SLAY

by Brittney Morris

  “Fine,” I say.

  Her whole face lights up and she talks a million words a minute giddily, squealing Chinese to the other lady, who has shrunk away halfway down the hall with embarrassment. But once she gets the message, her smile returns, and she comes back to sandwich me between the two of them in the selfie the smaller woman takes. I’m sure I look exhausted in the picture. My tie is loose, my shirt is partially unbuttoned, and my eyes are probably dull after a full day of factory tours, contract negotiations, and Chinese beer. I’m too tired to be doing this.

  The shorter woman thanks me profusely before the taller woman shoos her down the hall and they move on to their next potential customer.

  When I’m alone in my room again, I lie down on the bed feeling even more exhausted than I did just five minutes ago. At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because when I blink my eyes open again, the lights have automatically shut off from lack of movement in the room, and my neck feels stiff. My thoughts are racing. I think of Sylvie, of how much I miss being in the arms of someone who understands me, and I start texting Réveillé? That’s “Are you awake?” in French. Then I realize it’s five in the morning here, which means it’s eleven at night in Paris and she’s already put on her blue silk nightie and gone to sleep alone.

  I love her in that nightie.

  I cover my face with my hands and sink into my thoughts. This room is dead silent. My flight doesn’t leave until noon, so I’ve got seven hours to kill before then. Who knows if I’ll be able to get back to sleep later in the morning, but for now, to keep from missing her, or texting her and waking her up, I have to keep busy.

  I look to my left, at my silver laptop sitting on the desk. I wonder if Emerald has fixed that rhino glitch yet so I can snag one and try riding it around. I wonder if my tribemate TandemTen has found that hornbill horn he went off in the wilderness to find days ago. I wonder if Zama ever found that blue crystal I asked for in exchange for all the raffia and bamboo we’ve got stored up for her in the Rain Forest.

  I wonder if there’s a new date for the Desert Semifinals yet.

  I log in as my character, Spade, and see that screen welcoming me into a world where I can let go of the responsibilities and the stress of being Maurice Belrose and just be Spade. On trips two days or shorter, I pack lightly. But any longer than that, and I’m lost without my headset, gloves, and socks.

  There’s a character online this morning named KaepWuzRobbed7 who’s already sending me a duel request, but they’ve got five hundred thousand SLAY coins, a complete set of bone armor, and nine hundred fifty-seven SLAY cards. This guy has stats almost as high as mine, and I’m not looking for a challenge right now. I want a good old-fashioned duel, just for fun.

  I spot a character in the Desert who I haven’t seen before. Username is LitMus, which immediately makes me grin. Six cards, steel armor, and nine duels won out of sixty-six.

  I’ll take it.

  11. SKIN IN THE GAME

  * * *

  I don’t know how Mom manages to come up with new pancake flavors every single Sunday morning. Today’s are pear and goat cheese with crispy bacon strips on the side. Steph scarfs hers down, but I pick at mine.

  “Excited for school tomorrow, you two?” asks Dad as he stuffs another forkful of pear-and-goat-cheese-covered pancakes into his mouth. “Steph, ready for your math test?”

  Steph nods and takes a bite of bacon. “It’s geometry. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Shit. My polynomials test is tomorrow too. I haven’t studied. Why hasn’t Harper reminded me to study with her in the last day and a half ? Better question: Why haven’t I reached out to Harper? Why haven’t I made sure she’s prepared? I’ve been so preoccupied with Dred, and Cicada, and Malcolm, and Jamal, that I’ve neglected my best friend. That stops today.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I announce.

  I sit on the edge of the bathtub and text her.

  Me: Hey.

  Harper: OMG I’m so glad you’re okay. I wanted to say I’m sorry for the other day. I’m so, so sorry for what Wyatt said to you. He’s so butthurt about that stupid video game.

  I ignore the pain of hearing my best friend call my life’s work stupid and begin typing.

  Me: It’s okay. I’m sorry I haven’t been around to help you study for the polynomials test. Are you going to be okay tomorrow?

