Page 73 of Don't Hate the Player
JHoops: I owe it to Em to try
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Emilia, Friday
I CAN’T TELLwhat time it is with the shades pulled down. It’s definitely daytime, but it could be morning, maybe midafter-noon. About an hour ago, I heard the doorbell ring. Probably a package for my dad’s business. Could also be whoever the school sent over with my homework for the week, which would mean it’s after 3 p.m. No phone, can’t check either way. I roll over to face away from the window and peek through one crusty eye at the rest of my bedroom.
The desk’s still a mess. By the time Mom brought me home on Monday, my dad had gleaned the full story from forum posts on the website where my info turned up. Just seeing him sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open when he was meant to be working in his office made my throat close up. He didn’t let me read the kinds of things people were saying, but my firsthand experience with the nasty side of theGLOcommunity tells me it was bad.
Dad wasn’t mean when he marched me upstairs and made me show him how I’d been playing, but he was angry when he saw that I’d cobbled my PC together from stuff he thought he’d thrown out—the processor from the first iteration of his company computer, the RAM sticks he bought online and swore he had more of; he’d given me the external hard drives to bring files back and forth from school, but the misappropriation of storage to house dozens of 20-gigabyte games ticked him off as much as the (sort of) stealing did. The only thing I didn’t rescue from his trash was the graphics card, which I bought with two years of birthday money.
When Dad saw what I’d built, I thought I detected a glimmer of pride, but it vanished when he yanked the power supply out of the wall (it wasn’t turned off all the way; he knew that would hurt) and took the tower before he left my room.
He left my monitor, though, which is now sitting on top of my desk with its cord attached to air. It’s worse than if Dad had taken everything downstairs. Now every time I roll over, I see Florence’s dead, matte face and think,Wow, that inanimate piece of equipment looks lonely as hell.
And yes, I am aware that I am projecting. I am also aware that most of my parents’ precautions, like taking away my computer, school laptop, and phone and not letting me out of the house, are meant to protect me, not punish me. I’ve never seen my mom look as scared as she did reading the comments over my dad’s shoulder. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her look scared before at all.
It’s weird to remember that my parents, whose hypothetical reactions to this exact situation have been my own Sword of Damocles, are also, like, people? I think that’s why I haven’t left my room except to eat for four days. The whiplash of seeing them worried, then angry, then concerned, then angry again, but mostly worried was too much for me to resolve when I had to sit there and look at them. At least I haven’t been up here crying. I just feel kind of dead. Turns out I’m a pharaoh after all, and my bedroom is my tomb.
Well, most tombs don’t have en suite bathrooms, but if mummies had to pee and shower sitting down for forty-five minutes until the water gets cold and they almost pass out from the steam buildup, I bet they would. The ancient Egyptians were practical like that. They even buried people with stuff that would make them happy in the next life. Books, chariots, slaves (not great), snacks. What else did they stick in those burial chambers? Treasure for sure. Games too. Wait, is being a mummy awesome? No wonder Pharaoh’s always grinning. That, and he doesn’t have lips.
Sweet Christmas, I’m losing it. This is the isolation and hopelessness wrapping their nasty little tendrils around my brain and squeezing until all the logic squirts out like juice. My parents told me they would risk my perfect attendance record to keep me out of school for as long as it took to get a handle on my online security, but the thrill of missing school only lasted for the first few hours of Tuesday. I need to talk to people, to get up and move around. I need to keep eating and stretch and go downstairs to face my parents and whatever punishment they have in mind for me. I need a lot of things. What I want is Jake.
Jake would understand how I’m feeling right now. I bet he blames himself for telling me to stay in the tournament like it wasn’t my choice to make. He would be self-effacing and would act surprised that I don’t think he’s garbage, and then he’d crack a joke aboutGLOor tell me a story about how something similar happened to Penelope one time, and before I knew it, I’d be smiling again. Jake would say something smart that gets to the bottom of everything I’m feeling right now without realizing he’s doing it. He’d tell me this was all going to be okay, even if it wasn’t. I’d believe it coming from him. Jake’s not an optimist by any definition of the word, but he thinks I can outlive anything. I wish I had his confidence in me. I wish he was here to help me fake it.
