Dude, I know. This fucking thing started attacking me! I didn’t know how to fight back, so I just ran away.
I retrieve a healing potion I have inside my backpack. Was it a worgen?
No, he says. It was like this . . . crazy mutant pig monster.
Pig monster? I apply the potion, and Bernard returns to full health. Wait . . . are you talking about a boar? Like one of those ordinary boars that roam around?
Trust me, Analee. There was nothing ordinary about this boar.
Kiri, I say. My name is Kiri.
Seb has no idea what he’s doing. You don’t call people by their real names here. It takes you out of it.
Now my cell is ringing, and I know it’s him.
“What?” I answer.
“So tell me how I kill things.”
“Did you click on the boar?”
“No. I just pressed random keys in the hopes that something would work.”
“Great plan. Weird how it didn’t work out for you.”
It’s strange to be Seb’s all-knowing spirit guide right now. Usually it’s Seb teaching me the ways of the real world, but today he has stepped into my world. Over the phone I explain how to strike an opponent in the game. But before I can finish, he’s charging into the forest.
“Let’s doooo it!” he hollers, his voice attacking my poor unsuspecting eardrums. It’s so typical of Seb. Diving into something without a clue of what he’s doing. Harris meticulously plans every mission after analyzing our set of skills, surrounding environment, and available inventory.
Bernard immediately stumbles upon a boar grazing along the edge of the forest. The boar turns on him, preparing to strike. Bernard isn’t fast enough. He hesitates, and the boar springs into action and rams into him repeatedly as Bernard cowers, wounded.
Quickly I load my crossbow. Pull the string back. Aim. Shoot. The boar dies instantly, exploding into thin air. Bernard stands there, swaying slightly, in the same spot where he was wounded.
“Wow,” Seb says to me over the phone. “That was badass.”
I feel a surge of pride, which is ridiculous because I’ve never done anything truly badass in my entire life. Fighting a boar online doesn’t take courage. It takes a few well-timed taps on a keyboard.
“You’ll get used to it,” I say. “Your reflexes will improve in time . . . Striker.”
“You did not just go there.”
“I mean . . . nationally ranked soccer star can’t kill a level-one boar?”
“I almost had him! You jumped in before I could deal some damage.”
“Fine,” I say. “Next time I’ll let you handle it—aka leave you to die.”
“Very nice, An. Hey, do people have sex in this game?”
“Not possible.”
“Does that mean you’ve tried?”
“No!”
I’ve thought about it, though. Not about having virtual sex. I think that would make me feel more pathetic than I already do. But sometimes I think about what sex would be like if I looked like Kiri. If Harris looked like Xolkar, and our beautiful toned bodies had beautiful toned sex together.
It would probably, I realize with a sickening feeling, look a lot like the perfect sex that Chloe and Seb used to have.
There’s a figure who suddenly appears beside me and Seb on-screen. It flickers. Then, as quickly as it appeared, it vanishes. My heart plunges to my feet.
“What was that?” Seb asks over the phone.
Was it who I thought it was? It could have been another random user. There is a limited variety of characters, so it’s easy to find one that looks like someone else.
“Was that a glitch?” he goes on.
“No,” I reply, because I know it wasn’t a random user or a glitch. It was Harris. I’ve been spending less and less time with him online since delving deeper into the Seb charade. Tonight I made up a crap excuse for why I couldn’t quest with him, and now he’s caught me killing boars with someone else. Why do I feel like I’ve been caught in a tawdry affair?
“Hello?” I realize that Seb’s been talking while I’ve been deep inside my own twisted head.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s . . . That guy was Harris.”
On-screen Bernard and Kiri are frozen in place.
“Harris?” Seb repeats. “Who’s—”
There’s an abrupt pause. I can picture the realization dawning on Seb. He gets this face when things click into place, where one eyebrow lifts slightly higher than the other, and the corners of his lips tug downward.
“Your almost-boyfriend,” he pieces together.
“Yes.”
