29

Mama Tan was in a chatty mood.

“I’m sorry you weren’t feeling well. I think Hannah really needed this, now that Natalie is out of the picture.” Tan smirked, shaking her head, her long earrings jangling with the movement. “Glad she got that out of her system.”

I turned to her slowly, chilled by her phrasing. “Got Natalie out of her system? Or being gay?”

Tan raised her eyebrows, indicating the latter.

“Because I don’t think that last part is going anywhere.”

She smiled sagely. “We’ll see.”

Was this why Hannah was playing straight? Why our evening plans looked like a wax museum version of the fun we used to have?

“You want her to be straight,” I said.

Tan let out a song of a sigh and switched lanes. “I just want her to be happy.”

“Then let me ask you something.” I shifted to face her. “Do you really think she’s happy right now? Without Natalie?”

Hannah’s mother’s face fell. For a split second, she looked her age.

“Because she seems shattered to me,” I went on. “And you know what? I’ve never seen her happier than when she was with Natalie. Being gay. Being okay with it.”

As the words shot out of my mouth, the truth of them ricocheted against the windshield and struck me in the gut. She was happy with Natalie. Sleepless, nervous, neurotic, conflicted, and more herself than I’d ever seen her.

Tan pulled into my driveway, parked the car, and stared ahead.

“I’m trying to understand my daughter,” she finally said, her voice plain, scrubbed of charm. “And I’m having a hard time lately.”

She leaned against the steering wheel, a perfect zigzag of black hair falling over her face. Underneath, her smile was flickering, fluttering, dead. This might have been the first real conversation I’d ever had with Tan. Which meant that, at this moment, she was the closest thing I had to a friend.

“You’re not the only one having a hard time,” I admitted as I opened the car door and stepped out. “Maybe you don’t have to understand her, you know? You just have to love her.”

I shrugged. She nodded faintly, pulled the passenger door closed, and drove away.

Mom let out a startled shout when I ran into her in the kitchen. “What are you doing here? Where’s—?”

“I’m still sick.” I shut the fridge, realizing I didn’t have much of an appetite. “It must be stomach flu after all.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. Softened. “Did you two have a fight?”

“No,” I groaned.

“Was it about Adam?” Her eyebrows lifted.

“No, Mom. What is the matter with you?”

She laughed, waving her hand in the air as she opened the pantry.

“Seriously, though,” I huffed. “Why is my personal life so important to you?”

“Because I’m your mother!”

Her tone froze me. She clutched a can of soup with both hands and slumped against the pantry shelf.

“Because I am a member of this family, and I do not deserve to be teased. I do not deserve to be shut out. I am . . . sick of it!”

She shoved the can back. It slid and stopped.

From the ceiling came the sound of swords clashing, an ogre dying, a fake life lived behind a door that was always closed.

Her shoulders shook. I took three quiet steps and touched her ponytail, but she flinched away.

“Okay,” I said, dropping my hand. “Okay. I’m straight, all right? I agreed to lie and say I was gay to help the homecoming cause, but it backfired. I’m not dating QB. I had a big crush on Don’t Know Him From Adam, but he was just a friend, and he’s not even that anymore.”

She wiped her face and slowly turned.

“Hannah was dating Natalie Beck, but that’s done too, and I feel like it’s probably my fault. We are fighting. No, worse, we’re done fighting. We’re done in general, I think.”

Mom took my hand.

“And I’m sorry I’m so self-absorbed. Everyone’s been telling me I am, not just you, so it must be true.”

“Oh, honey, that is not what I meant at all—”

“And I got kicked out of the Alliance and I’ve been suspended for a week for assaulting Seth Ross.”

Mom’s face went blank. She let go and wiped her hands on her jeans.

“Upstairs,” she ordered. “I’ll bring you some soup.”

Before the organic gluten-free noodles were simmering on the stove, I was past needing them. I’d already sunk into a dense, dark sleep, dreaming of me, me, everywhere me, a homecoming where I was the queen and the king and the football team. A nightmarish world full of Daisy and no one else.

