Page 25 of Don't Hate the Player
“It’s really horrible and awesome,” I reply, because it is. I wasn’t nuts about Pharaoh when I first started playing him, but after a few months that little necro-rogue has grown on me. “And against a ghost character, it’s likepingand their spectral armor totally collapses.”
“They must have thought you wouldn’t come out with Pharaoh if they played Lucafont. Luca’s only useful if—”
“—if you’re playing Envy, which is hilarious because—”
“They nerfed her in the new meta.”
“Exactly! Ugh, I’d never play Envy now. Her support is garbage.”
Jake goes quiet for a moment. I sneak a look away from the road and see him staring sadly out the window.
“Jake?”
“I play Envy,” he says softly with a hint of hurt in his voice.
“Oh, buddy, I’m sorry.” Now I feel awful. I really didn’t mean to tease him; I just got excited for a second! I didn’t realize how easy it would be to get carried away joking aboutGLObecause I never talk to anyone about it. Every meme, in-joke, and fandom quirk exists solely online for me, so actually speaking about it face-to-face is something I only started to do this afternoon with Fury and now with Jake, who I’ve just insulted. Again. “Envy’s great for a mech build, I guess? Is she your main? Wait, are you really an Envy main?”
On cue, Jake turns back toward me with a huge grin. Once he sees the confused look on my face, the grin turns into a very un-Jake-like giggle.
“I’m messing with you, Em. Envy sucks! Literally don’t trust an Envy main; they’re all monsters.”
Oh my god, no one’s called me Em since I was little. The last time I talked to Jake, it was probably still my nickname. Once I started playing field hockey, the girls on my team started calling me “Lia,” which I sort of hate, but it was better than hearing them mess up the vowels and call me “Amelia” forever. Aw, I miss being called Em. It’s sweet that he remembered. I make another mental note, underneath the first one:Subject is still nice (probably). Adjust trust expectations accordingly.
“I deserved that for the healer thing. And Envy mains really are the worst. Who’s your main healer? Castor?”
“Penelope mains Castor. I play Pythia.”
I snort. Pythia is a good healer, but she’s also the subject of more than one downright filthy piece ofGLOfanart. Something about a half-snake, half-woman priestess with a big staff and a forked tongue drives the hornier segment of the gaming population absolutely bonkers, and every new skin Wizzard releases for her only fuels their fire. You ever see a scaly, murderous Medusa with triple-D boobs dressed up in a rubber Mrs. Claus dress? Check out last year’sGLO’s holiday skin pack. Merry Chrissstmasss.
“What?” Jake sees straight through my snorting. “Pythia has good defense, and her Prophesy attack negates future damage! Why are you laughing?”
“Because you have to spend seven hours a day looking at a thotty lizard!”
“Wellyouspend all your time looking at what would happen if the Mummy had a baby with Kylo Ren.”
Oof. He’s spot on about Pharaoh; he’s canonically four thousand years old, kind of a space lich, and loves wearing capes. Before I can shoot back at Jake’s accurate but not entirely kind comment about my dangerous son, Jake speaks up again.
“How do you even find the time to play at Fury’s level and still, like, be you? I don’t do anything else besidesGLO, my grades are garbage, and I don’t—no, can’t—play a sport. Do you have a twin; are there two of you?” Jake leans across the car and jokingly examines my face while I’m trying to keep my eyes on the road. “Are you the good twin or the evil twin?”
Great question. I’d have a much easier time if there were two of me. We could do that thing from that movie about the magicians and be two people living the same life. She could take the math SAT, and I’d take the reading section; she’d dominate field hockey while I climb theGLOleaderboards. Imagining thatIllusionistlifestyle feels almost too good, so I yank myself away from the fantasy and shift my eyes over to Jake, who is still squinting at me like he’s trying to find the telltale birthmark that proves I’m not actually Emilia.
“It’s just me. I don’t sleep a lot, I guess. Kinda sucks, actually.” Shouldn’t have said that. Is it too late to backtrack?
Jake shifts back into his seat now that I’ve obviously bummed myself out.
“So why do you do it?”
Great question number two. Why do I do this? I take a minute to change lanes so I can get to the exit that leads toward Hillford, but this time the silence isn’t awkward. After I get in the right lane, I peek over at Jake again, and he’s calmly looking out the windshield, listening to me say nothing. It’s the first time in a while that any conversational silence I’ve had hasn’t been awkward. Everyone always expects me to have a quick answer to everything, and he’s just waiting to pay attention to whatever I say next, whenever it comes.Space, I think.This is what it’s like when someone gives me space.
“I think . . . ,” I begin, but don’t know how to end the sentence. “What if I told you thatGLOis the only thing I’m good at?”
“I’d say . . .lying.”
“Okay,Sagacat, fine. I’m good at a lot of things. What if I told youGLOis the only thing I’m good at that I actually like? And everything else is just doing what everyone expects me to do. Like, I’m proud of my grades and field hockey; I know I’m on a great, shiny path or whatever, but none of it feels like I do it for me.”
“Oh,” Jake says, nodding, “is it because you picked this? Like even if it wasn’t exactlyGLO, you’d like whatever it was that you picked because you got to choose it for yourself.”
Wait, yeah. Exactly that. Out of everything in my life these days,GLOis the one thing I do that no one else told me to do. I don’t pick my classes, my extracurriculars, my schedule, and I definitely didn’t pick Connor. I didn’t even realize that was why I did this, and he clocked me in seconds. Mental note number three:Subject might be a genius. Trust or distrust, he’s on his own thing.
