Don't Hate the Player

by Alexis Nedd

  JHoops: if wizzard just sent you that update, then em must have just found out about Fury too.

  JHoops: she’s never going to play again

  JHoops: even if she wanted to, now her parents know and she’s probably still getting threats. it’s over for her. oh my god i wish i could talk to her it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault

  ElementalP: we should call the cops and tell them what Muddy did. if he’s arrested Fury can’t play either.

  BobTheeQ: Muddy didn’t publish her name, Byunki did. And Emilia would have to sue him to prove he posted with the intent to cause harm in a civil suit. Online harassment requires repeated, person-to-person contact to escalate to a criminal case in the state of Pennsylvania.

  JHoops: how do you know that?

  BobTheeQ: I got real familiar with harassment laws after B and I broke up.

  shineedancer: so because Byunki never contacted her directly or repeatedly it’s not criminal? he can just post her name on some gamergate hub knowing folks will go apeshit and that doesn’t break any laws? your state sucks!

  JHoops: she should have the option to sue. someone has to tell her

  JHoops: she’s not our competitor anymore and that means my promise to stay away from her doesn’t count right bob

  BobTheeQ: Dude, of course.

  JHoops: cool cuz if you said no for whatever reason i was gonna do it anyway.

  ElementalP: we know

  JHoops: matt (different matt) just got back to me. he says the romeros are pissed and they have her on lockdown. She told me once if they ever found out she gamed they’d like kill her

  shineedancer: obviously they won’t literally kill her

  ElementalP: wait Romeros? she’s latinx and she kept a huge secret from her parents for years and someone called a bomb threat to her school because of it?

  JHoops: yes

  ElementalP: yeah no they might kill her

  JHoops: she was going to tell them after the tournament if Fury won cuz they can’t really argue with a million dollars so GOOD JOB MUDDY

  JHoops: to be clear i was still rooting for us but now nobody wins

  shineedancer: i mean . . . unless

  BobTheeQ: Unless?

  shineedancer: unless . . .

  JHoops: wait is this going where i think it’s going?

  BobTheeQ: It’s the most obvious solution.

  ElementalP: more than worth a shot

  BobTheeQ: Up to you, Hoops.

  JHoops: if you’re serious i think we owe it to her

  JHoops: I owe it to Em to try

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Emilia, Friday

  I CAN’T TELL what time it is with the shades pulled down. It’s definitely daytime, but it could be morning, maybe midafter-noon. About an hour ago, I heard the doorbell ring. Probably a package for my dad’s business. Could also be whoever the school sent over with my homework for the week, which would mean it’s after 3 p.m. No phone, can’t check either way. I roll over to face away from the window and peek through one crusty eye at the rest of my bedroom.

  The desk’s still a mess. By the time Mom brought me home on Monday, my dad had gleaned the full story from forum posts on the website where my info turned up. Just seeing him sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open when he was meant to be working in his office made my throat close up. He didn’t let me read the kinds of things people were saying, but my firsthand experience with the nasty side of the GLO community tells me it was bad.

  Dad wasn’t mean when he marched me upstairs and made me show him how I’d been playing, but he was angry when he saw that I’d cobbled my PC together from stuff he thought he’d thrown out—the processor from the first iteration of his company computer, the RAM sticks he bought online and swore he had more of; he’d given me the external hard drives to bring files back and forth from school, but the misappropriation of storage to house dozens of 20-gigabyte games ticked him off as much as the (sort of) stealing did. The only thing I didn’t rescue from his trash was the graphics card, which I bought with two years of birthday money.

  When Dad saw what I’d built, I thought I detected a glimmer of pride, but it vanished when he yanked the power supply out of the wall (it wasn’t turned off all the way; he knew that would hurt) and took the tower before he left my room.

  He left my monitor, though, which is now sitting on top of my desk with its cord attached to air. It’s worse than if Dad had taken everything downstairs. Now every time I roll over, I see Florence’s dead, matte face and think, Wow, that inanimate piece of equipment looks lonely as hell.

