ding-dong. You didn’t read it?”
Gatsby, Gatsby . . . I pull a notebook out of my backpack and riffle through it. Right, the rich guy who wants to marry that Nazi’s dumb wife. I find the pages I’m looking for and sit down.
“Of course I read it. I just read it in, like, July when I read everything else. It’s been a minute. Let me see what I’ve got.”
My collection of five subject notebooks is the key to keeping my academic life together during gaming season. I prep during the day all summer, reading the books on the English syllabus, copying down calc formulas, and running through everything I’m supposed to learn that year in advance, which makes going to school more of a refresher course than an actual learning experience. My notes on The Great Gatsby are thankfully thorough enough to jog my memory.
“Okay, we got the green light, can’t change the past. Giant golfer lady? That must have been from the movie.”
“That movie was terrible.”
“I thought it was fun. Why did I write ‘The American Dream’ surrounded by a bunch of sad face emojis?”
“Because social mobility in the 1920s made white people scared they weren’t special, so they constructed class barriers to keep immigrants and new money out, and nothing has changed since.”
I have no idea what I would do without Penny. I can feel myself remembering enough about Gatsby to get through my English quiz and close the notebook.
“Okay, I’m good. How are you, boo?”
Penny pulls a flyer out of her backpack and slides it over to me. It says, and I’m not making this up, “#DARWINNING” in huge block letters and has a photo of Penny looking pretty in a red, white, and blue crop top. “Vote Penny Darwin for President” is in much smaller text on the bottom.
She leans in toward me and whispers conspiratorially, “She’s running.”
“She’s running! Principal Klein approved your platform? Oh my god, you worked so hard on that, congratulations! You totally have my vote and the whole field hockey team, if I can swing it.”
Penny takes her flyer back and admires her own picture. “How about you guarante
e it? Run with me. Be the Biden to my Obama. The, ah shoot—Who ran with Hillary?”
“Kaine.”
“I never remember that guy. The Kaine to my Clinton.”
“Penny, I—” I love Penny, I really do. We’ve been best friends since I moved here in the fourth grade, and I would do anything for her. And my mom would be over the moon if I could add student council to my resume for college. I wouldn’t have to do it next year, just long enough to have “Junior Year Vice President” as a nice little bullet point and drop it if she runs for senior class next year. Vice presidents don’t really do anything anyway, right?
I mean Dick Cheney shot that guy in the face and beefed up the military-industrial complex to, like, catastrophic efficiency, but he didn’t have Penny Darwin in the executive’s chair. She wouldn’t even let me touch the real work. I’d just have to stick out the campaign while being field hockey captain and a Model UN delegate and volunteering while maintaining my GPA and playing an undead necromagical warlock with an elite team of competitive gamers every night under cover of darkness so no one finds out.
It’s just one more thing, for a little while. I’ll do it for Penny. It’s just practice with Fury for now, and the campaign will only last up until homecoming in October.
“Yeah,” I tell Penny once my mind is made up. “Yes! I do.”
“It’s a campaign, not a proposal.”
“Is it? Whatever. I accept your nomination.”
“Yay!” Penny claps in glee. She draws attention from a couple of the guys having breakfast cupcakes at the gamer table, who look over at her like she’s a colorful, exotic bird. One of them even turns to look at me, squinting through thick glasses and a curtain of messy black hair. Relax, nerd, I don’t want your cupcake.
Once he gets a look at my mean mug, he turns away immediately. That’s right, shoo.
“I’m so stoked you said that,” Penny continues, “because your name is already on the paperwork. Had to turn it in before Klein signed off on it. Behold, the first Black-Latinx presidential ticket in the history of Hillford West.”
“Are we really the first?”
“Bitch, probably. Smile.” Penny holds her phone up to take a selfie of the both of us holding her flyer up. I’m grateful all over again for this morning’s concealer gift. She won’t have to fix any of my tired eye nonsense with an app before she posts.
“Sleepy eyes; you have sleepy eyes, Lia, wake up.” Never mind.
“Boo, you. I was up late.”
“Yeah, I know, up late not reading The Great Gatsby. Here, close your eyes, and when I count to three, open them wide. Pageant trick I saw on YouTube. One . . . two . . .”
On three I force my eyes open and smize for the angels. Please let it be enough this time; my cheeks are starting to hurt.
“Hold . . . hold . . . amazing. I’m sending it to my moms too. You know they love you.”
I love Penny’s moms too. They let her be excellent without interfering too much, and the result is my unstoppable BFF.
“So why were you up late if it wasn’t for the quiz?” Penny asks when she’s texted and posted the campaign announcement everywhere it needs to go. “Were you talking to Connor? Did he take his shirt off on FaceTime?”
“I was not talking to Connor,” I admit. “I mean, yes, he does take his shirt off on FaceTime sometimes. I was . . .”
See, I wish I could just tell Penny about Guardians League Online. If anyone in my life deserves to know how dork-ass crazy I am about this game, it’s her. We share everything else in common except this. She’s not into video games, but even if she were, I don’t want to get her involved with that part of my life. It’s not that I don’t trust her. It’s more complicated than that.
A buzz from my pocket interrupts my train of thought and gives me an excuse not to answer Penny right away.
“Did you just text me the photo?” I ask.
