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I sit up straighter in my seat and take one last gulp of tea, hardening my resolve. With a deep breath, I finally click the call button and wait for Brian’s face to appear on my screen.
It takes a while for him to answer, but once he does, I can’t help but crinkle my nose. It’s 2 p.m. already and the teen boy’s still in bed. It’s dark in his room, so the shades must be drawn, and his hair is flying in all different directions and looking like an absolute bird’s nest. Not only that, but Brian’s got dried drool still on the corner of his mouth, and sleep crust in the corners of his eyes. Eeew. What did I ever see in him?
Then, Brian yawns loudly, choking on his spit a little and letting out a few loud, nasty-sounding coughs before smacking his lips together and blinking a few times before narrowing his eyes at me.
“Hey,” he grunts.
“Hey Brian,” I greet in a cheery voice while mustering a smile. “Rise and shine.”
He merely yawns and shrugs disinterestedly.
“Why did you leave without telling me yesterday?” he asks, causing my eyebrows to shoot up. I’m surprised he even noticed, much less bothered to ask. This is about as much interest as he’s ever shown in my comings and goings.
“Why does it matter?” I inquire.
He shrugs.
“I won the kickboxing match and then two more,” he says. “The first one took forever to get through but the other two were easy because I came up with better strategies. We could have gone out to celebrate later, but you’d already left.”
“That’s great, Brian,” I say with a quivery smile. “But listen, about the concept of us. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and…well, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way or get upset or anything, but I think it would be best if we went our separate ways. I just don’t think that we’re suited for one another, you know? We don’t really have all that much in common and I think we’re just at different places in our lives, with different interests too. I mean, your gaming is a prime example. You care a lot about your virtual reality games—”
“Well duh,” he says with another yawn, looking at me as if I’m dumb. “I’m studying VR design, so obviously, I care a lot about it. You’re so slow sometimes, Patty.”
I swallow. He’s certainly making this easy with his put-downs.
“Right, well—”
“And you should care about VR too, you know. Everyone should! It’s the future of our world, and a couple of hundred years from now, our lives will be centered in virtual reality. In fact, who’s to say it isn’t already? Think about the Matrix and how Neo operates in a world connected to our own by telephones. I personally believe that we could be in such a world at this very moment, and that we are all a figment of some other intergalactic species’ imagination—”
“Right,” I cut him off quickly. I’m well-aware of what he believes by now because I’ve heard this speech a million times before and I don’t want to get into the merits of a movie at the moment. “Brian, what I’m trying to say is that you’re very involved in the the gaming world, and I’m not. In fact, I don’t really care about it, and I don’t care about video games in general. I’m more interested in our current reality. You know, like, the real reality, not the fake reality—or the virtual reality—that you’re interested in.”
He yawns again.
“So? What’s your point?”
I take a deep breath.
“My point is that…”
I hesitate because I really don’t want to say it. I’ve never broken up with anyone before and my heart’s pounding with agony. What if Brian cries? I don’t want to see him cry, and if he cries, then I might cry too. Ugh, this is turning out badly, but I have to press forward.
“Well, you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? We’re just interested in different things, and unfortunately, I don’t want to play video games. In fact, I’ve never even used a VR headset in my life—”
Brian yawns loudly again and cracks his jaw.
“Is that what this is about, Patty? You could have just said that.” He shrugs. “You’re welcome to try the headset sometime if you want to. I know, I know. A lot of people want to but as my girlfriend, I’m willing to punt you to the front of the line so that you can have a go at it. But you better not mess anything up—”
“No no,” I huff loudly, shaking my head in disbelief. How can he be so damn oblivious? Doesn’t the kid know that I’m breaking up with him? Evidently not, and I struggle to make things one hundred percent absolutely clear. “Using your headset not what this is about. What I’m saying is that we have different interests. It’s been months since you first got that device, and this is your first time ever offering to let me use it. That’s weird, right? I mean, you’ve practically been plugged into that thing eighteen hours a day, and yet you’ve never let me even try it.”
