Page 26 of How We Play the Game
I watch Ivan, wide-eyed, until the elevator doors finally close. It’s done. He has all the bottles. I’m safe, my room is clear, and he promised he’d recycle. It takes a few moments for me to remember I have feet and another few to clear myhead enough to pay attention to the rest of the universe. Where someone is already pushing their phone toward my face.
“Zora! Hey, Zora! This is you, right?”
Of course it’s Chaz. I flinch away from his screen, though not fast enough to avoid glimpsing whatever he’s trying to show me. I expect some bit of nonsense to match with the nonsense people have been spouting since Ivan took the breath from me (bottle! I meant bottle). I don’t glimpse nonsense, though. I glimpse myself.
Here is a video of two people standing together at the end of a red carpet. One is a boy in a shearling leather jacket, and the other is a girl in a long, black puffer coat. His arm is around her, but she yanks herself away and stares back at him in disgust. Okay, glimpse over. No need to watch any more of that. I know that story, and it sucks, and now I have to own up to the fact that Ivan Hunt publicly identified me as his groupie at Wizzcon.
“That’s me, yeah,” I admit. No use denying it, even though the cringe factor of reliving this moment makes me want to knit myself into a cocoon starting at my feet and all the way up past my head.
“For sure!” Chaz exclaims. “Yo, guys, I was right! I told you she looked familiar.” He bends down to show his phone to the students sitting on the floor. A few of them shuffle forward on their knees to get a better look at the video, which loops back to the beginning.
I try not to watch it again, but it’s hard not to. I try to think of the girl in the video as someone separate from me, a fictional character who happens to share my face, and then …I see it. This time, instead of seeing my own seething embarrassment and wanting to cringe my neck flat, I see a different story entirely.
I see the boy, handsome and grinning like he’s looked forward to this moment all week. I see the girl, flustered with surprise that they’ve run into each other outside. I watch them watch each other and imagine the bantering chemistry that bubbles up between them when shepretendsto be embarrassed. When she pulls away from him, it’s coy, not rude. The boy is in on the joke when he gently pulls her back. With that simple gesture, I see through the reality of that moment.
In real life I remember feeling humiliated, like I was nothing compared to the boy everyone was happy to see. But that was onlymystory. From Ivan’s perspective, and from anyone else’s, that blushing embarrassment could mean anything. It could be a love story. And it is, according to the video description:
Sorry ladies! Looks like VANE made his Wizzcon return with a new gf on his arm! Does anyone recognize his mystery girl? DM us, anon or not!
The group on the floor scrambles to their feet to get a better look at me. I’ve been stared at a lot today, but this is the first time I feel like they’re doing it out of curiosity and not contempt.
“That’swhy he was waiting for her to arrive today,” Chaz explains, right as Kavi walks over to see what the fuss is about.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” the girl I remember looking at Ivan in the lounge earlier apologizes. “When you told me toback off on Ivan I didn’t know it was because he was taken. My bad, totally my bad.”
“Were you guys seriously not going to tell anyone?”
“Wait, did he just come out of your room?”
“It’s so cute how he switched seats so you can sit together.”
“What’s your name again? And wait, okay, back up; Ineedto know how long you’ve been together because I had this theory …”
I don’t have a response for whatever the hell is happening right now, but I have to get a handle on it before it becomes another interpretation of me that I can’t control. I’m so close to being stuck again, written by another hand, or many, many hands. When the only writer who should matter is me.
“I’m Zora,” I begin. And why not sell it with a smile? “And yeah, you got me. I’m Ivan Hunt’s girlfriend.”
CHAPTER NINE
I WISH I could predict which version of myself will emerge in times of crisis. There’s the Zora from this afternoon, who publicly melted down under the pressure of, and let me check my notes here, sayinghelloto a camera one time. Then there’s the Zora who took less than forty-five minutes to pull together a war council at the twenty-four-hour diner I found a few blocks down from the dorm. The first Zora? Not that helpful, but it’s not like I bring her out on purpose. The second? She’s the part of me that stays prepared for the worst because she wakes up every day expecting it to happen. I believe they call this anxiety.
This is not to say that I expected to end the first day of academy orientation with a monster-sized Ivan Lie that I can’t take back. It is to say that the uncomfortable flutters I felt in my stomach the moment I laid eyes on Ivan this afternoon were definitely onto something. Second Zora wouldn’t have helped him with those bottles. She would have kicked him out of her room and told him to get lost, margarita mix and all.But she didn’t show up to work on time, and now I’m here, dealing with First Zora’s stupid little problems.
“You told them you werewhat?” Ivan’s voice cracks at the peak of his disbelief. “What is wrong with you?” Make that First Zora’s stupid big problems. Problem, really. Singular.
“What’s wrong with me?” I snap back. “It’s not like you left me with a ton of options!”
“Options for what? You didn’t have to do anything.”
“You’re right,” I sarcastically agree with an eye roll of planetary proportions, “I should have let youAlienface-hug me into a wall and breathe into my mouth in front of half the class with no explanation whatsoever.”
“I only did it because your butterfingers couldn’t hold on to an empty bottle.”
“These butterfingers shot the horse out from under your butt in the match today, if I remember correctly.”
“It was a unicorn, and he was important to me,” Ivan huffs. “Felt likeGhost of Tsushimaall over again.”
“Don’t you dare bring Nobu into this.” I hate that I’m a little impressed that Ivan got that far inGhost. It’s one of my favorite single-player games, and I’d usually give someone major cool points for admitting they played, but not this time. And as always, big RIP to Nobu the horse. “Donotgo there.”
