Page 32 of Level Up for Love

“Obviously it’s terrible what they did to you. But the way you handled it is kind of metal, isn’t it?”

I eye him suspiciously, then look away. “I just—I wanted them all to have to face it somehow. I didn’t want to just cancel everything and disappear.” I reflexively squeeze my cup, denting it. It doesn’t matter; it’s empty. “I felt like my life had exploded in my face, and I just—I wanted them to feel that, too.”

There’s a new softness to his features that has me on edge. Even his gentle tone makes my skin crawl. “How long ago was this?”

“January.”

Wesley nods, and his fingers twitch where his hand still rests along the back of the bench. He straightens, and for one horrifying moment, I think he’s about to try to hug me. But then, very carefully, he just touches his pointer and middle fingers to my shoulder. He strokes his knuckles down the sleeve of my knit shirt in a gesture that I think is meant to be consoling; it’s slow, apologetic.

I don’t move a muscle, but every part of my body goes stiff. I feel the contact like a line of heat, and I try not to grind my teeth as the memory and the reality of his touch burn simultaneously.

“I’m really sorry that happened to you,” he says before dropping his hand to his lap. Then his voice grows suddenly loud, his tone sharp enough to cut: “I can’t believe he would—” He swallows and then shakes his head. “I’m just sorry.”

“Me, too. But it’s—it’s whatever.” It’s not. “It’s over.”

“He took your game from you. They all did.”

Something softens in my chest. Considering our shared history as game makers, I realize Wesley might be the only person in my world who could really understand how much this betrayal stung. Mona had raged at how Owen disrespected me, and Mom had cried about his audacity to hurt me like that. But I think Wesley sees immediately that it’s more than that. Owen had broken the trust of our whole group—they all had. And this thing that I loved, the game that I’d created for them and poured all of my stories and time and love into, they’d just—

I lock my gaze onto Wesley’s, my eyes feverishly wide.

He doesn’t look away.

“I spent years building out that world,” I hiss. I’m angry all over again, but for once, it’s not with him. “We would do these long campaigns, with interconnected storylines and complex plots. I wrote it so that every campaign was set in the same world, and the events of one would carry into the next. The group changed sometimes, y’know.” When the players would bring in new partners, or friends, or co-workers, for one-off adventures or a few months at a time. “But Mona, Owen, Lauren, and Eddie were always at the core.

“And with Owen, I’d—” I cut myself off quickly, not ready to share the depth of that hurt with Wesley. I don’t give voice to how I lived a dozen love stories with Owen, and how it hadn’t mattered who his character was—in every world, in every adventure, we always found each other. It was always us. I don’t say how, in a lot of ways, I think those stories were better than our real relationship. They made it so that Owen could make these great declarations of love or heartbreaking in-character sacrifices without bringing any of that dedication to our real story. Instead, I just flatly explain, “With Owen, I think he took the game more seriously than he took our relationship. He cared more about the story we were telling ourselves than the reality of the lives we were living. It’s part of why I wanted to kill the world and wipe it all away.”

Way too late, I realize how much of an info dump this must be to Wesley. I realize exactly whom I’m sharing these secrets with.

Horror and embarrassment swirl in the pit of my stomach. “It’s late,” I say suddenly, though the sun has barely begun to touch the horizon. Everything is painted serenely gold. “I should go.”

But Wesley acts like I haven’t said anything at all. He bends toward me, our shoulders almost brushing. I don’t remember how we got so close; I don’t remember when my hip stopped touching the armrest on my side of the bench.

“I won’t pretend that I know how hard that must have been for you,” he says quietly. “But I know how gutted I felt when they canceled Lorekeeper. We all felt this sense of loss that no one would ever get to exist in the world we’d built together. It was this space we’d been living in for years, and suddenly it just—didn’t exist anymore.”

I don’t know where he’s going with this, but listening to him helps distract me from the pressure building behind my eyes. I tell myself it’s the seeds of a migraine, probably from being in his presence for this long, but I know it’s not. It’s been so long since I’ve talked about any of this, and it still feels raw.

“He didn’t deserve the world you built for him, Reagan,” Wesley says. “I’m sorry that he tainted it for you. And I’m sorry that you lost it, all the same.”

The familiar ache of loss curls deep in my chest, but for a moment, it’s lighter—warmer, like the first sip of mulled apple cider. But when my gratitude for the sincerity of his words fades, I’m left to grapple with the person who said them. I feel the bubble of our alternate reality begin to pop.

“Thank you,” I say eventually, feeling big enough to be honest with him, at least. “Thank you for listening.”

“Thank you for telling me. It explains…a lot.”

Right. The game. I grab on to the subject change like a lifeline. “So where does that leave us?”

“Well, you never answered my question.”

“I don’t even remember what it was.”

He tosses his head a little, and the crinkles in the corners of his eyes suggest he doesn’t believe me. But he repeats it anyway, slowly. “Are you having fun?” And then, more quietly, “Do you want to stay?”

I take a long moment to consider.

I miss DMing—I really do. I love building out worlds, plotting adaptive stories, and creating dozens of characters for my players to interact with. But I’ve had a few days to think about our last session, and despite my complaints, I have to admit that it’s been surprisingly enjoyable to do my level best to thwart Wesley’s schemes against us. It meant something to me that Sindra had defended herself and Moss against the skeletons for as long as she did before the others showed up. It meant something that she was the last one standing when they faced off against Vadrien.

“I might be having a little fun,” I mutter, almost to myself.