“You’re so close, Daisy. Left, left, left! Get him with the lightning!”

The gamer chair ricocheted with the full-body effort it took me to push a couple of buttons in the right sequence, until at long last, the acid-drooling sub-dragon was dead at my sandaled feet.

Dad beamed. “You’re getting good at this.”

I nearly managed a smile at the compliment. I was now a level-seventeen Everwander elfin rogue with storm-calling mastery, well on my way to helping Player One restore order to the Kingdom of Xanthe. In my father’s world, this was something to be very proud of.

“I want to hear what you think when we’re done,” Dad muttered, typing a note on his tablet. “Something’s not working with the game arc.”

“Seems fine so far,” I said, buying healing potion from a gnome in a pumpkin cart. More than fine. This game was cathartic. When I’d given it a half-hearted try on Sunday afternoon, I didn’t expect how good it would feel to upgrade weapons and accessorize armor, to climb and slice and demolish all in my path. I’d played games before, of course, here and there, when Dad wasn’t hogging every console in the house. I’d never gotten addicted. But now, for the first time, I began to understand why Dad was so loath to leave this room, this portal into a world in which anything was possible if you just obsessed over runes enough.

“You can level up,” Dad pointed out, slurping from the coffee Mom had brought him on her way to yet another farm group meeting.

“Should I boost my strength or my defenses?” I asked.

“Go for strength. If you’re strong, you don’t need as many defenses.”

“Got it.”

“Choose carefully, though. This might be your last level up.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Are we close to the end?”

“Yep, the big battle is right around the corner.” He did a butt-dance in his gamer chair, morphing into a little brother in his excitement.

Meanwhile, I felt myself hollowing.

What would I do when this game was done? Return to my minute-by-minute cataloguing of everything happening at Palmetto in my absence? Continue this weekend’s meditation on how life marches on, indifferent and fickle, and how I should become a Buddhist and practice detachment, and how making my house into a weeklong hermitage was really a very good starting point on my path to enlightenment? Except I wasn’t detached. Not remotely enlightened. I was tormented.

At school right now they were celebrating Spirit Week. Today, they were probably announcing the official danceless-homecoming court. I wondered if QB would be king this year, or whether his odds were lessened without the school’s princess by his side. Madison would probably be queen, just as a big old screw-you to everything we were doing across the street.

Speaking of which, the volunteers must have started to gather. The vacant field was probably a lot less vacant already—early arrivals from the East and West football teams starting to practice, helpers hoisting bleachers, tents, stands. That was the plan we had, anyway. Hopefully it was still going forward. The press might even be there already to document it. Maybe Adam too, his curling black hair waving in the breeze, his glasses slipping so maddeningly often that I just wanted to shimmy them off his face and . . . Stop that thought right there. He hates you, remember? Along with most of the country.

Had the protests died down or picked up? Were the counter-protesters still out in force, even after what happened at the rally? I could google it, but that would mean turning on my computer, and I’d already established that only bad things could come of that. I hadn’t even turned my phone on since Saturday night. I was doing the hermit thing. It was going to be awesome.

At some point the awesome was bound to click in. Any minute now.

Besides, I had a war to win for the citizens of Xanthe.

But five more minutes into game play, just as we were grimly mounting the curving steps to the Dark Castle, moments from challenging the Primordial Beast-King, my controller rattled—and the action changed to a cut scene. I blinked in confusion.

On the screen, Dad’s character, a level-eighteen warrior goblin, turned to me, laid a knobby arm on my lithe green shoulder, and started to speechify.

“We’ve come so far together, friend. Without you, I surely would have perished long ago. Not to mention . . .” The view widened to include the other characters he was naming, including a buxom priestess healer and a talking toadstool who made fart noises for comic effect. Then Dad’s character filled the entire screen, blocking the rest of us out. “But from here to the castle, I travel alone. It is . . . my destiny.”

“Excuse me?” I gawked at the screen, my controller dangling dead in my lap.