And then, I don’t know, maybe we’d make out a bunch. That would be cool too. I think I brushed my teeth this morning. Might have been yesterday. I run my tongue over my teeth, and they feel pebblier than usual. Def brushed them yesterday.
It’s gross to imagine kissing Jake again with day-old mouth stink, so I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and start thinking about walking over to the bathroom. My vision darkens as the blood rushes up to reach my head, then bubbles back in a grayish tide that ebbs to the beat of my lazy heart trying to remember what it takes to keep me upright. By the time I can see clearly, my mom is standing in the doorway to my bedroom.
“You’re up,” she says, sounding surprised. Then she sniffs the air. “It smells like a hamster cage in here.”
Like she would know. She never let me have a hamster. I had a bird when I was little, a feisty blue parakeet named Cloud, but when he died my parents decided pets were too distracting to keep around. Eyes on their prize.
“You wouldn’t happen to have one of those upside-down water bottles with the little metal ball, would you?” I ask. My mouth tastes like dumpster liquid. How did I not notice that when I was lying down?
“I’ll get you a Smartwater if you brush your teeth,” Mom negotiates. “While you’re brushing, we need to talk.”
See,thatis why I didn’t want to open with “we need to talk” when I broke up with Connor. It immediately puts people, like me, on edge, like I am right now. The jolt in my chest when I hear my mom say those words is the strongest emotional response I’ve had since I checked Fury Discord before my parents took my phone away and saw that Byunki had revoked my access. I haven’t been able to check my email to confirm that he kicked me off the team, but I knew then that Fury had dropped me. Byunki wouldn’t want to roll up to the championship with a player who brought death threats to his team. Whoever doxxed me wanted myGLOcareer over before it started.
Anyway, nothing matters! Mom can say whatever she wants. I slide off my bed, walk over to my bathroom, and leave the door open so I can still see and hear her. Turning the lights on would only blind me after spending so much time in the dark; between me developing a lamp allergy and Dad unplugging my gaming PC, the electricity bill at casa Romero is going to be one hell of a bargain this month.
“Your father and I,” Mom begins, then seems to give in to an impulse she’s been holding back all week and marches over to start making my bed. Come on, Mom, I was totally going to do that once I finished brushing my teeth. (I wasn’t.)
“Your father and I are disappointed. This game you’ve been playing, theLeague of Guardians. That’s time you could have spent studying or working on your college essays. I don’t know where you found out about this tournament, butlyingto us about campaigning with Penny on weekends? I called Mrs. and Mrs. Darwin, and they werenothappy about that either.”
Penny’s moms are literally theater producers, so I doubt their daughter acting well enough to fool my mom ticked them off that much, but by all means, Mama, keep talking. I’m still working on my molars.
“We’re appalled at the levels of your deception. Especially since the kinds of people who play this game are the same people who called abomb threatto school. They threatened to come to our house! Do you haveanyidea how hard your dad’s been working to scrub your name from the internet? The things these . . . ?boys said about you. I’ve been looking things up, trying to understand why. You had to know this was possible.”
“Dun’t blam me fur ther bullshut,” I seethe through a mouthful of toothpaste. My parents can punish me all they want, but I’m not going to let them blame the victim here.
“I don’t blame you. And watch your language,” Mom replies without missing a beat. I can see, from one angle in the bathroom mirror, her finish putting my bed back in order. She smooths her hands down the comforter like I’ve seen her do a thousand times, making sure every thread in the comforter obeys her touch, then sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed.
“We’ve done so much to give you a good life, Emilia,” she says. Are those brushing sounds echoing in my head or is my mom’s voice breaking?
“You’re so special. Even when you were a baby, we knew you were brilliant. I’d be at home with you all day and watch you crawl around, picking things up, trying to understand what you saw. It’s like you were filling in a little spreadsheet in your head. Your dad would come back from work and ask me what new things you did while he was gone, and I always told him you did everything. You taught yourself to read when I wasn’t even looking.”
Should have thought of that before you taught a two-year-old the phonetic alphabet, Mom. None of this is relevant. Just say your piece and go. But come back and bring me that Smartwater when you get a chance, please.
