Page 106 of Game Over

“I know, but that space won’t fix it. Jesse will take space until the end of time.”

I thought about that as he fed me another slice. Jesse and I had never really had a serious fight before this, so I had no idea how he processed these things.

“I just don’t want to push him before he’s ready.”

“I get that,” Charlie agreed. “Maybe text?”

I side glanced at him. “You think I didn’t try that already?”

He huffed. “Fair enough. Well then go there. The worse he can do is slam the door in your face, when I’m sure they won’t.”

I leaned further against him. “I’ll think about it.”

The ‘Better Luck Next Time’screen flashed in front of me for about the hundredth time.

I was so fucked.

It’d been about a week since the fight with Jesse and Tara and I was miserable–beyond miserable. Though at this point it felt like my own fault. It wasn’t like both of them didn’t reach out. They did, more than once. But I just… didn’t answer.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. They knew each other,the whole time.Charlie was the guy we made all those Mr. Heat Hotel jokes about. The one who, though I knew it was irrational, I always felt a slight pang of jealousy about. Though she always made jokes around it, it was obvious something about him satisfied her, and it felt like in a way I would never be able to.

And to an extent I understood that. I wasn’t an alpha, that was just a fact, but he was the only one she still talked about, even a year later.

And he was my best friend.

Every time I talked about it the room spun. How could I trust they weren’t keeping more from me? They bonded each other–bonded me, knowing they lied. How could I trust that again?

I booted up another game, trying to get back into it. I hadn’t streamed the entire time, in part because of how I was feeling, but also because my game wasoff.So incredibly off. I hadn’t won a game since the fight. And I knew people watched not only for my personality, but for my skill. There hadn’t been a ton of things in my life I excelled at, but OVWatch was one of them. No matter how upset I was, or what was going on in my life, when I found this game, I was instantly good, and that had never wavered.

Not until now.

Now I was letting our healer get killed, I was getting sniped by other DPS players, and getting crushed by takes when I tried to move in. There was nothing good about my gameplay right now. And I couldn’t stream like this.

I was useless at this point.

This game went just like the last, and I was tired of seeing that loose screen flash for what felt like the millionth time.

“Fuck!” I screamed, and threw my control to the wall. It smacked hard, the plastic breaking on impact. I knew later I would regret that, but right now I couldn’t be fucked to worry about it.

Taking a deep breath, I rested my head against my Maverick themed wrist rest, my forehead sinking into the memory foam.

I needed to get out of this funk.

My HAVOC chat pinged and I looked up. Indy messaged. I’d answered him back a few times, but I really wasn’t in the mood to talk. He asked to do a call but that was way not happening.

Theybe.knot: Sorry dude, I’m just really not in the mood

Indi_clurb: Come on, you need to talk to someone

I sighed. He was probably right, just going over it again and again in my own head probably wasn’t good for me. And at this point my dead controller would probably agree.

It took me a few minutes, but I clicked the call button. It only rang for a few moments before Indy’s face appeared. It was always so strange to see his bright, smiling face against his backdrop. It was all black, with memorabilia from his favorite horror games. A shelf of masks sat directly above him, along with a collection of these creepy looking dolls with button eyes he collected.

You would expect someone who have all of these things to maybe be a bit hard or serious, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We met at a con last year, and though he was a way bigger streamer than I was, he had no problems speaking to me or spending time with me. And he was the kindest person I’d ever met. Despite him being really into horror, he was such a marshmallow.

“Hey,” he said with his bright white smile. “You look like shit.”

I huffed, running a hand through my tousled hair. “Thanks.”

---