Page 27 of Don't Hate the Player
“ShouldIbe worried?”
“I’m Fury. We’ll end you.”
“We’re Unity. We’ll hug you to death.”
At the same time, Jake and I both agree, “I want that on a T-shirt.” Jinx. We look at each other and smile like we did in fourth grade, and fifth and seventh, every time we happened to be at the same party or arcade. We didn’t even have to say anything back then; every time we saw each other, we’d pick up where we left off and dip out to play whatever game was around. Once I started hiding all of that, I didn’t think I’d feel this open with anyone ever again. Funny how all it took was Jake being the same Jake. Again, he’s way taller now, but the part of him that makes me feel okay showing this side of me hasn’t budged after all these years.
By sheer coincidence, I drive right past Hillford West while we jinx each other. The school lights are still on at this hour, but the parking lot is completely empty. There’s so much dissonance between how I feel looking at the school where I bust my butt for whatever combination of letters will make my parents happy and the lot where Connor force-feeds me matcha lattes, and how I feel laughing in my car with Jake, whose entire life isGLO.
These two paths I walk aren’t meant to touch at all. I drew them parallel to keep them mathematically apart. Jake is telling me another story now, something about how Penelope threw a fit when the new meta launched, and listening to him while the streets around us get more familiar makes me feel nervous inside. Jake’s house—apartment, actually, now that I’m driving up to the building—is only a minute away from school, and even that proximity is stressing me out.
“This is me,” he reminds me, even though the GPS on my phone had already loudly informed me of that fact through my car speakers when we arrived at our destination. I slow in front of the building and realize that I’m lost in my head again. I don’t know what to say or if any further silences will be the awkward kind or the nice, Jake kind.
“Thanks for the ride,” he says without making a move to get out of the car. “It was, uh. Pretty wet out there.”
“Rain’s stopped, though. That’s good.” Doubling back to talk about the weather is probably the smart thing to do. If I could ask anyone else I know what to do in this situation, ignoring the part where I have to give context for everything that happened today, they would expect me to do the smart thing and reestablish the barrier I need to keep between myself and Jake.
“Hey, at the tournament,” Jake says, still not having unbuckled his seat belt, “you said not to tell anyone I know you.”
“Yup. Nothing personal, I—”
“But you could have just driven out of the parking lot.”
Oh boy. Come on, Emilia. Just do the thing. Tell him again, and none of this will matter tomorrow.
“You looked cold. I’m not a monster.”
Jake takes that in for a moment, then nods to himself. He sounds resolved, like that was exactly the answer he expected, and he can now leave happy that his expectations were correct when he replies.
“Right, you’re not an Envy main. You’re just Fury.” He unbuckles his seat belt and opens the passenger door, then stops himself. He closes the door again and turns in his seat to look at me. I don’t want to look at him when I’m feeling like this, but I also don’t want him to think my choices are his fault, so I do the absolute least I can and meet his eyes.
“Jake, I—”
“I just gotta say that I don’t get why you’re keeping this”—he gestures with his hands to his uniform and vaguely waves toward mine, still hidden under my sweatshirt—“a secret, but I think I’m the only one who knows. Am I?”
My mental notes are scrambled together in my brain now. The bullet points I made while Jake and I talked are either entirely wrong or completely right, and I don’t know what he wants from me. In my experience, that feeling usually comes before someone starts a transaction. Just like everyone else, Jake wants something in exchange for keeping my secret, and I’ll pile whatever it is on top of every other obligation I fulfill to maintain this tiny piece of personal freedom. I steel myself for whatever it is and nod to let him know he’s right.
“Okay, that’s good, Em. That’s perfect.”
Wait, what?
“If it’s just you and me, we can make sure no one else finds out. If, like, your other friends knew or your parents, then it would be hard, but I’m not gonna tell and you’re def not gonna tell, so we’re good.”
If my brain activity had a scent, my entire car would smell like an electrical fire.
“That’s what you were worried about, right? That I’d tell people you’re in the tournament?”
“That I, um. All of it. That I play games at all, everything aboutGLO. Everything.”
He nods again and looks off to the side. He’s thinking. That makes one of us.
“Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, if anyone sees you talking to me, that’s a dead giveaway. Do you want to just not talk forever? I can do not talking forever after right now.”
“Don’t you want to know why?” I sputter.Iwant to know why he’s saying this; it would make sense that he would want an explanation. Nobody just does things for me without wanting to know why.
“It’s probably complicated, and I’m really dumb, so no, I’ll just trust you on it.”
“Stop saying you’re dumb.”