“Not yet, I’ll tag you.”
“Oh, wait a second then—” I pull my phone out of my pocket and feel my stomach do a flip. It’s a notification from the Team Fury Discord. Byunki never does the @everyone thing unless it’s really important.
FURY. URGENT. READ.
Not good. Or maybe really good? I don’t like the word “urgent.” Urgent can mean too many things, and I prefer clarity in virtually everything. There’s a wall of text in the chat that looks like a press release:
Wizzard Games and Claricom are proud to announce their dual ownership of the East Coast’s first all-Esports stadium venue. Just a few steps from the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Wizzard-Claricom Arena will host team and individual Esports tournaments in a fully interactive, 3,000-seat video theater.
In honor of the Wizzard-Claricom partnership, Wizzard Games invites Diamond-Tier amateur teams from the studio’s flagship Guardians League Online franchise to participate in the arena’s first live GLO tournament. Teams will be chosen with local and leaderboard preference and will compete for a grand prize of $200,000.
Whoa. Team Fury is the top-ranked team on all Philly-based servers, so local and leaderboard preference means we’re a lock for the tournament, right? We have to be. Fury Discord is exploding with responses from my team members, and in the middle of the eighteen straight lines of party parrots, there is Byunki with my answer.
Wizzard contacted me this morning. Meeting tonight on the Fury server. Get ready to win.
A live tournament. Winning two hundred thousand dollars. I’m so excited at the idea of competing with Fury that it takes my brain a moment to catch up to the fact that live means live. In person. With my face in front of people.
“Lia, you okay? You look really awake now compared to, like, five seconds ago.”
“All good. Family stuff. News,” I mutter. “Hey, Penny, I need a second.”
“Fine with me. I’m gonna go make copies of the flyer. If you want to talk, though, I’m here.”
She doesn’t press the matter any further and gathers her books into her backpack. On her way out of the library, Penny struts past the gamers, and I see her ask for (more like demand) a cupcake to go with her latte, which is so on brand I have to laugh. The guy who was looking at me earlier gives one to her without question. I kind of feel bad for glaring at him now. Happy birthday, dork.
Another buzz from my phone reminds me to keep checking the Fury Discord. Byunki wants our full names, addresses, phone numbers, all the stuff he’ll have to put on the competition paperwork to get us submitted as a team. The other guys are chucking their info in main chat as fast as they can type, but I click through to send Byunki a DM instead.
Can I get that to you tonight? I type. I don’t want to test his patience, but I need time to think, or plan, or . . . something before I agree to competing live.
Are you in or not? he responds.
Come on. Byunki of all people should know why I would hesitate. He knows that I don’t give out any info or even go on voice chat when I play with anyone besides our team. When he tapped me for Team Fury, I had to explain everything that had happened, and he said he would give me a chance anyway.
Not hard to find another DPS, he follows up. There are a million of you and only one Fury.
And only one shot at winning two hundred stacks on the biggest GLO stage ever created. This tournament is about more than the money. It’s glory. It’s going from being a nobody to being a legend at something I really, really love to do. Fury’s famous enough for their dominance in online tournaments, but this would catapult them to a whole different level. They’ll make it there with me or without me.
I want them to do it with me, though. I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more in the history of my life, ever. To hell with the consequences. Not gonna pass this up.
I’m in, I tap with quivering thumbs. I’m Fury all the way.
My phone buzzes in my hand again, not from the Fury Discord. I have been tagged in a photo on Instagram. Penny worked her filtering magic so our campaign announc
ement matches the rest of her grid, and our smiles make us look like we know we’ve already won the election. The end of her caption catches my eye—Make sure to vote on October 13th!
If we start now, the campaign should last four weeks, right? Something about that doesn’t sit right with me, so I reopen my Discord to check if the heavy sense of dread I’m beginning to feel is justified. The first round of the GLO tournament is this weekend, and then the tournament itself will last . . . yup, those exact four weeks.
Back on Instagram, the likes and comments are rolling in on Penny’s post: “queens,” “voting 4 u,” “omg perfect,” “flawless,” “women! in! the! sequel!” with clap hands between each word. Every stupid heart feels like someone’s flicking me on the side of my head. Penny needs me to win her election, and I need to win the tournament with Fury at the exact same time. How the hell is this going to work?
I’m going to need a dump truck of concealer to hide what the next four weeks will do to me. Penny and Fury both want results.
CHAPTER TWO
Team Unity, Monday
[JHoops has logged into GLO Chat: Team Unity]
shineedancer: Jake!
ElementalP: jake jake jake jake
BobTheeQ: Fooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrr
JHoops: oh please don’t
shineedancer: he’s a jolly good fellow
ElementalP: FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW FOR HE’S A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW
BobTheeQ: Which nobody can deny <3
shineedancer: sweet birthday babyyy
JHoops: thanks yinz
shineedancer: did you eat cake you deserve cake
ElementalP: the biggest possible cake
JHoops: I had a cupcake, the smallest possible cake
JHoops: it was actually really nice. the gaming club got them for me even though I’ve only been in school with them for a few weeks
ElementalP: omg you’re already making friends at your new school I’m crying
BobTheeQ: I got you a present.
BobTheeQ: It’s a surprise.
BobTheeQ: Just for you.
JHoops: is it about the tournament