“You’ve never met him in person.”
It’s a uniquely embarrassing moment, when your fake boyfriend realizes that you have another fake boyfriend.
“That doesn’t matter,” I say. My voice has a bite to it. “Harris knows me better than anyone else.”
Although, he doesn’t know what’s going on between me and Seb, which is pretty much the biggest thing happening in my life right now, besides Dad and Harlow’s upcoming nuptials. How well does Harris know me now, really? Would he think I’m capable of making out in a broom closet? Or would that scare him off?
“You never talk about him anymore,” Seb points out.
“I think about him.”
“When?”
“All the time.”
“When you’re with me?”
No. When I’m with Seb, I’m thinking about Seb. But I’m not going to tell him that.
“All the time,” I repeat. “Don’t you think about Chloe when you’re with me?”
Not a word. Not a freaking word from him. His silence is like a shiv, relentlessly piercing my chest, rendering me breathless. I’m pissed off, and I don’t know why. Of course he’s thinking about Chloe. He should be. She’s a major reason why we’re doing this whole thing.
“Anyway,” I glide on. It’s kind of remarkable how unaffected my voice sounds. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“You do nothing,” Seb says. “Your almost-boyfriend caught you gaming with another guy. He’s obviously jealous, based on his disappearing act.”
“I don’t want him to be jealous.”
“Analee, you are such an amateur. When a guy gets jealous, that’s exactly when he makes his move.”
“Harris doesn’t make moves. And I don’t like playing these games.”
Seb gives a dark laugh. “What do you think it is we’re doing here?”
He’s right, is the depressing thing. The two of us? We’re a game. Pretend. Make-believe. Is that all life is? A series of games? Let’s say Seb is right and Harris makes a move. Am I reduced to a prize won through some macho pissing contest?
And the Seb thing. I know we’re not real, but I wanted to believe there was some shred of authenticity behind it all. I don’t expect Seb to profess his love to me, but it’d be nice if he didn’t hate spending time with me. Even if he thought of me as a friend . . . I could be friends with Seb. I could be acquaintances with Seb. Really, I just want to be anything but a means to an end.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
DAD AND HARLOW ARE ARGUING when I get home from school on Monday. The tense, passive-aggressive silence that’s been simmering for weeks has reached a full-on boil. I know that it’s normal for couples to fight, but this isn’t normal for Dad and Harlow. Especially Harlow. When she gets mad, she usually shuts herself up in her meditation room and comes out an hour later smiling and sleepy-eyed. She never raises her voice.
Except for right now. She’s raising it louder than Dad’s, and Dad has this booming tenor that can fill up the whole house.
I sneak past the kitchen, where they’re facing off against each other. I’ve mastered going up the stairs silently, like a true Invisible Girl would. I know how the second-to-last step creaks in the middle, and how you have to place one foot on each side of the first few steps so they don’t cave in. Sure enough, Dad and Harlow haven’t noticed that I’m here. Their unhinged yel
ling continues, and I lock myself in the bedroom to block out the noise.
The problem? I can’t go online. I haven’t talked to Harris since I shot a boar for another man. The second problem is that if I’m not online, there’s no other way for me to contact him. I can’t see him in person, and we’ve never exchanged phone numbers. If not for the Internet connection, Harris does not exist.
I should just do it. Log in. The worst that can happen is that Harris will ignore me.
Ugh, but that actually would feel like the worst possible thing. I’m already Invisible Girl in real life. I can’t handle being that to Harris, too.
I flop down onto my bed with dramatic gusto. My gaze wanders around my room, from my open, disheveled closet to the half-eaten breakfast bar on my nightstand. Then back to my closet.
My closet is open, and I’m sure I closed it this morning. Some of my shoes are scattered around, and while I’m generally a messy person, I can usually recognize my type of mess, and this is not mine. My first thought is Avery. Maybe she was ransacking my closet to try on my clothes. That’s something little sisters do, right? Even when their big sisters are, like, five times their size? And have the fashion sense of a ranch hand?
