Page 45 of Control

“No!” I shot back to her. “No! He really wants to know? Then he gets to know because I owe him that, right?” I turned back to Ronnie. “Right, Ronnie? Apparently I owe this to you for some fucking reason!” I clicked on some of my older pictures and brought them up so they were displayed much more clearly for everyone to see. “There Ronnie. See this picture? That’s me when I was 13. I was outside and my mom wanted to get a picture of me and my friends and this is what she got. See how small I am? You see that? Yeah! I’m short! And I haven’t grown much since then.”

I moved on to the next photo as more people piled into the room, space quickly becoming a issue. Mustafa noticed the mounting problem and cut off new entries. The entire crowd stood silent as I had my very public and possibly psychotic break from reality right there in the middle of the dance floor.

“And here’s me when I was 16,” I said, still facing the browser window but very much speaking to Ronnie. “I’m in my tennis outfit. You can see my racket there on the bench behind me.” I turned back to Ronnie again. “I played all 4 years in high school, Ronnie! Did you wanna know that because now you do! And I was good! I was small, but I ran my ass off! This is the kind of stuff you wanted to see, right?” I clicked on yet another photo and several more after that. “And here’s me in my senior portrait! I got my hair done up all nice and pretty. Worked hard on my makeup!” I looked back at the screen and then back at Ronnie. “You notice something Ronnie? I know you do! Look at my face! The girl you see in that picture? That’s me! This is how I look! I look the same here as I do in real life.”

I pointed my finger at my face, making sure Ronnie knew I had never lied about how I looked. At this point, he’d closed his mouth and was alternating between looking at the browser window and looking at me.

“I know!” I said, turning back to the screen again. “You. Want. More. Well, let’s keep going! How about…my adult years!” I selected another image of me and several other women from the time I spent dancing at a local club in my home town in Texas. “See me there? Yeah, that’s me when I was 21. I was a dancer.” I glared back at Ronnie. “Yep! A real life fucking stripper! How is that for you? Is that good enough for you? Are you getting all that sweet fucking info on me that you wanted? Am I still bullshit to you and your friends?” I brought up the next photo. “And here’s me about a year later when I stopped dancing and moved to Austin. See that guy with me? That’s my ex husband! I married him about 2 years after we took this picture. We’d just moved in together and life was supposed to be amazing, but you know life!”

Each word I let loose was dripping with disgust, anger, and sarcasm. I wanted Ronnie to know that he’d picked the wrong person to accuse of being disingenuous. I wanted to hit him with everything about my life at that point. I didn’t care so I moved right on to the next photo in my Facebook gallery.

“See this one here?” I said, pointing out my facial expression. “Look at me in this one, Ronnie. Look at my face. You see it? You see my eyes? Kind of sad, aren’t they. You wanna know why? Because this was taken a few weeks after my ex beat the shit out of me and raped me in my own fucking home!” I felt a tinge of pain as those words fell out of my mouth. “My own husband…stuck a fucking gun in my face and threatened to end my life! That…motherfucker forced me into the shower where he made me bathe in scalding hot water to wash of the stench of those ‘other men’ that I used to entertain when I was a dancer!”

I felt more tears rush to my eyes as I spoke. I could see more and more people around Ronnie begin to cover their mouths, their eyes widening as they realized what I had just admitted to in front of everyone. Only a select number of people in Aurora were aware of what had happened between me and my ex husband, Reyna and Cris being two of them. Even Giff and Mustafa had no clue as I didn’t like talking about it. In the times I’d spent in Aurora, I’d had a few breakdowns and thankfully either Reyna or Cris were there to support and look after me, and even listen to me when I would incoherently babble during crisis. I could not stop myself and I turned back around to face the screen again.

“Here’s more for you,” I said as the tears poured from my eyes. I could hear the faint sound of an old Deftones song as I spoke, but did what I could to block it out. “Here’s more pictures of me and my plain face without makeup. Here’s one of me and my brothers when I was little. Yeah, they’re much older than me. Here’s one of me and my mom. Another of me and my friend from my old job in Austin.”

In that moment, something went off in my head and I felt I had absolutely nothing else to lose.

