My voice is rising again. I try to will the emotions deep down inside, someplace I don’t have to think about them, confront them. But they surge through me fierce and impossible to ignore, even if I know the person I’m really angry at is myself.
“Gen—”
“It isn’t fair. You say you want to meet but you won’t even tell me anything.”
“Gen—”
“No, fine, fine.” Something warns me to calm down, as though my body is rebelling against my words. “If you won’t tell me, I’m not meeting. And that’s the end of it.”
I tear off my headset and push away from my computer, letting out a shaky breath as I march through my apartment. I walk down the hall to the thermostat, turn it down a notch, and lean against the wall with my hands crossed over my middle.
That wasn’t fair. I know it wasn’t fair, but I just feel like he was being so freaking unreasonable.
But then I wasn’t exactly behaving like a grownup either.
Is it reasonable of me to ask him to reveal who he is before he knows who I am?
I know the answer, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. And really, I’m not even sure I need to know who he is… maybe that was just a way to distract him from asking me to meet again.
I sigh and push away from the wall.
We need to talk about this, to discuss things in a rational way. Hopefully, there’s a path through this, a route where we can put this behind us and go on as we have.
Returning to my computer, I notice immediately that something is wrong. Where Smolder was standing before, there’s now a heap of clothes and items. My belly churns as the realization slams into me, silly tears rising to my eyes.
“It’s just a game,” I whisper.
But it doesn’t feel like just a game. It hasn’t felt like that for a long time.
When an avatar dies in-game, they’re teleported to an eerie prison station out in a distant galaxy where they can fight to be returned to their ship with all their belongings. But if a person deletes their avatar completely, their belongings will appear on the floor where they last stood.
Which means Smolder has deleted his account.
He’s gone.
I sit down quickly, pushing keys to lead my avatar forward.
Looting all his items, I scan them quickly, praying he left me a note. There’s paper in the game and players can write anything they want on it, as long as it doesn’t violate the code of conduct.
But what if Smolder leaving has violated my code of conduct?
It’s not fair that he’s just vanished like this. We were having a heated discussion, fine, but he didn’t have to disappear on me.
There is a note.
I click it so hard my finger hurts.
Gen, I’m sorry. But I can’t do this anymore. It’s too hard, feeling like I know you but knowing we’ll never *really* be together. Thank you for all the fun we had. I’ll miss you, more than you can understand.
I grit my teeth, my gaze flitting over the words again and again, as my mind brims with thousands of memories I’ve shared with this man. I remember the first time we played, randomly thrown together, laughing as we ran around our ship and tried to patch it up as pirates attacked us.
I remember telling him about the time my mom showed up crying at my apartment so I cut a raid short. He was there waiting for me, listening to everything I told him, patient and understanding.
I remember his laugh, even if it’s not his laugh.
And suddenly I know I’ve made a terrible mistake.
But there’s no way for me to contact him, not now he’s deleted his avatar. We never exchanged emails.
I sit back, pawing at my cheeks, wishing I could turn back time and tell him yes.
Chapter Six
Maxton
It’s been three days since I deleted my avatar and I still can’t stop thinking about Gen. I do my best to remind myself I had a life before her, my business and the gym and my charity work, drinks with Steve, and a few other friends, visits with parents on the West Coast…
But nothing feels like it matters.
I try and tell myself I’m being foolish, a forty-three year old man mourning a woman he never even met. But that rings false, a taunting voice mocking me from the edges of my consciousness.
I could restart my account, reach out to her, but I promised myself I wouldn’t. She isn’t going to meet with me and I can’t not meet her, so we’re at an impasse.
Several times I open the login page to Star Search, thinking about creating a new character and finding her.
But at the last second I stop, teeth gritted, and fight the urge with everything I have.