  Harper: Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m more worried about you. You’ve been ignoring my texts since Friday, and I don’t blame you after what Wyatt said. But Malcolm says you won’t talk to him either. Even he’s getting concerned.

  Me: I’m okay.

  Harper: I know you’re NOT okay, but I won’t ask you to tell me about it.

  I’m surprised at how cool she’s being about my absence, about my negligence. I take a deep breath and figure out a way to continue this conversation without sounding unnatural or stiff.

  Me: How have you been? What’s been up?

  Harper: Been fine. All this talk about video games in the news made me dig up my old Legacy of Planets log-in. Wanna come over tonight and play a little? I’ll pay you for a tutoring session and everything. Just want to hang out.

  Guilt grips me. Harper is so worried about me that she’s willing to pay me sixty dollars just to hang out. In all this whirlwind around SLAY, I’ve left Harper hanging for so long that somehow I’ve given the impression that I’ll be more inclined to spend time with her if she pays me first. What kind of friend have I become? My immediate inclination is to say yes and tell her to forget the money. But as fun and nostalgic as a night of playing video games with Harper sounds, casually racist characters included or not, I don’t know if I can bear to look at Wyatt right now, or deal with his interview questions.

  Before I can answer, Harper texts me again.

  Harper: Wyatt is at baseball practice tonight. He won’t be around to bother us. No interrogations, no interview shit. Just you, me, Sheila, Zelda, and my homemade white cheddar jalapeño popcorn. I’ll even bake you a batch of peanut butter cookies. Pleeeeease? I just want to make sure you’re okay.

  I have to laugh. I can’t believe she remembers our characters’ names from so many years ago.

  Me: I promise I’m fine. And you don’t have to bribe me with cookies . I’ll be over around 8.

  • • •

  Harper’s house is at the top of a hill in Medina at the end of Lake Washington Boulevard, right on the edge of Lake Washington. I would’ve thought Steph would jump at the chance to drive me over here—at the chance to drive anybody anywhere—but she actually passed up a chance to hang at Harper’s house because she was feeling sick. Probably from eating too many goat-cheese-and-pear pancakes too fast, or too much pizza last night. So here I am, sitting alone in the driver’s seat of my parents’ SUV, looking ridiculously out of place parked in the middle of this wraparound driveway that’s the size of my backyard. I take a long, deep breath and lean my head against the headrest, listening to the light sprinkle of rain on my windshield. Being over here is the least I can do for Harper, but my mind is far away. Every time I close my eyes, I see Jamal’s face, staring at me across that Ping-Pong table. I found out earlier, after torturing myself some more on Google, that not only was he set to graduate a year early with a scholarship to Sutton University, but he was about to be named valedictorian, and he wanted to study engineering, with his hopes set on becoming an aerospace engineer. With a 5.0 GPA, he might have been able to.

  I force the energy into my arms to swing open the car door before I start tearing up.

  “Hey!” hollers Harper from across the driveway. I pull my backpack over my shoulder, slide my hood over my hair, and shut the door.

  “Hey, girl,” I say back. As I hurry across the spotless concrete, which looks like it’s been recently pressure-washed, I catch the scent of something sweet and buttery.

  “You didn’t actually make me peanut butter cookies, did you?” I grin.

  “Obviously,” she says. “Well, Mari
e Callender made them, but I baked ’em, so it counts.”

  We step through the wooden double doors, out of the cool night air and into the climate-controlled foyer with hardwood floors and thirty-foot-high ceilings, and suddenly I’m relieved to be here again. Just Harper and me, with peanut butter cookies and white cheddar jalapeño popcorn, and maybe some Legacy if I can get myself to relax first. Then I remember something that might just get me to loosen up, something their personal chef used to keep in the back of the fridge just for us.

  “Does Logan still keep those raspberry sodas at the back of the fridge?”

  “Of course!”

