“You can take it off,” she says. “Your father’s not here now.”
Her voice is so pragmatic. This isn’t a challenge. It only feels like one inside my head.
I’m wearing a long-sleeved athletic shirt under the sweatshirt, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. She wouldn’t see anything.
I think of that feeling in the basement, when I was so certain Matthew was watching me.
Right now, wearing this sweatshirt makes me feel like a coward. Makes me feel like I’m hiding.
Your silence speaks volumes, Son.
I am hiding.
“I didn’t mean to throw you into a crisis,” Emma says quietly.
“You didn’t.” But she did. Sort of.
And that’s ridiculous. We’re talking about a sweatshirt.
I grab the hem and yank it over my head.
“Whoa.” All the breath leaves her in a rush.
I freeze. The sweatshirt is a crumpled ball on the ground beside me.
She’s staring at me. Her eyes might as well be laser beams, the weight of them so potent. “Rev … I didn’t …”
“Stop,” I say. My shirt must have pulled free with the sweatshirt. She must have seen some of the marks my father left. This was such a mistake. I’m so stupid.
I tug at my sleeves, but the shirt is snug and they’re already at my wrists. “Please. Stop.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice is hushed, and she turns to look at the street. “I’m sorry.”
Tension has buried claws in my shoulders. “What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
“You saw something.” My voice is tight and angry and afraid, and none of that has anything to do with her, but she’s here and I feel exposed and none of this is going the way I thought it would. “You said whoa.”
“Hey,” she says quietly. “Rev. I didn’t see anything.”
Memories of my father flash in my brain, so quickly I can’t pin any of them down. It doesn’t matter—none of them are good. My fingers clench around my abdomen. I’m deathly afraid she’s going to touch me and I’m going to lash out and hurt her.
“Don’t touch me,” I force out, keeping my voice as low as possible. “Don’t—you should just go home.”
She shifts in the grass, like she’s moving away. Good. I can inhale.
Then she speaks, right in front of me. “Hey. Open your eyes. Look at me.”
I don’t remember closing my eyes, but I must have. I obey.
She’s kneeling in the grass, holding out my sweatshirt. “I didn’t see anything,” she says again. “Really.”
I swallow. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” It’s not. And I’m not. I still can’t move.
“Okay. Look. I don’t know what you think I saw.” Emma speaks fast. “And I can’t believe I’m going to admit this out loud. But I said whoa because you have an amazing body.”
My thoughts freeze.
The world stops spinning.
She keeps babbling. “I’ve only ever seen you in big hoodies. I was unprepared for …” She gestures. “This.”
I frown. “Are you messing with me?”
“Are you kidding? Looking like that, I would be an absolute idiot to mess with you. Haven’t you ever looked in a mirror?”
I flinch. “Stop it.”
“It’s like watching Clark Kent turn into Superman.”
“Hey.” My jaw is tight, making my voice turn sharp. “Stop it.”
She sits back on her heels. A few strands have come loose from the braid to hang across her face. She impatiently blows them out of the way. “I’m not making fun of you, Rev.”
I feel like such a fool. I look down at the crumpled mess of my sweatshirt. I don’t know what to say.
Your silence speaks volumes, Son.
My eyes burn, and I have to hold my breath. My fingers dig into the jersey fabric.
Emma shifts until she’s sitting with her legs crisscrossed. “My turn.”
It brings me back to earth. My voice is barely a rasp. “Your turn.”
“I’m getting e-mails, too,” she says quietly. “Not from my father. From some jerk in a computer game. He’s not threatening me but—but they’re not good.”
I go still.
“I don’t know him,” Emma continues, her voice soft and heavy. “And I know that sounds crazy. But it’s common in online gaming. Girls always seem to be a target. So he thinks he can send me e-mails that say things like—”
Her voice breaks off. The night is so quiet, I can hear distant cars in the neighborhood.
“Like what?” I say.
“I can’t.” Her voice breaks, and I jerk my head up.
Her eyes glitter with tears, but she’s not crying.
“You can tell me,” I say carefully. I borrow her own words. “He’s not here now.”
For a moment, I don’t think she’s going to answer, but then she fishes her phone out of her jeans pocket, and swipes her finger across the screen.
Then she turns it around to show me.
I can do this all day, baby. Tell me, do you charge for sucking?
The words hit me like a fist to the gut, so I can’t imagine what they must be doing to her. It chases any concern for myself right out of the air. “Emma—this is from someone in a game?”
“There’s more.” She reaches over and swipes the screen. “This was yesterday.”
You suck. And that’s what I’m going to say when I shove it in your mouth hole.
Anger chases my own fears away. “How many of these are there?”
“It’s not a big deal. It’s just some loser with too much time on his hands.”
“Emma—these are threats—”
“But they’re not. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. It’s just some douchebag with an e-mail account.” Despite her cavalier words, tears are bright on her cheeks. “Stupid, right?”
“It’s not stupid.” I wish I had a tissue to give her. “It’s—horrible.”
“No.” A big sniff. “It’s common. It happens all the time. He’s just a troll. I shouldn’t be this upset.”
“Emma—this is a big deal.”
“It’s not.” She swipes at her face. “Really. It’s not. You’re dealing with PTSD or something, and I’m crying over a dumb troll.”
I flinch. “It’s not a competition.”
“No! That’s not what I meant.” She straightens. “I didn’t realize asking you about the sweatshirt would turn into … into that.”
“I think you can cry over a dumb troll if I can lose my mind over a stupid sweatshirt.” I drag a hand through my hair. I feel wrung out.
She levels me with her eyes. “It’s about more than the sweatshirt.”
