Page 60 of How We Play the Game
You’d think drumming up those emotions for show would be easy, considering I actually do hate Ivan because he wronged me, abandoned me, and I need to convince him to come back for one final confrontation. It’s not easy—it’s life imitating art imitating life, spinning around and around until I can’t remember which of my feelings are real and which ones I’m generating for a faceless audience of thousands.
The makeup crew takes a few more minutes to dab highlighter on my nose and cheeks, reapply my lipstick, and blend the line of my makeup down toward my neck. Someone appears behind me to slide my jacket up my arms a little rougher than I would have liked. It’s a small comfort knowing that Brian agreed to let Trieu do my makeup for the battle instead of someone on his payroll who probably doesn’t have the right color of foundation. That I’ll at least have one person on my side before the biggest moment of my career—maybe even my life—so far.
What’snotcomforting is the realization that in seconds I’m going to be parading in front of the entire academy student body—including people who don’t exactly love me right now. Kavi. Cass. And who knows how many other people I’ve managed to piss off since I got here.
“Places, people!” a production assistant whispers forcefully into their headset, sending the backstage area into a flurry of activity. The makeup artists flocking me finally disperse to thewind, and the various lighting rigs are all shifted back onto their marks.
Brian takes his place at the center of the stage, straightening himself up and putting on the cheerful smile everyone knows him for. I really wish I’d noticed before now just how forced it all is—his positivity, his charm. Everything that makes him the most wholesome guy in the gaming world. What an awful joke. I already fell for someone else’s façade once this summer. Now here I am again, realizing someone isn’t who they said they were. Fool me twice, shame on me …
Past the thick red curtains, someone manages to get the academy’s attention until the chatter falls to a hum, and eventually to silence. A rumble begins backstage as the crew falls silent too—the opening notes of the song Brian chose specifically for this momentous occasion. Epic and loud and perfectly covering up the way my heart is threatening to hammer right out of my chest.
“We’re live in three, two …”
I don’t hear the PA a few feet away from me get to “one,” but the roar of applause as the curtain pulls open to reveal Brian at center stage fills in the gap for me. Brian basks in it—the spotlight, the roar, the excitement. He matches their enthusiasm effortlessly, bouncing around to high-five the players closest to the lip of the stage as the song plays on. His cheeks are flushed pink as he returns to his mark, beaming like he just won the lottery—and, in a way, he has—as he addresses his loyal constituents.
“It’s been an amazing summer,” he begins, looking directly at the camera placed at the front of the stage.
It’s easy to lose focus as Brian drones on and on about how grateful he is to everyone who came to the academy. Who dedicated themselves to makingGLRas amazing as it could be. Blah, blah, corporate-approved spiel to make everyone misty-eyed before he crushes their dreams. Because everyone sitting out there still thinks they have a shot at winning this thing.
“It’s my pleasure to announce the top two of the first-ever Wizzard Games Summer Academy Royale. Who’ll be moving on to our epic battle royale next week …” Brian pauses for dramatic effect and gestures to the screen hanging above his head. Chairs creak, and shoes squeak against the floor as everyone shifts to the edge of their seats. In the reflection of one of the makeup artists’ mirrors I can see the animation of all of our names appearing on-screen, shuffling rapidly before two names rise up to the top in time with a jaunty royalty-free tune.
“Our very own summer academy lovebirds, Zora Lyon and Ivan Hunt!”
The room breaks out into polite, but still pretty salty, applause. I can’t blame them for not being enthusiastic about having lost the one thing they worked all summer for. I consider running away as I’m cued by a nearby PA to take my mark, preparing for Brian to call me out onto the stage for my grand reveal, but my body moves on instinct. Disconnected from the rest of me. Without even realizing I’d taken a single step forward, I’m standing on the black duct-taped X on the ground, my brain whirring with the lines I memorized, the pounding of my heart, and a dozen questions I still want answered.
Namely,will this be enough to get Ivan to show?
“But not everything is as it seems for our academy lovers,” Brian says, and my back arches from a noxious combo of nerves and disgust. He’s liking playing the game master to this teenage love storywaytoo much.
“Zora, do you have anything to say to Ivan?”
