Page 65 of Level Up
“Yeah. Of course.”
“And maybe I’ll finally meet your imaginary roommates,” I joke, and he looks at our chat window, smirking. “Malcolm is real—ish—but the others… What were their names? Elliot and… Nick?”
“Nathan,” he says. “And they are not imaginary, unfortunately, or I would have my own room.”
“I thought you just loved bunk beds.”
“Well, there is that.” He laughs dryly and turns his attention back to the game. “Anyway, they might be around, yeah. They probably think you’re imaginary.”
“They know about me?” I ask, feeling weirdly self-conscious all of a sudden.
“Malcolm told them that you’re the reason I’m constantly on my computer instead of, like, being a person,” he says casually.
“I assumed you were always on your computer anyway.”
He looks a bit embarrassed by this. “Maybe not…quite so much,” he says, and then shrugs. “But it’s not a big deal.”
“Do they think I’m just like your‘girlfriend in Canada,’” I say with air quotes, smirking at him.
“That doesn’t work if we’re actuallyinCanada,” he laughs. “But Malcolm seems to think you’re my girlfriend. He is not subtle.”
I feel my face heat up but try to keep an indifferent smile on my face. The way he says it so casually, like it’s not a horrifying idea, sparks a flicker of hope in my chest that I try to tamp down. “No, he’s not.”
“Don’t worry,” he adds, looking at his other screen again—at me. “I know that’s not what this is.”
“Okay…” The flicker of hope turns into a knot of dread in my chest, constricting me. Any remaining chance ofsomethinghas been shattered.
“You’ve said on your streams that you’re ace, and I totally get that, but he’s acting like it’s a foreign concept to him, even though one of his sisters is aro,” he says with a small laugh.
“I—How did you know that I said that?” I ask, unable to keep the shock off my face.
He frowns a little, thinking. “I think you mentioned it a couple of years ago. Or—Maybe it was earlier?” He sticks his tongue between his teeth as he mentally calculates something. “Yeah, maybe it was when you were still streamingAnimal Crossingand stuff.”
I take a minute to process this. It doesn’t make sense. “That wasfour yearsago,” I finally say, staring incredulously. “You watched my streams back then?”
He smiles, though he still seems a bit embarrassed. “Yeah, I’d put them on when I was working on my island.” He laughs again. “I stole your idea to put a T-rex skeleton in the middle of a hedge maze.”
“That’s… I didn’t even know your channel back then.”
“I hadn’t started it,” he says with a shrug. “I kind of…got the courage to start my channel after watching yours for, like, a year. You made it seem pretty chill.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I say, though I sound angry without meaning to.
He looks taken aback by my tone as well. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that would bother you?—”
“I’m not—I’m fine,” I insist. “Just, you apparently knew all sorts of things about me before we even met, and I didn’t even know what your face looked like!”
“It was all stuff you sharedpublicly, Audrey,” he says defensively. “Anyone can know this about you.”
I still didn’t expect people to remember the stuff I saidyearsago, especially since a lot of those early streams weren’t even saved to my archives. And for Damien to remember—to have known this whole time…
“Sorry, I know, it’s just—” I take a steadying breath. “It’s surprising that you’d remember that sort of thing.”
“I remember a lot of things,” he says, his expression flattening. Like I’m the one who’s botheringhimnow.
“Okay, then,” I say bitterly. I hate that I’m being so weird about this, but I don’t even know how I feel. “At least you’recoolwith it.”
He frowns at me in disbelief. “Are youmadat me right now?”