“I’m sure you noticed,” I said as I turned again back to Ronnie, but this time his face was remorseful and covered in an almost shameful expression. “You’re thinking ‘where’s your dad?’ Well! I’m glad you noticed his absence. You know why? Because he walked out on me when I was only a few days old. That’s right. My good for nothing piece of shit father walked out on me, my mom, and my brothers just days after I was born!” My tone slightly changed from that of anger to mockingly playful. “I know what you’re gonna say, Ronnie! ‘No wonder you were a stripper! Daddy issues!’ Oh yes! Let’s make fun of the woman whose father once told her he wished she had died at birth! Yeah, let’s all do that! Let’s make fun of the person who never had a father and whose stepfather refused to accept her at all and accused her of being a thief! Let’s all do that because that’s what the cool kids do, right Ronnie?

“That’s what all the cool guys do! Mock other people’s pain! Make them feel like total dog shit all because of something completely out of their control! What do you say, Ronnie? Wanna do that some more?” I stopped for a moment and thought of at least one last thing I knew that bitter and angry Ronnie wanted. “I know. I know what else you really want from me! You…wanna know where I live! Of course you do! All of you do. All the trolls wanna know where that cunt Liliana Escarra lives, right? Right!”

I brought up another browser window and went to Google Maps. After finding the entry bar, I typed in my own home address and hit search. Within seconds, the complete and full address populated on the screen as well as a detailed map showing the exact location as well as the surround areas. I turned to the screen again.

“There you go everyone!” I said, my insanity hitting its’ peak. “That’s where I live! Right there in Allentown, Pennsylvania.” I zoomed in as far as I could go so everyone could see the street name and more. “That’s my building! That’s where I live on the 3rd floor.”

I turned back to Ronnie, an unhinged and maniacal smile covering my face as I wiped away more tears along with a smudging of mascara. I could have easily reset my makeup in my HUD, but I didn’t care how I looked in that moment.

“Oh!” I said, the mania still holding onto me. “And you probably wanna know what I do for a living, right? I…work for a company that develops products for other companies that they can then rebrand and sell as their own! Yeah, I help develop products that probably you and everyone else in here has bought before at some point. Isn’t that amazing!” I quickly stepped toward Ronnie which surprised him, my unhinged expression apparently startling him. “So amazing, isn’t it Ronnie! So…fucking amazing!”

I could feel the anger and rage building inside me as I looked him square in the eyes. In that moment, I wanted him to feel me burning a hole into his head with my stare and I wanted him to recoil in fear. With each step I could see him becoming more and more unsure of himself and a few of his troll friends abandoned him and moved to another part of the room. To me though, it was just me and Ronnie, and he found himself suddenly staring into the eyes of a woman that had nothing else to lose. And he was afraid. I wanted him to feel fear. I stepped so close to him that I could easily smell the stink of his breath on my face but I didn’t care. I moved my face beside his, moving as close to his ear as he would let me, my breathing erratic and shallow.

“Is this what you wanted?” I whispered to him, my voice still shaking. The mix of emotions inside me were so jumbled and chaotic that I had no idea which would choose to come forth in the moment. Unfortunately, that emotion, one which I had tried so hard to hold back, was despair. I raised my voice, allowing everyone to hear me. “This is what you wanted, right? You wanted to see me fall? To see me exposed so you could ridicule me and call me a liar?” I pulled away from Ronnie and took a few steps back, feeling the eyes of the crowd on me.

“Well?” I said, my voice barely holding on and my eyes so red and swollen I probably looked like a stoned raccoon. “Are you happy, Ronnie? All this…all of me being exposed for everyone…does this make you happy?” I could feel the lump in my throat rising. “Are you happy now? Are you, Ronnie?” My voice rose without warning. “Are you happy now? Are you happy?” I screamed as loud as I could. “Are you fucking happy!”

The room had become so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Even though I felt I couldn’t cry anymore, more tears found their way from my eyes and ran down my face like a river. I finally broke my gaze from Ronnie and looked down to the floor. I felt my hands rise up to my head and into my hair. Taking hold of it at my roots, I pulled on it as hard as I could while releasing a scream so loud I could feel it in my soul. My breathing was labored and I could feel the pressure mounting in my chest as I slowly walked away from Ronnie. I found myself back in the middle of the dance floor, the map opened to my exact location still up for everyone to see and the lone light in the room besides the browser hovering over that spot.

