by Mia Archer
I guess there was a pretty big difference between playing pretend perfect husband and lobbing off some unsuspecting goblin’s head. It was like those hobbit books I read when I was younger.
It wasn’t even like a video game. No, this was so much better because it was all happening in my imagination. It was all so much more real than any video game I’d ever played. Not that I’d been big on video games, but my little brother loved them so I indulged him from time to time. Also kicked his ass from time to time.
Then the incident happened.
“You’re in the middle of a dark cave and you hear a scratching noise coming from the other side of a door,” Jeff, the guy running the game, said. He was an older guy who’d graduated a couple of years ago, but everyone at the gaming table was either a few years older or a few years younger than me.
“Right,” Dave said. “I’m going over to the door to open it and see what’s behind it.”
“Hey, now wait a second,” Arnold, another guy a year younger than us, said. “There might be a trap or an army of monsters or something behind that door! Let’s talk about this!”
“No. I’m not going to let you guys hold me back,” Dave said. “I want to see what’s behind that door!”
“Come on Dave. You’re always pulling this stuff and you’ve nearly gotten us killed more times than I can count,” Travis said. “Would you please stop it already?”
I looked around the table. It was obvious everyone there was disgruntled. Everyone but Jeff who had a small smile on his face as though he enjoyed watching everyone at the table fighting. I guess some people enjoyed that sort of thing. Or maybe he’d been playing the game for so long that he was bored and looking for something new and different. Nothing like a little drama for new and different.
Well if that’s what he wanted. I picked up my die and threw it on the table. The rattle of plastic against wood echoed through the room and brought the argument to a stop.
“What was that for?” Jeff asked.
“You guys don’t want Dave seeing what’s behind that door, right?” I asked.
“Well yeah, but you can’t roll a die to stop him,” Travis said. “Sorry, maybe I didn’t explain everything correctly…”
“Oh no. You explained everything perfectly well,” I said. “If I attack him that will stop him from opening the door, right?”
The stunned silence only lasted for the space of a breath, then Dave exploded.
“What? What are you talking about? You can’t attack me!”
“Well yeah I can. Travis explained it all to me. If the roll on that hunk of plastic is higher than the number it takes to hit your character then I attacked you,” I said. I turned to Jeff. “Right?”
Jeff grinned a wide toothy grin and moved to pull a long strand of his hair away from his face. Yeah, he was a guy who enjoyed watching the pot getting stirred. Apparently he was also the sort of guy who was going to let the play proceed even though I was about to ruin his cousin’s night.
“No rule saying you can’t attack someone in your own party man,” Jeff said. “And it looks like she just hit you.”
Another moment of stunned silence as everyone at the table looked at everyone else. Dave looked more and more pissed off by the moment, and that was just fine with me. Anything that pissed him off was just fine with me.
Then everyone sprang into action. It seemed there was a lot of pent up tension around the table and everyone was more than happy to enjoy my “solution” to Dave running off on his own.
I grinned right back at Jeff. This game just got a lot more interesting. The only thing that would make this night more interesting is if, by some miracle, Lisa was here to join the game night.
As if something like that would ever happen. I had just found a nice distraction, though, and for the space of an evening I forgot all about Lisa Soren and the troubles of the world as I enjoyed this fascinating new game and giving Dave a hard time.
4: Invitation
Present day…
Lisa:
I looked down at my phone and swiped at a bit of fruit that came across the screen. It was neatly bisected with a satisfying splorch sound and I felt the familiar rush of a game well played. Then I realized what I was doing and backed out of the app.
I went over to my messages. Nothing.
“This fucking sucks,” I said to no one in particular. There was no one to talk to. It was just me in my room back at the parents’ house for the summer. All of my friends from college were off trapped in their own home towns and it felt like everyone I’d been friends with from high school had either decided to take summer classes or we just plain didn’t have anything in common anymore.
I sighed. If the entire summer was going to be like this then I was going to die from boredom. I was starting to think I should’ve just taken a couple of summer classes so I could have an excuse to stay at school. I was used to being able to go out and have a good time, go to parties, whenever I wanted.
There weren’t even parties anymore. I mean there were, but they were all with people who were way younger than me. People who’d been in middle school when I was graduating. People who were still underage and very much breaking the law when they drank. It would just be weird going to one of those.
Not to mention the girls at those parties might take it a little too personally if I got a little too up close and personal. That had been known to happen at a few parties when I got a little too drunk and let my freak flag fly, though that was as far as I let it go.
In a town this small they probably wouldn’t appreciate that freak flag flying as much as some of the girls on campus did, though. Or the guys on campus who always ended up nearby cheering like a bunch of assholes. Like my long running inner conflict was just there to turn them on.
The pricks.