With a gentle push from the PA, I’m stepping out of the darkness and into the spotlight. The silence in the crowd is broken by hushed murmurs. The news of our breakup hasn’t left the bubble of the party yet. Despite walking away from us—well, me—Kavi didn’t break her vow of silence. Thankfully, the crowd is completely invisible beneath the hot glare of the spotlight. All I can see are dark, faceless shapes—killing any chance of me finding Kavi or Cass in the crowd and buckling before I can even open my mouth.
Over Brian’s shoulder, just above the lens of the camera, the teleprompter displays the speech we’d rehearsed. Packed with drama and metaphors and what I’m 99 percent sure is literally a direct quote fromGame of Thrones.
It’s just another performance, I tell myself. But as I stand there, baking in the heat of the spotlight, the words written on the screen might as well be in a foreign language. It doesn’t feel right—none of it has. But especially this. Playing some lovesick girl when I really did have my heart broken. Everything might’ve been a lie from the start, but that doesn’t change that Ivandidhurt me. And that doesn’t change how hard it’s hit me—no matter how much I wish it didn’t.
Brian side-eyes me when I don’t take the offered microphone from him as planned. He laughs nervously, tugginglightly at the collar of his button-down as he glances at a PA off camera to try to come up with an escape plan for me developing a massive case of stage fright.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to—”
I grab the microphone out of Brian’s hand and look straight at the camera in front of me—not at the teleprompter. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it on my own terms. In my own words.
Besides, Briandidsay I could take or leave the new script.
“Hello, Ivan,” I begin. “I have a question for you: How did you think this was going to end?” I feel myself pacing across the stage; it takes a tiny moment for the spotlight operator and the camera to follow me across. “You must have thought about it. All the time we were together …” I trail off, trying not to think about those moments where I let myself fall for his poisonous charm.How could I have been so stupid? I’m never ignoring my gut again. “I’m sure you had a plan to finish the game. I’m equally sure that whatever your plan was, I ruined it. Not sorry.
“You played me,” I say, with shame coming up to choke the words halfway up my throat, “and I was naive enough to like it. I liked the way your hair was always in your face. I liked the way you pressed your lips together when you were barely holding back from saying something you knew would piss me off. I liked your crazy white teeth and your wolfy little smile. I miss—” No. “I liked when the sun hit your face and I could see the swirls in your eyes. And the way you laughed at me, whether or not I knew I was being funny.” I feel an ache in my hand and realize I’m gripping the end of my jacket’ssleeve so tightly the metal buttons are almost cutting into my palm. “All of it. I liked all of it. The whole time.
“I was sick with you, but now I’m sickofyou. Trust me, I have almost no interest in seeing your face again, but somewhere in that almost is the part of me that wants to bring you back and make you feel the way I felt when you left. The game isn’t over.
“Come back, Ivan. Please come back. I deserve an ending.” I raise my eyes to the camera and imagine Ivan watching this, imagine my vulnerability reaching out through the camera to stroke his ego and lure him back. “More importantly”—I lift an eyebrow and dead-eye the lens—“I deserve a chance to whoop your ass. Don’t make me wait too long.” I stretch my hand out and let the microphone drop from my palm. Somewhere off to the side, I hear a half-whispered “nooooo” from someone over by the sound booth. It’s the only noise in the room.
Then, a clap. And another. It’s Brian, who’s looking at me like he just discovered El Dorado in human form and applauding his own discovery. Slowly, almost nervously, the rest of the crew join in. Then, the entire academy. I can’t see much past the darkness, but I can tell some of them—maybe all of them—are on their feet. Suddenly, I have a change of heart and wish I could see their faces. Search for Trieu in the audience to keep me grounded as the applause rings in my ears and makes me vibrate all the way down to my toes. They start up a chant of my name, loud enough to make the stage start to shake beneath my already unsteady feet.
I don’t get to revel in it for long, though. The curtain whips closed, and the spotlight flicks off, green-gray dotsclouding my vision again. I welcome it this time, though. For a few seconds, I’m able to disconnect. Focus on getting my eyes adjusted instead of reality. That I just poured myself out onstage to who knows how many thousands of viewers. To the people I spent all summer with.
Finally, I was everything they—Kavi and Trieu, Ivan, Brian—wanted me to be. Charismatic and passionate and watchable.The best-packaged product on the shelf.