I could fell every set of eyes on me. I knew Reyna and Cris and everyone else were staring at me, letting me go through this as I knew I had to. Both of them held back others who had made a move toward me, shaking their heads at them so that I could deal with what I’d just done. They knew it was something I could only get through on my own and so they left me there, looking on with everyone else.

“I just,” I muttered still looking at the floor. I pulled my hands from my hair and let them drop to my sides, the sleeves of my jacket brushing up against my leggings. I struggled to find the words, the gravity of what I’d just done to myself finally hitting me. I slowly lifted my head and began to look over the crowd, catching the eyes of so many people that I’d interacted with - spoke to, taken pictures with, danced with, and shared funny stories with in the past few years I’d been in Aurora.

So many people were there and only then did I realize just how large the crowd had become. I looked back up to the browser and switched it back to my Facebook profile. I flipped through a few more of my photos and settled on my most recent one. It was a photo that a friend had taken of me in the real world a few months prior on a rare occasion when I’d been talked into going outdoors.

I was sitting on a bench in a park in the city where I lived. I was dressed in dark jeans and sneakers with a gray, loose fitting t-shirt that I’d covered up with a black zip up windbreaker. It was chilly and breezy that day and a sudden gust of wind had brushed back my long black hair from my face and sent it behind me. My expression was calm, my dark purple lips pressed together, and a faint but noticeable melancholy lived behind my hazel eyes.

I looked back down to everyone and scanned the room once more. All of them were staring at the picture I’d put up. Some of them stared for several seconds while others looked at it and then back down to me to see the resemblance. For every single one of them, in that moment, they knew that I had indeed been completely truthful with them and had used my real life appearance in the design of the avatar I used in game. With the exception of a single detail, my height, the way I looked in game was virtually identical to how I looked in the real world.

“So,” I said as I looked back down at the dance floor. “I lied about my height.” I looked back up to the crowd. “Here I’m 5’7” whereas in real life I’m right about 5 feet tall. I guess…I guess that’s the one place where I wanted to be different here. I’m pretty short so if anyone wants to hate me for wanting to be a little taller….” I looked down again and shook my head. I felt I had to say something, but was having a hard time figuring out what that should be. Everyone was staring at me. I had to say something. But what? I struggled to put together sentences in my head, so much so that I decided to do what I always did: speak from the heart.

“I came here to Aurora for the same reasons all of you did,” I said, looking back over the crowd. “Inside all of us is this…need to escape the real world and just be who we want to be. To be something…better. Something more. We all have something in ours lives, our real world lives, that is often too much to bear, too much to deal with. We come here to get away from that worry so we can be free, even if just for the night.” I wiped the tears from my eyes once again, not caring how I looked.

“When I first came here, I had told myself that I wanted to be more social again and to meet people from all over the world. Because of all the crap I went through in my life I’d slowly become closed off. I rarely leave my apartment and I don’t really speak with too many people anymore. I wanted to try to find a way to…find my old self. The person I used to be before all the bullshit became too much for me. What I quickly realized was that here there were people who were like me in a way. Many of you have the same problems I have. Something happened or is happening in your life and you just want to get back to who you were when things were better. I know a lot of you have…so much weighing on your hearts and you can’t find a way to unload it all. I know because I have spoken to so many of you.

“The greatest thing to happen to me when I first started was realizing just how much I could help other people who were going through something. I talked to one of you and then another and another and another and before I knew it, it was all I was doing with my time here. Every night I logged in, someone wanted to talk to me and I did my best to be there for them. Some of you in this very room have probably talked to me and unburdened your soul of what was holding you down and I hope beyond hope that I somehow helped you. It felt like it had become my purpose here. Like I was supposed to be here for all of you, to help you deal with what was causing you pain, and so many of us are in pain.

“So often people forget that behind each avatar you see here is a real living, breathing person back in the real world. Each and every one of us is fighting a battle no one else knows about. Yet, when some of us get behind an anonymous avatar, we’re so quick to judge others.” I turned to look over to Ronnie and a few of the trolls that were still standing near him. “So many…so quick to judge…when you have no idea what that person is going through or has gone through. None of us have any room to judge anyone else here.” I felt the need to go on and looked back over the crowd.

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