Single Player: Humor, Love, Breast Cancer and a Gaming Girl...

by Nicole, Jamie

  “Go! Just GO! God, why do I put up with you?” Because other than my brother he’s all I have left in the world, that’s why.

  “I wonder the same thing all the time.” He’s talking about me as if keeping me around is good for him when we both know that it’s not, but I’m not telling him that. I’d never put up with me if I were him. He heads down the hall to my room, grabs his boots and comes out ready for a fight.

  “I’ll go right now as long as you walk me to the corner.” He says while walk-jumping towards me, shoving his big man feet inside his unlaced boots.

  “No can do.” He’s pushing my buttons and he knows it, and he knows that I know that he knows it. All I do know for sure is that he’s the only one who still pushes me and I hate him for it, and I love him for not giving up on me simultaneously. But even still, we both know I’m a lost cause. Or, at least my life outside these doors is a lost cause.

  “Then I’m staying.” He’s digging in with his well worn-in booted heels.

  “No. You’re not.”

  “Are we doing this again? Because I promise, this is happening.” His smug attitude is really beginning to get on my last nerve.

  “Do you remember the last time we tried this? Because I do and I believe I’ve barfed enough for today. If you love me at all you’ll leave peacefully and let me get to work. I have two chapters I have to write for a new client and I still have research to do. There’s no time in my schedule today for your silly games.” There, that should shut him up.

  “I’m not afraid of your barf. Come on.” He has totally forgotten the fact that I am still dressed in nothing but a giant purple duvet as he reaches for my arm. Can you say psycho?

  “Psycho! No! I’m naked here.” All I want to do is go to my room, curl up with my laptop in my cozy bed and turn this day around by putting in several solid hours doing what I’m paid to do: Work!

  The ‘I’ve had it eyes’ he’s throwing my way are a sure sign that he’s about to piss me off. HA! I’ve changed my mind, those eyes should be called the ‘piss CeeCee off eyes’ instead. I know those well. Those babies are my best friend!

  He strikes fast. “The only way you are ever going to get your life back is to take some baby steps or hell, just make a big freaking leap out of this hell hole your stuck living in and let’s go out! I can’t stand you sitting in here day after day. Its making me nuts!” Is he serious?

  “You need to leave.” I am going to cry. I always cry when I’m mad and I’m flippin’ enraged. He’s going nuts?

  “Why do I need to go Cee? You have a big date with Mrnotso-whateverthehellhisstupid name is?”

  “MRNOTSOSMALL@ALL! That’s his name. It’s clever, it’s a pun! And... and... PUNS ARE FUN!” We’re both starting to shout and I can only hope my nosy old neighbor won’t call the cops like she did the last time he and I got into it. When the cop tried to get me to go outside to cool off, I barfed on him. It’s a theme in my life, the barfing on people. Oh, and apparently the peeing as well.

  His retort comes quick and hits its mark dead center. “P.S. That’s NOT his name. His name is Christian says the VERY real, VERY sexy sounding British babe that was with him. AT. HIS. HOUSE!” Low blow man. Not cool.

  Now I’m crying and I hate it. I hate when anyone, especially Ashton, has a front row seat to watch me break apart the way that I am right now. So I do the only thing I can, the move I do best. I run. I run before he realizes what I’m doing and can no longer catch me.

  I make it to my room in just enough time to lock the door behind me before he can push it open. Then I do what I always do when my heart is hurting like this. Still securely wrapped up in my duvet I grab my lap top from atop my desk, hurry into my walk-in closet and sit on the floor desperate to find my happy place. Through the walls I can hear Ashton’s pleas for me to open the door before his anger gets the best of him and he punches the wall. I know him well enough to know that once he’s hit something, he’s done and he’ll leave. His temper is getting the better of him and when he’s in that angry head space he waves the white flag and leaves to go and find some peace. He’d never be like his dad. He’d never hurt me.

  Moments later the front door slams shut and I hurriedly flip the computer open and allow my shaky, impatient hands to make quick work of finding the video file I’m so desperate to see. Tears are pooling in my eyes faster than they can fall, making it difficult to see the folder I’m aiming for on the screen. But don’t worry, my fingers move the cursor deftly across the glass as they have a million times before and find their mark with ease. The file marked DAD is double-clicked and within moments his deep, warm, loving voice sails through the small speakers and at once my soul is soothed. I sit listening to his wonderful baritone laughter all the while wondering how many days it’ll be before I see Ashton this time. With every fight we have the days between his return visits seem to grow longer and longer. I think he’s finally starting to believe what I’ve been trying so desperately to tell him. I’m without hope.