Dad couldn’t decide whether to look at me or the game, where my character had suddenly been reduced to one member of a crowd waving from the dusty distance at Player One as he scaled the battlement and began to fight alone.

“This is bullshit!”

Dad paused the game and whirled around. “How so?” He cleared his throat. “Also, language, young lady.”

“‘Bullshit’ is the right word for what this is,” I protested. “This game sucks and I cannot believe I wasted all this time playing it.”

Dad pointed to the TV with his controller. “This is what I mean about the arc collapsing, but I can’t pinpoint why.”

“I can,” I said, standing from the chair to better glare at the screen. “Why is this a multiplayer game? What is the point of spending all that time playing as part of a team, leveling up, throwing in with the other characters if you’re just gonna get ditched? Tell me. Seriously. I want to know.”

“Well . . .” Dad’s brow crinkled like a paper bag puppet. “I mean, the opening scene establishes the story. Player One is destined to topple—”

“Who cares what he’s destined to do? Maybe he’s destined to do it with a bunch of other people. Maybe, now that he’s reached the castle, he should think twice about ditching everyone who’s come with him. They care just as much about the kingdom as he does! If it’s gonna be him against the world, and that’s the game, that’s fine, but then why bring along all these other characters? It’s stupid! I hate this game.”

Dad’s voice grew hushed. “Are you crying?”

I swiped at my face. “No.”

But I was. And I wasn’t sure why. I probably just needed to leave this room and see sunshine.

“You’re right, you know.” Dad shook his head as if dumbfounded, a smile beginning to bloom. “You’re right! I’ve been coming back to this game for weeks and couldn’t pick out the problem, but that’s it. Someone else needs to be the hero.”

My hand hesitated by the doorknob, his words reverberating up my spine.

“What if he’s not the chosen one after all? He thinks he’s important, but in the end it’s another character. Wait.” Dad stood up from his chair on shaky legs and began to pace, pointing at me repeatedly. “This might be a big idea. Too big for this game. This might be . . .”

He crouched, holding my shoulders. I held my breath, waiting for the life-changing epiphany to come.

“A new game. Multiplayer. You’re not just a team, you’re competitors. Depending on the game-play, anyone could become Player One. You could integrate it into an online RPG format.”

“Yeah!” I shouted, giving him a high five, no idea what he was talking about. His face was glowing like a billboard. He seemed ten years younger, like someone who exercised, who traveled, who got things done.

“Daisy . . . thank you,” he said. “I owe you. Big-time. Name your price.”

He waggled his eyebrows, joking, but I had an idea.

“Come down for dinner tonight. And tell Mom your game idea. I’m sure she’d love to hear it.”

“Sure,” he said, running a hand through his overgrown hair, then staring at it as if surprised he had appendages.

“Tomorrow night too,” I tacked on.

Dad rocked back on his heels, eyeing me curiously. “I eat dinner with you guys already.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Unless I’m in the middle of . . .” He gestured to the paused screen, then sank. “It’s not a big deal, though, is it? We’re a different kind of family. Your mom’s got her projects, you’ve got school . . . that’s how we’ve always been. We all do our own thing.”

“We do,” I agreed. “But could we maybe take a break from our own thing? Just to see how we like it?”

As Dad stared at me, I felt like I could see the sun coming up behind his eyes. Then he blinked and extended his hand. “Deal.”

I shook it and turned to go. “Plus ten percent of the revenues of any new company you form. See ya!”

“A new company?” Mom put Dad’s dinner in front of him, then leaned on the table like she was dizzy. “But your non-compete—”

“Expired last year,” Dad said, shoveling yams into his mouth with gusto. “I mean, I could sell this idea back to BotCo, or . . .”

“You could start fresh.” Mom sat slowly. “I . . . like it.”

Dad leaned back. “You do?”

“It’s a no-brainer. You’ve stayed current, you’re still a name in the industry, and with this idea . . .”

They started talking details, reminiscing about their high school startup days, their voices flying out of them, crackling with excitement—then lapsing into intermittent pauses, like they were conversationally rusty. Because they were.