  And yes, I am aware that I am projecting. I am also aware that most of my parents’ precautions, like taking away my computer, school laptop, and phone and not letting me out of the house, are meant to protect me, not punish me. I’ve never seen my mom look as scared as she did reading the comments over my dad’s shoulder. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her look scared before at all.

  It’s weird to remember that my parents, whose hypothetical reactions to this exact situation have been my own Sword of Damocles, are also, like, people? I think that’s why I haven’t left my room except to eat for four days. The whiplash of seeing them worried, then angry, then concerned, then angry again, but mostly worried was too much for me to resolve when I had to sit there and look at them. At least I haven’t been up here crying. I just feel kind of dead. Turns out I’m a pharaoh after all, and my bedroom is my tomb.

  Well, most tombs don’t have en suite bathrooms, but if mummies had to pee and shower sitting down for forty-five minutes until the water gets cold and they almost pass out from the steam buildup, I bet they would. The ancient Egyptians were practical like that. They even buried people with stuff that would make them happy in the next life. Books, chariots, slaves (not great), snacks. What else did they stick in those burial chambers? Treasure for sure. Games too. Wait, is being a mummy awesome? No wonder Pharaoh’s always grinning. That, and he doesn’t have lips.

  Sweet Christmas, I’m losing it. This is the isolation and hopelessness wrapping their nasty little tendrils around my brain and squeezing until all the logic squirts out like juice. My parents told me they would risk my perfect attendance record to keep me out of school for as long as it took to get a handle on my online security, but the thrill of missing school only lasted for the first few hours of Tuesday. I need to talk to people, to get up and move around. I need to keep eating and stretch and go downstairs to face my parents and whatever punishment they have in mind for me. I need a lot of things. What I want is Jake.

  Jake would understand how I’m feeling right now. I bet he blames himself for telling me to stay in the tournament like it wasn’t my choice to make. He would be self-effacing and would act surprised that I don’t think he’s garbage, and then he’d crack a joke about GLO or tell me a story about how something similar happened to Penelope one time, and before I knew it, I’d be smiling again. Jake would say something smart that gets to the bottom of everything I’m feeling right now without realizing he’s doing it. He’d tell me this was all going to be okay, even if it wasn’t. I’d believe it coming from him. Jake’s not an optimist by any definition of the word, but he thinks I can outlive anything. I wish I had his confidence in me. I wish he was here to help me fake it.

  And then, I don’t know, maybe we’d make out a bunch. That would be cool too. I think I brushed my teeth this morning. Might have been yesterday. I run my tongue over my teeth, and they feel pebblier than usual. Def brushed them yesterday.

  It’s gross to imagine kissing Jake again with day-old mouth stink, so I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and start thinking about walking over to the bathroom. My vision darkens as the blood rushes up to reach my head, then bubbles back in a grayish tide that ebbs to the beat of my lazy heart trying to remember what it takes to keep me upright. By the time I can see clearly, my mom is standing in the doorway to my bedroom.

  “You’re up,” she says, sounding surprised. Then
she sniffs the air. “It smells like a hamster cage in here.”

  Like she would know. She never let me have a hamster. I had a bird when I was little, a feisty blue parakeet named Cloud, but when he died my parents decided pets were too distracting to keep around. Eyes on their prize.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have one of those upside-down water bottles with the little metal ball, would you?” I ask. My mouth tastes like dumpster liquid. How did I not notice that when I was lying down?

  “I’ll get you a Smartwater if you brush your teeth,” Mom negotiates. “While you’re brushing, we need to talk.”

  See, that is why I didn’t want to open with “we need to talk” when I broke up with Connor. It immediately puts people, like me, on edge, like I am right now. The jolt in my chest when I hear my mom say those words is the strongest emotional response I’ve had since I checked Fury Discord before my parents took my phone away and saw that Byunki had revoked my access. I haven’t been able to check my email to confirm that he kicked me off the team, but I knew then that Fury had dropped me. Byunki wouldn’t want to roll up to the championship with a player who brought death threats to his team. Whoever doxxed me wanted my GLO career over before it started.