  Maybe now, for the first time since my father’s passing, my hell will be complete and I’ll finally be left alone for good.

  three

  Several hours later my sciatic nerve wakes me up with its uncanny ability to shoot laser-like beams of pain up my hip, straight through to the ever-present millions of nerves that rest at the base of my spine. Every time my sciatic nerve strikes I fear that its real intentions are much more sinister in nature, like a possible kidney squeeze or an ovary amputation, or who knows what’s going on in her head. But trust me, unless you’ve met this psycho - sciatica - you can’t possibly imagine the pain she can rain down. But if you have… well, you know. She’s (I imagine my sciatica as a pissy little girl) a bitch.

  So here I am, crying about my sciatica (it’s not really about my sciatica), lying on my closet’s squishy floor, finally accepting my fate of loneliness.

  Cried out, I stand to my full height of five foot four and stretch up on my tip toes, allowing my lovely (disgusting) duvet to fall to the floor around my feet. Thank goodness I thought to buy the washing machine with the extra-large tub because the blanket is almost standing on its own after what I’ve put it through over the last couple of days.

  I look down at my body for the first time in twenty four hours and realize that I’ve now beaten my personal record for time being naked (we all have one). The last one for me was when I was a baby. Now that I’m an adult I’m only ever naked for the barf fests that I perform for my best friend, whom I’ve also apparently taken to peeing on and bathing. It sounds suspiciously like I may still be a baby. Note to self: work on not barfing naked in front of friend and try to stop peeing on and or, around him.

  Grabbing my favorite Juno Surf Shop hoodie, yoga pants and Billabong-T combo, I return to the dreaded bathroom only to find it tidied up and vomit free. Ashton, I owe him so big. I make a mental note to thank him when he comes back and hop in the shower ready to rid myself of my stinky hair and scaly skin.

  It feels like I’m showering for hours as I sing along loudly to my iPod and luxuriate in what must be a years’ worth of cherry-vanilla scented bodywash that would surely bring all the boys to the yard. As I bubble myself up I’m left to think about the many hours I still have left to fill in this desperately long night. Here’s the exciting list I’ve come up with while cleaning my torso and appendages: clean nasty duvet, Google a boy named Christian who plays video games, play said games while searching for this Christian and simultaneously kick all the other boys’ butts. Oh yah, and at some point, work, thus ensuring my continued ability to eat and pay bills in the near future.

  With a plan in place, I go to the front of the house to lock up. When I reach the door I see that Ashton’s used his key to secure me inside safely in spite of the rage he was feeling when he left. Even when he’s mad, he takes care of me, and in return I’m a petulant, stubborn child. At the base of my neck I can feel a tingling of guilt trying to weasel its way into the recess of my mind but I refuse
to acknowledge it (I’ve proven I’m awesome at refusing). I yell back at it (the guilt), ‘He’s trying to change me. He wants me to do things I can’t do’. I’m feeding these lines to my subconscious in order to get it to leave me alone and back off (my subconscious, unlike my sciatica, is more like a rebellious teenage boy always trying to have its way with me and always feeling the need to be right).

  The minute my guilty thoughts try to hijack the thinking part of my brain I feel it… I’ve arrived at hyperventilation station. It’s open for business and, lucky for me, boarding now. If I’ve yet to make it clear, let me. I’m a big talker. The truth is simple. I need him. I need Ashton. I need him the way I need air, they’re both non-negotiable and without him I fear I will not survive. Period.

  “Master! Come here boy!” I shout imploring my big furry guy to come find me as I fall to the floor and shove my head between my knees.

  “One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand…” The counting goes on for some time while I breathe in slowly through my nose and out through my mouth trying adamantly to regulate my breathing and stop the panic attack that is barreling through me like a volcano, waiting to explode through a never-before popped mountain top. Master Chief sets his head along the ridge of my spine while I do my breathing, instinctively knowing that his heavy head calms me further. He is the ying to my yang. The Scooby to my Shaggy. The wind beneath my wings… okay I went too far. Sorry, I needed to lighten the mood.