I put the phone down and stared up at the ceiling. The same ceiling I’d stared at for the past twenty-one years of my life, though that wouldn’t last for much longer. I’d be going into my last year of undergrad soon enough, and after that it was off to the real world or maybe grad school if I couldn’t find a job. I’d have to move out and get a place of my own that I stayed in year round. No more coming home for the summer.
It all felt very adult and very terrifying. I was glad for a distraction when my phone buzzed to let me know someone out there was interested. There was a time when I’d have lots of offers to go hang out on a Friday night from just about every guy in school, but these days those offers weren’t there. Not because guys didn’t want to go out with me so much as they just weren’t around anymore.
Except for those kids at the underage parties. Ugh. No thank you.
I looked down at my phone and the excitement quickly faded into “ugh, no thank you” on a completely different level.
Dave: hey lisa! hows it goin? enjoyin ur summer vacation so far haha hit me up!
Damn it. Dave. The last person I wanted to hear from. It figured that of all the people who’d be home for the summer he’d be the one to get in touch with me. We never even hung out. He just helped me with a few assignments in math once and thought that meant we were dating or something. It’d been awkward, and I didn’t want to think about it.
Me: hey
I hoped that was noncommittal enough. I’d thought about changing my phone number just so he wouldn’t have it anymore. He said he needed it to schedule things back when he was doing that tutoring and he hadn’t given up on getting in touch with me even though I’d done everything I could think of to make it absolutely clear this wasn’t happening, damn it.
Dave: so I saw u were back in town. having a good nite?
I was having a pretty good night until he started messaging me, but I wasn’t going to be so rude as to tell him that. My parents always said it was good to be nice to people even if you didn’t get along with them. I wondered if that extended to creepers who couldn’t take a hint, but I’d never asked.
Me: yeah I guess it’s okay
Da
ve: so if u don’t have anything to do tonite…
Oh damn it. This was not happening. Was he seriously about to ask me out? I contemplated chucking my phone out the window. The only thing that stopped me was I didn’t have the money to pay for the thing if it broke. It seemed like chucking it out the window would be a good thing to make sure the thing broke.
Dave: I was thinking mabye u n I could hang out like u promised?
I stared at the phone long and hard. What the hell was he going on about? I certainly didn’t remember ever agreeing to hang out with him. That would’ve been the last thing in the world I agreed to considering I wanted to be as far from him as possible.
That was a blessing of going to a different school when we went off to college. He still messaged me from time to time, but it was a lot easier to ignore when we were a few hours apart.
Me: what r u talking about?
Take the hint, Dave. I didn’t want to hang out with you.
Dave: lol u said next time we were in town we could hang out!
I squeezed my eyes shut. Now that he mentioned specifics I did recall telling him something vague the last time he asked me about hanging out when we were in town together. I really regretted being that vague now, though. Especially if he took that to mean I’d given him a green light for us to have a date night.
I didn’t have many date nights. I’d gone out with a few guys and had a couple of boyfriends, but never found one who really did it for me. The only thing that “did it” for me was those drunken dances, and I still didn’t like thinking about what that meant. It wasn’t part of the plan.
I knew one thing for sure. If was going to go on a date with a guy then Dave would be the last guy I ever chose.
Damn it. I was going to have to come right out and be rude or something, because he wasn’t taking the hint.
Dave: anyways, me n some friends r having game night. Thought u might want to hang out or something
What he said was so not what I was expecting that it caught me off guard for a moment. I frowned down at my phone. What was he going on about? I tapped out a response.
Me: what, u mean like board games or something?
Dave: lol no, I’m talking Castles & Cantrips
Me: what is a cantrip?
Dave: magic, u kno, good old C&C!
C&C. I remembered a guy I dated, briefly, in high school talking about giving some kid in his math class some shit for playing that game. I didn’t know exactly what it was. I just had the vague sense that it was the sort of game played by a bunch of losers who lived in their parents’ basement.
So it pretty much sounded like the sort of thing that would be right up Dave’s alley.
And the sort of thing I would never be interested in. I chuckled as I thumbed at my phone. It was time to stop being nice. He wasn’t getting the hint and this had gone on for long enough.
Me: what would make u think id ever want to do something like that?
Dave: come on lisa! Its a lot more fun than u might think! U should give it a try!
I was about to tell him that there wasn’t a chance I’d ever go to something like that when his next message made me pause and at least think about it.
Dave: u wont even be the only girl there!
Okay then. I guess that was something. I still had no intention of actually going through with this and going to his game night, but he’d at least piqued my curiosity. What girl in her right mind would go to something like that?
Probably not the kind of girl I ever spent much time with. All my friends were usually in sports or on the squad, and we were always out going to those underage parties I’d mentioned back when we were still doing the whole underage drinking thing ourselves.
Me: oh yea? Who else is gonna be there?
Dave: well actually its just kylie, and she can be sort of a bitch sometimes, but still…
Me: kylie thompson?