Amidst the many piles of shoes, I see a definite empty space where something was moved.
I sit up.
The condoms.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
And now I am 200 percent certain that I am the cause of Dad and Harlow’s epic showdown in the kitchen. I run to my bedroom door and open it a crack so that I can hear what they’re saying.
Harlow is midsentence, something about sharing a life together.
“She’s my daughter!” Dad’s voice rings out so clearly, I don’t have to strain. “The rules are my call!”
Harlow’s voice rises to match his volume. “So that’s it? I get zero input on Analee?”
“You don’t get input on her sex life. She shouldn’t even have one!”
My dad and future stepmom are discussing my sex life. It makes me want to curl up into a little ball and die right here, right on this spot on my carpet with the mysterious brown stain that I suspect and hope is chocolate.
Harlow starts arguing that if I were going to have sex, she wanted me to be safe, and Dad barks back, “She’s not allowed to have sex! That’s not how we raised her!”
I physically jolt at that word—“we.” The acknowledgment of Mom.
From Harlow’s pause I can tell that it takes her by surprise too. “I just think,” she says, and her tone is noticeably softer, “that Cristina would have wanted—”
“It doesn’t matter what you think!” he shouts, and the world seems to stop. I have never, ever heard Dad talk to Harlow like that. For so long, it seems like our lives have revolved around what she thinks.
Then, more quietly, he adds, “You didn’t know her.” And his voice breaks in this way that makes me want to cry. Harlow gets quiet too, and there’s an unbearable silence that is almost worse than the shouting.
The thing is, Dad doesn’t talk about Mom. Not to anyone, really, and especially not to Harlow. I get it. I do. Dad and I are both the type to keep our feelings locked up tight. The bad thing is that the feelings don’t disappear. They grow and mutate until they have to escape sometime.
I hear the front door close and Dad’s car start up. I get the pang of fear like when I was little.
Where is he going? Is he leaving forever? Am I going to be abandoned by both parents now? I went to exactly three sessions with a psychologist after Mom died. I remember that the psychologist’s name was Wendy, and she would wait for me to talk, even if I had nothing to say and there were long gaps of awkward silence. She had a beauty mark in the middle of her chin and fluffy brown hair.
I didn’t get a chance to tell Wendy about my fears. I could have, I guess, but I didn’t want to come right out and say them. I worried that Wendy would judge me, because I would see her writing things in a little leather-bound notebook. I didn’t like it. Why should I be all transparent when Wendy wouldn’t tell me what she truly thought about me?
I should have kept seeing Wendy, because clearly I have not adjusted to life yet. I told Dad that I was fine after those initial sessions, and he didn’t push me. I think he wanted to believe I was okay.
The house is so quiet, I wonder if Harlow went with Dad. I wouldn’t be surprised if they said fuck it all and just eloped. I creep down the stairs to listen. Nothing. Not a sound. My stomach gives a premature growl. Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with my metabolism. I ate a bag of chips not thirty minutes ago. I edge down the stairs one by one, then pause at the kitchen doorway.
Harlow is sitting with her back to me, as still as a statue.
I don’t know what to do here. Option A: ask her if she’s okay, give her an awkward pat on the shoulder, make excuses for my father. Option B: get back upstairs before she knows I’m here. Of course I go for Option B. But as I turn to leave, my stomach emits the loudest gurgle. It sounds like someone’s drowning in there.
Harlow’s head whips around. Her eyes are pink and bleary.
“Oh, I—I didn’t know you were home,” she says. She turns around and tries to wipe her face discreetly. Silently I curse out my stomach. I feel like I’m imposing on a private moment. I know that I hate when people see me cry. I can’t imagine how someone as image-conscious as Harlow must feel.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was hungry, and I didn’t . . . I thought you had left.”
“I’m hungry too,” Harlow says, getting up suddenly. I wonder if she has a magical acai bowl that cures sadness. She doesn’t head for the refrigerator, though. She swipes her keys up from the table and spins them around her finger.