  “Good Boy. I love you, big guy, and only you.”

  I allow one tear to drop and he licks it away as I let my weary eyes fall shut and focus on my breaths instead of the impending self-induced loneliness that’s sure to follow. My eyes are puffy from the first part of the night in my closet and my poor skull has yet to recover from the tear catastrophe that followed. I’m in desperate need of some ibuprofen.

  Focus. Focus and function. I stand, relax, my breathing finally under control and change course to the kitchen. “Come on buddy, let’s go get you a treat and get mommy some pain candy.”

  Lucky for Master Chief, Ashton brought over a brand new box of his favorite chews earlier in the week or we’d be S-O-L. Or I guess Master would be. I don’t eat duck-flavored meaty treats.

  He snatches it from my hand when I give him the signal and heads over to the gaming couch to wait for my return as I search for my ibuprofen and find the bottle… empty. Not panicking yet, I reach for the spare I keep handy, only to find it empty as well. Two words, Damn and IT! The spare always has at least one backup pill but I’d bet my favorite toothbrush that Ashton took it before bed the other night! I wish I could be mad at him but between cleaning my bathroom and locking up the house I really probably shouldn’t be. Yet somehow, I am!

  Before I can change my mind I stomp over to the couch and grab my cell phone. No messages. I’m shocked. I’d like to say that I’m not frustrated with Ashton for pushing me so hard and then not calling to apologize, but I am. I’m crazy with frustration but who am I kidding? He’s never once apologized for pushing me out of my comfort zone in all the years we’ve been friends and I seriously doubt he’s magically changed his position on our continued disagreement about my mental health. So I’m not surprised by the whole no message thing, just a bit miserable. But, lucky for me I know exactly how to turn my frown upside down. I summon my inner anger-angel. Girlfriend is fierce, just like Beyonce’s alter-ego. With my merciless angel-winged-anger-ego in place I come up with a fail-proof plan. I text an angry face to MR. STEALS PEOPLE’S MEDICINES AND SANITY and then I casually wait for his go-to, predictable, snarky and immature reply of ‘eat me’.

  I sit and I wait… and… nothing.

  Radio silence.

  I decide to be the bigger person. I’ll call him. But, when I do, something horrible happens and my fragile state of mind is rocketed straight off the side of a very steep and rocky cliff. Since Ashton is only marginally mean he would never intentionally try to hurt me, but he’s often not paying attention when he unintentionally does either.

  His phone rings once and then suddenly, it stops. Too late, I realize he’s accidently answered. He’s done some kind of butt-pick-up, or knee-to-phone, foot-to-phone, or I could go on for days here because… some part of someone’s body has pressed the damn answer-call button and he can’t hear me screaming my hello, but, boy oh boy can I hear him… and HELL-O!

  Clearly the lady friend he’s acquired for the night is having some kind of ‘O’ of her own. She’s excitedly answered the call with a whole load of YES’S that are being vigorously and flagrantly shouted directly into my ear and then, for the finale! Ashton’s now copying and joined her in her unending and unyielding yes tirade (so unoriginal of him) and together they are bringing it around the bases and sliding quickly and energetically into home plate (I’m really mad at home plate and its stupid pentagon shape! Why is it five sides when it’s the fourth base? Stupid, wrong-shaped base).

  There’s a contented sigh from the stranger and then I hear a voice I’ve heard almost every day since I was seven years old say, “thanks babe, that’s just what I needed. At least some girls still know how to have a good time. Am I right?” Then there’s a smack like a hand coming down on a naked bum followed immediately by ridiculous school-girl giggling. And that is the ridiculous cue I need to smash my finger down on the bright red END bar instantly disconnecting me from the biggest asshole I have ever known…in my life! I’m well aware that he’s using her to mask his feelings right now but screw that (Oh, right! He DID!), and I’m still….I don’t know? Whatever I am, I wish I could understand why it even matters. Why this hurts so much.

  Crying for the umpteenth time in one day is absolutely unacceptable and it’s not going to happen, though the pressure building at the back of my eyes that’s trying to excavate the buckets of water building behind them would argue against me. Regardless, the tear-train has left the station, and I will not allow its arrival. Remember, no ibuprofen. I must keep it together if only for the lack of medicine.

