Page 49 of Level Up for Love

Chapter

Thirteen

I wake up wishing I were hungover.

If I were hungover, maybe I could excuse what I did under the guise of too many drinks. If I were hungover, I could laugh it off—and maybe he would, too. Maybe the memories of last night wouldn’t be so crystal clear in my mind, like the way his mouth burned against mine, and how he’d cupped the back of my neck in his palm, and—

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.

I can’t keep doing this to myself.

It’s a ghost of a thought, and I’m quick to shove it into a box and lock it away in the back of my head. I’m not ready to unpack that right now. Instead, I pat my hand over my tangled sheets until I find my phone. I spend a long time drafting my message—I’m sorry about last night or I shouldn’t have done that or It won’t happen again—before I finally hit send.

Reagan:

What happened last night won’t happen again.

I watch the three dots appear over and over again for five minutes as Wesley types out a response. When his message finally arrives, it’s straight to the point.

Wesley:

Before I let that curdle in my stomach, I force myself out of bed and quickly throw on sweatpants and an oversized hoodie; it’s cold.

I make coffee, sit my ass down in front of my computer, and throw myself into the only thing I know will distract me.

I wander the wasteland alone.

As I run, my boots pound against the broken red earth, and I have to weave around the chunks of sharp clear crystal that punch their way up through cracks in the ground. Entire islands of trees have risen from the earth to float dozens of feet in the air, roots dangling beneath them. But it’s the bruised purple-and-pink sky broken by flashes of neon-green lightning spiderwebbing across the clouds that serves as the clearest proof of the apocalyptic explosion that killed my world.

All my friends are dead, I haven’t met another living soul for miles, I haven’t unlocked the reason behind the explosion, I have no idea if I’ll survive the night, and yet…

I’m bored.

I tap the nail of my pointer finger restlessly against the scroll wheel of my mouse. On the screen, my character stands silhouetted against the vast broken landscape, her signature red scarf whipping in the brutal wind.

I’ve been calling my NEWT game Afterwards. Inspired by the shit show of my last D&D campaign and the in-world arcane cataclysm that ended it for good, Afterwards is a postapocalyptic fantasy story about a lone survivor trying to piece together the mystery of what happened to the world she knew.

Or, well, it’s supposed to be.

Right now it’s just a lonely experience of running around in circles across a beautiful landscape with only the bare outlines of a quest to guide you.

That’s okay, I tell myself. I’ve got time.

I have lots of plans for Afterwards. I know, for one, that Wesley was right: it will be a puzzle game where the main character works through magical riddles to unlock the truth of the world’s history—and her own. I’d like to say I chose that strategy for how perfectly it complements the mystery narrative structure, but in truth, puzzle games are one of my strengths.

I prop my chin up on my clenched fist and stare unblinking at the screen and that fluttering scarf. My mind wanders, of course, to him, and my nails instinctively dig into my palm. Is he also working on his game right now to avoid thinking about what happened last night?

When I close my eyes, I can almost picture Blood Pact. I know from the alumni articles and social media posts that Wesley worked primarily as an animator for Hurricane, but it’s not his only skill. I’m a much better coder than him, but his visuals often blow mine out of the water. We both have a good head for narrative, too, though his storylines were typically fast-paced and fun, while mine leaned more thoughtful and brooding.

As my lonely wanderer stands still on the screen, I picture Vadrien doing the same. Perhaps right now we’re both in the thoughtful and brooding camp.

I had wanted to travel the same path Wesley did and work an industry job. But even with his strengths, I wonder if this is the first game he’s created on his own since college. It’s one thing to be a single cog in the grand design of an entire company, but to be the whole machine?

I’ve been doing this on my own for much, much longer than he has.

Regardless of how painful the loneliness of the last year has been, it’s given me plenty of time by myself to hone skills that give me an undeniable edge against Wesley. And if my cold dismissal of him this morning has pushed us further apart, then it’ll only serve to give me a better chance of winning this thing.

I try not to think too hard about why that only makes me feel worse, and I dive back in.