“Come on,” she says to me, and I really wish I could stay behind and have the house to myself, but I follow her command.
She pulls up in front of a McDonald’s. It’s not just any McDonald’s, which would be shocking enough for Harlow. It’s the McDonald’s I always went to with Mom.
I don’t believe in an afterlife, but if I did, this would be Mom banging me over the head with a sign. It’s too much of a coincidence for Harlow, the picture of health, to suddenly crave what she once referred to as “Satan’s excrement.”
Harlow shuts off the ignition and stares at the glittering golden arches. I can see her mind furiously at work, running through a long list of McDonald’s crimes against humanity: low employee wages, slaughterhouses, economic imperialism, the infamous pink sludge.
“I’m not having meat,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or to herself.
“Okay,” I say.
We step out into the parking lot, and Harlow pushes the glass doors open with a newfound resolve. When she gets to the counter, she orders two large fries and sodas. They hand us the tray of food, and Harlow dips her head down to inhale the smell. I don’t even recognize her anymore.
“Um, Harlow?” I try as we head to the nearest booth.
“Mmm-hmm?” She takes another whiff of french fries.
“Since when do you eat this stuff?”
“It’s poison, I know. Full of preservatives and high fructose corn syrup and God knows what else.”
With that said, she folds an entire large fry into her mouth and chomps down on it, closing her eyes for a brief moment.
“So why—” I start to ask, and she says simply, “I just had to have fried food today.”
I nod. “Understandable. I feel that way pretty much every day.”
Harlow sighs, and we eat quietly for a moment. I feel like Wendy, trying to be okay with the silence and waiting for Harlow to fill it.
It works. She takes a gulp of soda and says, “I guess you heard your dad and me arguing before.”
“A little,” I lie.
“Enough to know what we were fighting about?”
Oh God, she’s going to make me say it, isn’t she?
“Sex,” I say to my fries.
“Kind of,” Harlow replies. “I mean, yes, your dad was definitely upset that I got involved in your sex life. But it was more than that. The two of us are very, very stubborn people.”
She leans back against the vinyl booth. “Maybe I was wrong to interfere. But here’s the thing, Analee . . . I do care about you.”
I keep filling my mouth up with more and more fries. If I don’t eat, I’ll cry. I’m not sure why this is the case, but I can feel the tears burning behind my eyes.
“I think your dad is scared,” Harlow continues. “He wants to do right by your mom. And sometimes that fear can make him . . .”
“A tight-ass?” I supply.
She laughs. “Your words, not mine. And look, I didn’t know your mom. Your dad doesn’t like to talk about her much, because it hurts him when he does. But I can’t help thinking that she would want you to have someone to talk to about all this stuff.”
The fucked up thing is that, as different as Mom was from Harlow, I could see them getting along. I think Mom would get a kick out of Harlow’s ridiculous recipes. Mom was always down to try anything. There’s no way she’d permanently give up her tostones and pastelitos, but she might try going raw for, like . . . a day. She would possibly consider adding acai bowls to her morning routine. Mom had the unique talent of being traditional and embracing the unusual all at once.
“I think my mom would have liked you,” I tell Harlow. I’m not sure what makes me say it. Maybe it’s that I’ve never seen Harlow look so unsure.
“Really?” she asks. She smiles.
“Yeah,” I reply. “This version of you, I mean. The Harlow that eats french fries once in a while.”
“Only once in a while,” she stresses, pointing a fry at me.
“Are you and my dad going to be okay?” I ask her. I’m not sure what answer I’m looking for.
Harlow touches the soda straw to her lips, smiling slightly. “Yes. We’ll be fine. I think we’ve both been . . . not ourselves lately.”
“I’m sorry my grandparents have been so . . .” I trail off, but Harlow seems to understand my meaning. She nods.
“We’re all a little . . . you know. I can be just as stubborn as they are. Maybe more so.”
Analee, in Real Life Page 21