  So, now I sit, my heart breaking for reasons I’m absolutely sure I do NOT want to deal with at three o’clock in the morning, and do what I do best I turn on the TV and prepare to fight. PrettyPanties will join her electronic gaming family, wherein life is always good. There is loads of blood-pumping fun to be had in the only place on earth that I’m aware of where life will always have the ability to regenerate and reboot.

  ***

  “AVENGE ME!” I shout into my headset while watching with appreciation and awe as my hero, Mrnotsosmall@all, takes down the last man on the battlefield, the one directly responsible for my untimely death.

  “Nice game PrettyPanties. It’s always you and me in the end. We’re a freaking dream team you know that? I’m off tomorrow so how about we sleep now and then we meet back up later in the afternoon? You down?”

  I just swooned. Ouch! I forgot my headset was on and, note to self, swooning with an unforgiving piece of plastic stuck in your ear hurts.

  “That’s a game plan. Get it? Game plan? Sometimes I’m an awesome punner but you don’t know that side of me, it’s my punniest side…” Oh my god! What have I just done? I’ve gone and rambled, bad, bad rambling at that, which is unacceptable behavior with your gaming buds. No flirting. No rambling! Girl gaming 101! GAH!

  Laughing in a reassuring and, dare I say, flirty way, he responds quickly with, “I’m all yours, PrettyPanties. See you later today. Sleep tight.” I’d swear that if I could see him he winked! HE WINKED! Or maybe he didn’t, but nope, he definitely did. I can feel it.

  Now’s my chance to flirt back without the rambling, and it’s so on.

  “You got it Mrnotsosmall,” it’s worth saying that I did wink while saying this, “You. Me. Lates. It’s on like Donkey Kong.” I should’ve stopped. I should’ve but I didn’t and now it’s quiet. Like really, weirdly quiet.

  “Um, cool. Lates?” And he’s gone. With the push of one little headset button we’re disconnected
until who knows when and I’ve done the unthinkable, I’ve left him with all sorts of weirdness to ponder. Do boys do this? Do they ponder the things we say to them like we do the things they say to us? Here’s to praying they don’t. This is absolutely worth a few Hail Mary’s at bed time, although I can almost hear Mary up there giggling in the great beyond. I’m like the angels’ own personal reality TV show for how not to date. How embarrassing.

  “Master Chief. Come on, let’s go to bed. Mama’s tired and you look like you could use a cuddle.” I scratch deep into his thick neck fur as I stand up and contemplate riding on his back for the short ride to my room. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t like that and I’m also pretty sure that he’d immediately throw me off bull-rider style. What I do know is that I don’t have the energy for that kind of rejection at the moment, so I’ll walk like the good human he’s trained me to be.

  Grabbing my cell phone I make it to my freshly laundered bed, burrow down into the blankets and curl up around master chief, the perfect person-spoon to his doggy-ladle. When I reach to set my phone on the nightstand it startles me by ringing in my hand, lighting up the small space around me.

  Ashton’s screen name, the very creative “BFF” lights up the glass and I make the very mature decision to change it to the ex-BFF. Using my extremely sound judgment I do the obvious and click the power button ending the EX-BFF’s call. Until now I hadn’t realized how upset I was with him but hopefully my quick, unhesitating rejection of his call will alert him to the fact that he’s been sent straight to voicemail, he’s been voice dumped.

  Believe me, his message was received loud and clear with Ms. Answers-the-phone-with-her-butt from earlier. Matter of fact, his hurtful words are what come to the front of my mind as I drift off towards sleep. They begin to roll across the insides of my eyelids like some kind of menacing ticker tape, “At least some girls still know how to have a good time,” and even in my sleep his words make me feel ill. Then, like my psyche’s playing some kind of sick joke on me, I hear a mind-blowing, Dolby surround sound version of a hand slapping a butt followed by the now villainous giggle heard ‘round the world’. His words are my nemesis, the sounds of her giggles my kryptonite. And, bound like I am to my pain, their noises leave me feeling powerless to overcome. The callous of fear that’s hardened around my heart grows thicker and only serves to push me further away. Further away from myself. Further away from the outside. Further away from Ashton.