  Once, years ago, we thought it would be a good idea to mix those sodas with some tequila that had been left out after a party. That was the night I learned I’d make a terrible bartender. My pouring was so heavy-handed that Harper and I both fell asleep dizzy as hell in the middle of her living room floor, talking nonsense that I couldn’t remember the next morning. Her parents didn’t even care. They said Wyatt’s bullhorn-assisted wake-up call for us was punishment enough.

  I’m so glad he’s not here. Harper hands me a raspberry soda and heads back into the kitchen. The scents of spicy jalapeños and sweet-and-salty peanut butter cookies are almost too much to handle. I walk to the window and plop down into the chaise in the living room, which has been my favorite chair in the house since we were kids. I look out the huge bay window, where I can see the deep black water of Lake Washington, and the tiny headlights of cars crossing 520 like little marching ants, miles farther down the lake. Mount Rainier has faded behind the evening fog and clouds, but if we still had daylight, I’d be able to see the snowy peaks. In the summer, the view from this window looks like something out of a postcard. This chaise is so soft and fluffy even though it looks stiff, like one of those fancy ones out of an Ethan Allen catalog, and with how long it’s held up in this house with two kids who have grown up into teenagers with it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it cost as much as my parents’ SUV. In any case, I know it’s too expensive for me to go leaning my shea-buttered curls against it. If I leave oil stains on this chaise, I’d never forgive myself.

  “Want one?” asks Harper. I look back in her direction just as I hear the oven door shut, and she pops up from the other side of the huge kitchen island with a baking sheet full of big, round golden-brown disks of ecstasy, and I jump up and run to the kitchen.

  The cookies and jalapeño popcorn smell delicious, and I wonder why in the world I’ve waited so long before coming back over here.

  “Wanna eat in the study?” asks Harper around a mouthful of popcorn. Before I can reply, she’s got the giant stainless-steel bowl in her arms and is stepping down into the living room and around the corner through a pair of glass french doors.

  I’ve always known Wyatt and Harper’s parents are filthy rich—they both work at Gutenberg Enterprises, the same company where my dad works, except my dad gets paid to analyze things, and her parents must get paid to decide what’s worth analyzing. But we never let that come between us. Harper has a trust fund. I have scholarship applications. Harper has silver Yeezys. I have white Keds. But she never talks about money, she doesn’t make me feel weird while we’re out for pizza by offering to foot the whole bill, and we both take our shoes off at the front door and put them on the same shelf.

  But as we sink down into the antique brown leather chairs in the study next to the pool table, which smells like cigar smoke even though nobody in the household smokes, I sink my teeth into a still-warm peanut butter cookie and listen to Harper bring up our conversation from earlier.

  “Hey,” she says, leaning over and resting her hand on my knee and looking me in the eyes, “I’m sorry for what Wyatt said to you earlier. I’m sorry for even asking that question about my hair. It was ignorant. I knew it would make you and Steph uncomfortable if I even posed the question, so I should’ve kept it to myself. Or fucking googled it, for God’s sake.”

  I have to smile. As much as I know Harper will never fully understand what SLAY means to me, she does try to understand me. Things were different when we were little. We actually met at Seafair, the biggest annual festival in all of Puget Sound, at the funnel-cake food truck. I used my allowance money to buy her the first funnel cake she ever had, and it was best friendship at first sight. We’ve lasted through so many different wedges that could’ve easily forced us apart—her parents have always gone to church and Wednesday night prayer. I wouldn’t suspect my parents have been inside a church since their wedding day. She was sent off to Sweden for a summer for bassoon camp—which I didn’t even know was a thing—while I spent middle school summers cutting the neighbors’ blackberry bushes for extra cash. She went to private school. I went to Belmont. But by the time we both ended up at Jefferson together, we’d somehow managed to stay close enough to greet each other with Hey, girl, heyyy. Close enough to invite each other over for raspberry sodas and peanut butter cookies.

  “Did you end up googling it?” I grin, taking another bite of cookie.