Dave: none other than
I tapped a finger against my lips. I really only knew Kylie by reputation, but what a reputation. She was the resident bad girl clad in all black in a town where that sort of fashion statement really got tongues wagging.
I instantly pictured a girl with her hair dyed a dark purple color wearing a very dark outfit. It didn’t seem to matter what the day was. Not a hint of color other than her hair. And the piercings. It amazed me that her parents let her get stuck like a pincushion, though I was also a little jealous of her being able to do that. I hadn’t even been brave enough to get a belly button piercing.
Yeah, Kylie was interesting. She was also pretty even under all the dark clothes. She would’ve been gorgeous if it wasn’t for the whole dark and brooding thing she had going.
Pretty in a way that always gave me a little thrill. The sort of thrill I tried not to dwell on too much.
Y’now, I wouldn’t mind seeing Kylie in person. She always seemed like an interesting person. The kind of girl who did her own thing.
I’d always looked at her and thought it must be such a relief to be able to live like that. To not give a fuck what everyone else thought. And it would be interesting to see if she ditched the dark goth thing or if she still stuck to that fashion statement even though it was more than a little regrettable.
I wondered what she’d look like in regular clothes. She’d probably kill it. Then it occurred to me to wonder why I was wondering what she looked like in regular clothes. Or why I was thinking about how pretty she’d look in those regular clothes.
Why was I even suddenly interested in going to play some dork game in the first place just because she was there? I should tell Dave no. He’d take it as encouragement that I wanted to go.
Me: yea, I guess it might be okay to go to something like that
Damn it. What was I thinking? I guess the problem really was that I wasn’t thinking. Or the little thinking I was doing was all about Kylie. What was going on here? I didn’t want to play some dork game, and seeing a girl I’d never really talked to in school wasn’t a good reason to go.
Only it looked like I was going. I knew I had a reason for going, too, and it had nothing to do with Dave and everything to do with Kylie.
Me: so where is this thing?
Dave: in the basement over at my house. Im the one running the game!
I rolled my eyes. I’d been joking about the whole basement thing and here it turns out the stereotype was alive and well.
Me: u kno I could just walk over there
Dave: no way! I want to pick up my lady
Me: im not ur lady Dave
That was about as direct as I’d ever gotten with him, and his next text showed that it still wasn’t enough. He was obviously living in Dave world where he only saw what he wanted to see. Then again he’d been doing that with our text conversations for awhile now. I’d just have to put up with it for another night and hope he didn’t get too weird on me.
Dave: great! ill pick you up in a few hours! no need to dress up for me or anything though since its just the guys and kylie ;)
Damn it. Now he thought we were going on a date or something. So much for thinking he wouldn’t get too weird about this. As though a date to someone’s basement to play a game was any sort of date at all.
I wanted to go out and party. Get tipsy and maybe let myself break free a little and dance a little too close to some pretty young thing. I wanted to stay up all night talking with my friends from school.
I wanted to enjoy myself in a way I knew I wouldn’t be able to anymore as soon as I got out into the real world. No more parties and no more dancing meant no more outlet for those feelings I tried to ignore when I wasn’t tipsy.
This was my last summer before I had to be an adult full time, and I didn’t want to waste that time playing some stupid game where Dave thought he was on a date with me.
But I’d already gotten myself into it so I figured I might as well go for just tonight. I told myself I was just reaching for anything other than hanging around in my room, though to be p
erfectly honest I kept thinking of Kylie and wondering what she was like now. It was crazy considering we’d never really exchanged two words and just knew each other by reputation, but there it was.
I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into, but I figured a short car ride with Dave was a small price to pay to satisfy this strange curiosity that had suddenly seized me.
Maybe tonight would be a little more interesting than dancing after all.
5: Fresh Meat
Kylie:
I leaned back in my chair and wrinkled my nose. Something in Dave’s basement smelled musty this evening. I mean it usually smelled musty in here, but it was even worse than usual. Like the sump pump had gone out and he’d been so busy playing video games that he hadn’t bothered to tell his parents to flip the breaker or something.
“Is this all the cheapskate brought for game night?” Travis asked from a folding table on the other side of the room. Not that it was very big. This wasn’t a basement so much as it was an unfinished storage area for the sump pump and a washer and dryer.
“I’m afraid it is man,” Arnold said from his spot across from me at the table. I strategically chose this spot so I wouldn’t have to look directly at Dave while we were gaming. As often as we got into arguments over the finer point of the game that could result in things being thrown at his stupid dungeon master screen.
“So where is Dave anyway?” I asked. “Usually he’s down here lording it up over us right when we get here.”
“He said something about having a special surprise he was bringing to game night tonight,” Travis said from his perch over the food table. He picked at some chips. The kind you got from the dollar store. I didn’t touch them because I’d seen when they expired. I’d still been in middle school at the time.
“That’s never good,” I muttered. “You’d think he’d know we weren’t about the surprises after the incident with the inflatable dice.”