  Anyway, nothing matters! Mom can say whatever she wants. I slide off my bed, walk over to my bathroom, and leave the door open so I can still see and hear her. Turning the lights on would only blind me after spending so much time in the dark; between me developing a lamp allergy and Dad unplugging my gaming PC, the electricity bill at casa Romero is going to be one hell of a bargain this month.

  “Your father and I,” Mom begins, then seems to give in to an impulse she’s been holding back all week and marches over to start making my bed. Come on, Mom, I was totally going to do that once I finished brushing my teeth. (I wasn’t.)

  “Your father and I are disappointed. This game you’ve been playing, the League of Guardians. That’s time you could have spent studying or working on your college essays. I don’t know where you found out about this tournament, but lying to us about campaigning with Penny on weekends? I called Mrs. and Mrs. Darwin, and they were not happy about that either.”

  Penny’s moms are literally theater producers, so I doubt their daughter acting well enough to fool my mom ticked them off that much, but by all means, Mama, keep talking. I’m still working on my molars.

  “We’re appalled at the levels of your deception. Especially since the kinds of people who play this game are the same people who called a bomb threat to school. They threatened to come to our house! Do you have any idea how hard your dad’s been working to scrub your name from the internet? The things these . . . ​boys said about you. I’ve been looking things up, trying to understand why. You had to know this was possible.”

  “Dun’t blam me fur ther bullshut,” I seethe through a mouthful of toothpaste. My parents can punish me all they want, but I’m not going to let them blame the victim here.

  “I don’t blame you. And watch your language,” Mom replies without missing a beat. I can see, from one angle in the bathroom mirror, her finish putting my bed back in order. She smooths her hands down the comforter like I’ve seen her do a thousand times, making sure every thread in the comforter obeys her touch, then sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed.

  “We’ve done so much to give you a good life, Emilia,” she says. Are those brushing sounds echoing in my head or is my mom’s voice breaking?

  “You’re so special. Even when you were a baby, we knew you were brilliant. I’d be at home with you all day and watch you crawl around, picking things up, trying to understand what you saw. It’s like you were filling in a little spreadsheet in your head. Your dad would come back from work and ask me what new things you did while he was gone, and I always told him you did everything. You taught yourself to read when I wasn’t even looking.”

  Should have thought of that before you taught a two-year-old the phonetic alphabet, Mom. None of this is relevant. Just say your piece and go. But come back and bring me that Smartwater when you get a chance, please.

  “We bought this house to get you in a good school district. We put you in Monteronni so you would have the best foundation. Every Model UN conference, every class trip, the field hockey team—we’ve never denied you anything you need to succeed. You have the potential to go so far, and you’re up here playing video games? What do you have to say for yourself? No, spit that out first. I can understand you either way because I’m your mother, but it’s gross when you talk with toothpaste in your mouth.”

  Ever obedient, I spit. My mouth feels great, which makes it the only part of my body that does. What do I have to say for myself? Nothing I want to tell my mom. Nothing she doesn’t already know. She has the story; I don’t get why she needs to hear it from me. I did what I did, and the universe is exacting its own revenge.

  I don’t want to sit next to my mom on my bed. I’d rather stay in the bathroom and procrastinate by washing my face. That keeps my mouth free, and if I start crying for the first time this week, the suds will hide most of the tears.

  “I only did it because I thought I could do both,” I begin. It’s true; as ridiculous as it sounds now, I really did think I could keep this charade up for the rest of my life. “I want to do what you . . . ​you know, what I’m supposed to do. Get good grades, go to college, make everyone proud. So I was doing that. I just also wanted to play. It was fun. I liked it. So I did both.”

  Washing my face hasn’t taken nearly long enough to keep me from going back in my room. I rinse off and start working on my hair. I haven’t washed it all week, which is a smidge under fine considering my curly hair hates being washed more than once every four days, but I grab a spray bottle and start scraping it into a bun at the top of my head to hide the pillow frizz.