  “Yeah, and I found just as many different answers as you told me there would be,” she says, then tosses a few more jalapeño kernels into her mouth and pulls her legs up underneath her in the chair. She looks extra comfy in her pink pajama bottoms and gray Hello Kitty tank top, and I’m glad I wore my sweats and a loose T-shirt, otherwise I’d be asking to borrow some of her pj’s. That’s how you know you have a best friend on your hands. Regular friends invite you over and ask if you’d like water or coffee or something. Best friends offer you their favorite raspberry soda and their comfiest clean pajamas. Best friends can meet up after not speaking for a while, as if nothing happened.

  But are we really best friends if I can’t tell her my biggest secret? Are we really best friends if she doesn’t get my experiences, or at least believe me when I tell her about them?

  “I don’t think I’ll get dreads,” she says finally, passing me the bowl of popcorn. I take it gratefully and pick up a handful of kernels. I can’t lie. I’m shocked. Harper doesn’t just “change her mind” for any old reason.

  “Really?” I ask. “Why?”

  She stares at the floor for a long moment, and for a while, I think she’ll leave the question unanswered. But then she shrugs.

  “I don’t know how to explain, really,” she says. “I don’t want it to make you . . . uncomfortable.”

  Something about the way she says the word “uncomfortable” hurts. Her ice-blue eyes are fixed on the floor, and she shakes her head absentmindedly. She looks lost.

  I set the bowl of popcorn on the floor and hold my hand out to her. She forces a smile and takes my hand, when I realize all our fingers are covered in butter.

  “Oh God, ew,” I say, as we both wipe our fingers on our sweats. “What a way to kill a moment.” She busts out laughing, and I try to finish my thought through a fit of giggles.

  “I know I’ve been distant lately,” I say. “And I know you want to avoid questions that make me feel uncomfortable, but you can still talk to me about anything. I’m still your friend. It’s just, lately all we talk about is politics and cultural appropriation. That’s not all I ever want to talk about, Harper. Can I be your Black friend and just your friend?”

  Harper runs her fingers through her short blond hair and shoves her bangs to one side.

  “All right,” she says. “I get it. I really do. And as for the dreadlocks thing, I don’t know if they’re technically appropriating a culture, and neither does Google, but if I do get them, a significant number of Black people are going to be insulted. Like, a significant portion. It’s not worth a hairstyle. It’s just not worth it.”

  Well, that’s . . . not exactly the reasoning I would’ve gone through to get to that conclusion. You can’t go around living your life doing only what won’t offend people. But I can’t say I’m not relieved to hear that we won’t have to talk about dreads for a long while.

  “You have to decide this for yourself, Harper. I can’t just gi
ve you an answer, or tell you you’ve come to the right answer. Just like Google doesn’t know, neither do I.”

  “I know,” she says. “And I realize it was unfair of me to expect you to know. You shouldn’t have to answer for all Black people, as if you all have the same opinion about it.”

  She’s right. She’s finally got it. I smile at her, reach over, and squeeze her hand.

  “Thanks, Harper. I really appreciate that.”

  “Just do me a favor,” she says. “Let me know if I ever do that again. You don’t even need to be nice about it. Just ‘Harper, I’m not answering that shit’ will work.”

  I laugh so hard, I feel a shell of a kernel of popcorn fly up and stick to the roof of my mouth so far back that I’m relieved it didn’t get lodged in my nose.

  I’m thankful, relieved, and glad I came over, all at the same time. The energy in the room has changed. It feels like Harper has changed. Maybe now we can have some hope of keeping our friendship alive after I move to Atlanta.

  The front door slams shut. The alarm system announces overhead “Welcome home,” indicating that someone with a passcode is here.

  “Dad?” asks Harper. When there’s no reply except the sound of a heavy bag being slammed down on the kitchen counter, Harper looks at me in confusion, as if I’m supposed to know what’s going on.

  “Wyatt?” she hollers.

  “Yeah?” calls his unmistakably squeaky voice from the other room. Then, just as I’m halfway through reasoning out a plan of escape, his freckly face appears in the doorway to the study, his hair dark with rainwater and stuck to his forehead. His face is flushed red, and his mouth is curved into a grin.

  “Hey, Kiers!” he exclaims, way too happy to see me.