“You wanna run out to the Chamber of Commerce?” Dad blurted. “Grab me a ‘So You Want to Start a Business’ pamphlet?” He winked at Mom across the table.

She snorted. “Oh Lord, I was so nervous.”

“You bought a suit.”

“A business suit! At Target, but still.”

Dad grinned.

“I swore they were going to . . .” She buried her head, cringing at the memory. “Throw me out onto the sidewalk! And then they just handed me the pamphlet. Didn’t even ask how old I was. What a let down.”

Dad reached for Mom’s hand.

“Well,” Mom said, and then just held on as she stared at him and he stared at her and I stared anywhere else.

I’d always worried that they’d known each other too long, that over the years their relationship shorthand had gotten more and more abbreviated until it became nothing at all. But at the moment, their silence was a lot more than nothing. It was full. Words, emotions, memories were flying across the table. I just couldn’t hear them.

Even after they broke the silence, brainstorming next steps, chatting about a farming game app Mom wanted to make, I might as well have been sitting in a room by myself. It was disappointing in a petty way, but worth it for the way Mom’s feet were tapping under the table.

Then I noticed her legs going still and my name coming out of her mouth.

“You need to check in with your friends, sweetheart,” she said. “Councilman Franklin told me there’s rumblings in the City Council about pulling the homecoming permit. They say the number of people planning to show up presents a fire hazard.”

“But we’re—they’re—not doing a bonfire.” I picked a speck of yam off my pajama pants, willing my heartbeat to return to a normal pace.

Mom shrugged. “These people just won’t stop. They’re clutching at straws.”

I shrugged back. “I’m sure the Alliance will figure it out.”

But at one a.m., I was still awake, mulling the scenarios that could be playing out in my absence. We could have lost the Triplecross cast. Or gained the entire NFL roster for our football game. Mole people could have risen from the ground and decimated our tents.

Maddened by not knowing and emboldened by my dad’s return from the walking dead, I decided to take a risk. I clicked my phone back to life.

“Two. New. Messages,” robot voice said. My mind spun with contrasting hopes—Hannah, Adam, Raina, asking for help . . .

Raina. Right. I rolled my eyes at myself. She despises—

“Yeah. Daisy. It’s Ray.”

I dropped the phone. Scrambled to pick it up.

“. . . did for Sophie. I was impressed. I have to admit, you really came through for her and it made me think . . .” She sighed. Practically growled. “Maybe I’ve been a little harsh on you. Possibly.” She cleared her throat. “Sophie wound up telling her mom, by the way, like as soon as she got home. The girl thinks she’s got anger avoidance issues, but what she really can’t handle is guilt. She’s allergic to it. She’s been dabbing her damn eyes all week about your suspension too, so you might want to give her a call and tell her you’re fine. I mean, I’m assuming you’re fine, but if you’re not, definitely call her. Or me.” She cleared her throat again, so loud I had to move the phone away from my ear. “Anyway. Hope you’re doing all right. Yeah, okay, bye.”

Was that . . . an apology? From Raina Moore? My mouth was slowly forming the word “wow” when I realized she hadn’t mentioned anything about homecoming. But why would she? Homecoming was Alliance business—and despite the oddly conciliatory tone of her message, that door was clearly still shut to me. I was sinking straight back into glumdom when the robot voice said, “Next. Message,” and my heart skipped.

Adam? Hannah? I couldn’t decide which of their voices I was most hoping to hear.

It was Mr. Murphy at the rec center.

“Just thought I’d try you one more time,” he said, his voice more wooden than usual. “But I get the picture. You’re busy. I liked your idea for that mural, though, kiddo, so maybe we’ll have somebody else come finish it for you. Thanks anyway.”

I gripped the phone, the world dropping away from me, pixel by pixel.

He’d given up too.

“No,” I said. “No.”

The night was dark, the house creaking quietly, the streets outside thick with silence as, for the first time in four days, I took off my pajamas and put on real clothes.

It was time to finish that mural.