  “You did both,” my mom repeats. From her deadpan tone, I’m guessing that explanation isn’t going to fly. “You lied, sneaked, and exposed your identity to online terrorists so you could play a game that has nothing to do with your future because it was fun and you thought you could do both.”

  My grip tightens around my hairbrush. This is the part of the movie where the smarty-pants teen claps back at her mom for not understanding, and they yell at each other in a big fight that ends with someone slamming a door or taking a long walk to “cool off,” because kids can totally disappear for hours these days without their parents reporting them missing. My family doesn’t operate like that. I don’t yell at my parents; I can’t even imagine what my voice would sound like yelling at them. In return they rarely ever raise their voices to me, but the few times they do generates this feeling of total dread, like I’ve just spotted a tarantula crawling up my leg. Sometimes even hearing other people yell makes me feel that way. I maneuver around confrontation as often as possible.

  I can’t do that today. Or tonight, hell if I know what time it is by now. I’m not going to yell because there’s no point, but my mom has to know how I ended up here. My hair is up and out of my face, and I can’t stay in the bathroom forever.

  My mom watches me intensely as I walk over and take a seat on the bed a few safe feet away from her.

  “It was more than that,” I admit. Damn it, my eyes hurt. No, no, I hate this. Don’t cry. Tears won’t get you anywhere, Emilia. Do not cry. “I was doing so much for you.” I sniff. Come on, not now. “And I wanted to have something for me. I’m really grateful for everything you and Dad do, but you don’t leave any room for me.”

  I expect Mom to interrupt me, but she doesn’t. She just glances over at my bedroom door like she’s expecting someone to walk through. It’s not disorienting enough to stop the tumble of words that I somehow can’t stop from falling out of my mouth. They’ve been sitting at the tip of my tongue for so long, and they really, really want to come out now.

  “I didn’t choose any of it,” I say through what suspiciously—Yup, no, those are tears. Despite my best efforts, I’m crying at my mom in my bedroom. I feel seven years old. �
�You and Dad pick everything. Field hockey, all those extracurriculars, my courses, and it’s fine! I’ll do it; I know I have to do it because I don’t want to waste your time. I chose to play GLO, though. I’m so good at it, Mom. I taught myself how to be good at it. I tried really hard to be safe so this wouldn’t happen, but it happened because those guys are scared of me. Did you see the pot for that tournament I was in? I could have paid for UPenn after the contract was up. It wasn’t just a game I was wasting my time with; it was a real thing I could have been great at because I wanted to be.”

  I don’t have a tissue in grabbing distance. Instead, I have to wipe my nose on my shirt.

  “I took a risk to follow what I wanted, and it backfired. As long as no one got hurt, I’d make it again, though, because it was my choice to try a new path. I’m so, so sorry for lying. You can ground me forever—”

  “You are,” Mom interrupts kindly, “grounded forever, I mean. Your father and I decided.”

  “Yeah, cool, that’s fine. I get it. I lied a lot, not just to you and Dad. I did it to protect you from . . . ​the exact thing that happened, but it was still lying.”

  “Emilia.” My mom closes the gap between us on the bed and hugs me. “It’s our job to protect you. We’re going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

  I can’t say I expected that. This conversation goes almost too smoothly, and I’m not sure if my sense that Mom is holding something back is outweighing my relief that she’s not ripping into me. So much of our relationship is Parent Tell, Child Do that I’ve never considered softness as a potential reaction to a fuck-up of this scale.

  “Once this blows over, there won’t be much to do, Mom. Someone else who isn’t a straight white guy will piss everyone off by existing next week, and they’ll forget about me, I think. They like it when they win, and I’m not going to play anymore, so they win.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” my mom says as she rubs my back. “Romeros don’t lose.”

  I pull back from the hug in surprise and level my gaze at my mom. She has the same look in her eyes that she gets before a field hockey game. Someone has replaced Mom with Coach Romero when I wasn’t looking.