Page 27 of How We Play the Game
“Don’t you mean don’t go there, ‘boyfriend’?” Ivan snaps.
“This is why they believed her, by the way.” Trieu’s voice snips the ever-tightening cord of tension between Ivan and myself. My stomach flutters cease in an instant, the butterflies suddenly confronted with increased gravity. “Like, you hear it too, right?”
“No, totally,” Kavi agrees and gently guides me back into a seated position next to her in the diner booth.
“Hear what?” I ask.
“Nothing,” yawns Trieu.
“Don’t worry about it,” says Kavi.
Kavi was my first war council recruit, though it’s more accurate to say she recruited herself. After I somewhat impulsively told everyone Ivan and I have been dating for months, she all but tackled me back through my dorm room door citing “girl talk” again, which got me away from the crowd, where I could breathe and come up with a plan.
Trieu was my second recruit. He knows everybody, he’s clearly a hell of a lot smarter than he chooses to let on, and, if I’m being honest, I needed a guy to intercept Ivan on the he/him floor before he returned to the party. Also no one else here likes me.
Cass did not pick up his phone, sort of. I didn’t actually call him because talking on the phone is not normal behavior, but I did text him a few times. I texted him a lot, actually. Like ten times, but with no response to any of them. I hope when he wakes up he finds this funny instead of creepy, and by “this” I mean the entire situation I’ve gotten myself into. Just everything, all of it.
And yeah, I also have Ivan. I am devastated beyond belief that he showed up at the diner freshly showered, initially unbothered, and on time, because I’d love another couple reasons to despise him. I am capable of admitting that I need Ivan’s help; I’ll never admit to being happy to see him.
But I’m seeing him. Right now, in this moment. Sitting across from me in a booth seat held together with duct tapeand hope, where his wet hair drips a little at the tips and looks much darker than it does in the daylight. Inky black instead of that shiny coffee-bean brown with highlights that look like a zoomed-in photo of a cocker spaniel’s coat. And the scent I smelled while we were in close quarters is stronger now, cleaner. Nicer, uncut with street and sweat beyond what’s mixing with the droplets from his hair and just now starting to run down the side of his neck—Good GOD, when I find out which part of my brain is coming up with this shit, I’m putting it in time-out for life.
“Two Cokes, a ginger ale, and a water?” The overnight waitress drops off four frosty glasses and a handful of paper-wrapped straws on the table.
“Thanks so much.” Ivan sits up straighter and leans up to get a look at her name tag. “I’m Ivan, by the way. And your name is … Yekaterina?” He says it with a hint of an Eastern European accent, correct enough to gain points for trying but goofy enough to coax a laugh out of her. She smiles; he smiles back, brilliant and charming. “That’s my mom’s name.”
“Really?”
“Yep. When I was little I thought it was the prettiest name ever. Still do.”
“Aw.” Yekaterina’s face softens. It makes her look younger. “You’re a sweetie, Ivan. If you need anything else, call me Kat,” Yekaterina says, before leaving us to our drinks.
I wonder if he ever gets tired of performing. I know what it’s like to keep a mask up so people don’t think I’m nearly as weird as I feel inside, but his universal sweetheart act must take at least as much effort as my totally-normal-nothing-to-see-hereshow. And he doesn’t need to do it for neurodivergent reasons. He just does it because he’s manipulative.
And I’m not?a little voice, call her Zora 2.1, pipes up in the back of my head.He’s as trapped in my lie as I am. In this story I wrote to save myself.
“Ivan.” I grab my ginger ale and deliberately take a sip without a straw, allowing the ice-cold sugar to zap me awake teeth-first. “I need you to do something you’ve never done before.”
“What is it?” Ivan’s drink is water with extra ice. I award no points for his dedication to staying hydrated.
“I need you to put yourself in my shoes. A girl’s shoes.”
“Excuse—”
“Shush. You are you, Ivan Hunt,” I continue. “People here know you, and for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, they are genuinely interested in your behavior. I am me. Just Zora. I am a total unknown, and the only reason people know my name is because I screwed up their first chance to endear themselves to the … ,” I trail off. What’s the word I’m looking for? Onlookers, but worse. Fandom, but derogatory. “Niche internet micro-celebrity microcosm of Wizzard diehards whose opinions determine our fate here, apparently, and for reasons I hate.”
“Next time, just say nerds,” Trieu points out. “We’ll be here all night.”
“Regardless of intention or how we got there, you and me, in the hallway with the wall and everything. It looked suggestive.”
“Quite suggestive.” Kavi backs me up again. “And Zora’s hair is huge, so nobody could see what was going on behind all that. Just saying, you two looked cozy.”
“That was not my intention,” Ivan says quietly. Is that a note of apology in his voice? Nah, he must have a spot of brain freeze.
“Regardlessof intention,” I repeat. “By the time you left—carrying my backpack, which also looked a little weird—everyone around us had already made up their minds about what just happened. They cornered me.”
“Uh-huh.” Ivan takes another sip of water. “Cornered you into inventing a fake relationship that stretches back six months?”
“Only because someone pulled up a video of us together at Wizzcon, which was, count it with me, six months ago!” I explain. “You know, when you pretended to be dating me for a substantially dumber reason?”