“Well.” I pull the sweatshirt over my head and force my hands through the sleeves. “I think it’s about more than the game.”
She swallows. “You’re right.”
“So are you.”
We sit in the dark facing each other. Challenging each other, without risking anything.
My cell phone chimes, and I fish it out of my pocket. Kristin.
Mom: Just checking on you.
I shove it back in my pocket. “My mom.”
“She doesn’t know about the messages from your dad?”
I shake my head. “No—not my mom that way. She doesn’t know him. She’s—I’m adopted.”
She frowns like she wants to push for more information, but then her cell phone chimes, and she yanks it out of her pocket.
“My mom.” She sighs.
I hesitate, then get to my feet. “We should probably get back before they send out search parties. I was pretty messed up when I walked out of the house.”
“Me too.” She gets to her feet, wrapping the dog’s leash around her wrist.
Then we stand there, not moving, sharing the same air.
“Do you—” I begin, then stop short. I have no practice with this. I’m not even sure what I’m asking.
She waits.
I take a breath and try again. “Would it be weird if I asked if you wanted to do this again?”
“You mean, meet behind the church to freak out together?”
I let out that breath. “Yeah?”
“Probably. Would it be weird if I said yes?”
I smile. “Probably. Tomorrow night? Eight o’clock?”
“Sure.” She turns to go.
I watch her walk across the grass, the dog trotting lazily by her side.
“Hey, Emma!” I call.
She whirls. “Yeah?”
“That’s not okay,” I say. “What he said to you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” She turns and keeps walking.
Then she turns around, but continues walking backward. “Hey, Rev.”
I haven’t moved, but it makes me smile. “Yeah?”
“Whatever your father did to you. That’s not okay either. You know that, right?”
The words hit me hard. I can’t speak. I nod.
“Good.” Then she turns around, breaks into a run, and she’s gone.
NINE
Emma
The message from Nightmare is right in the middle of the screen when I open my laptop.
It’s lost a little bit of its power, though.
That’s not okay. What he said to you. You know that, right?
I did know that. I do know that. But for some reason, hearing the words from a complete outsider gives them a little more weight.
Hearing the words from Rev gives them a little more weight.
I’ve never met anyone quite like him. He’s intriguing. I said that watching him lose the sweatshirt was like watching Clark Kent turn into Superman, but that was almost an understatement. It’s more like finding the dark and brooding Oliver Queen under the hood of the Green Arrow.
I don’t usually tell anyone about in-game harassment—it’s so common that I rarely think to mention it. If someone hassles you in person, you can tell a teacher, or talk to a manager, or call the cops. It’s one person, and you can recruit other people to help stand against them.
If someone harasses you online, you can have them blocked—but they can reappear in seconds, pretending to be someone else. Over and over again.
Anonymously.
I close Nightmare’s message, log in to my admin panel, and block him again.
This is beginning to feel a bit fruitless, though. Nightmare has already demonstrated a willingness to create new accounts to harass me. I’m stuck in this space where I’m giving him what he wants—attention—and wishing I had a more effective means of attack.
I don’t. So. Here I sit.
A message is waiting from Ethan, too.
Friday, March 16 8:11 p.m.
From: Ethan_717
To: Azure M
What happened? All OK? I’ll be on for a while if you get a chance to log in. If I’m not here, check Battle Realms.
It makes me smile. He’s turning into a friend.
What a weird night.
The moment I have the thought, there’s a tap-tap-tap at my door. I slide my headphones onto my neck and sigh. It has to be my mother. “Come in.”
Mom eases the door open. She’s in loose pajama pants and a tank top, her hair in that signature ponytail. Sometimes I wonder if she’s trying to send a statement to the world that she has no time for feminine standards—but really, she’s probably just too busy to bother with more.
Texy gets up from where she was flopped out and noses at Mom’s hands.
She rubs the dog absently behind her ears. “Are you playing?”
I bristle. “It’s a Friday night.” I glance at my clock. “And it’s not that late.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. I was asking if I was interrupting.”
Sure. “No. It’s fine.”
“Can I come in?”
I close the laptop and wish I could say no. I don’t want a lecture, so it’s better to just get this over with. “Okay.”
She eases into my desk chair and looks around. “I wanted to talk about what you said this morning.”
“Oh. When I was in the shower?”
“Yes, Emma.” She sounds a little exasperated at my attitude. “When you were in the shower.” Texas is leaning against Mom’s legs, her head resting in her lap. I want to call her away, but Mom is rubbing her head now. It reminds me of how Rev was doing the same thing. Maybe it’s a tension release.
“We don’t need to talk,” I say. “I know you don’t like the gaming.”
“Emma—it’s not that I don’t like the gaming. It’s that I want you to be realistic about your goals.”
I scoff. “What do you know about my goals?”
“I know you think your father has an amazing job. I know you’d like to be a game designer yourself. But sometimes luck plays a role, and that’s not something you can count on.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I’m very much in favor of furthering women’s advancement in STEM fields, but I think it would be prudent for you to have some practical—”
“I know. I get it.”
“I don’t think you do. I’m asking you to keep an open mind—”
“If I’d said you were interrupting, would that have stopped this conversation?”
“I don’t appreciate that, Emma. Every time I try to talk to you—”
“Look.” My throat tightens, because she’ll never understand why this is important to me. “I don’t want to be a doctor. I’m sorry, okay?” I put the headphones back on my head and open the laptop before emotion can crowd into my voice. “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.”
Her expression seems frozen between surprise and irritation. “Emma. What—”
I press a button. Hard rock courses into my headphones. She keeps talking, but I have no idea what she’s saying.
I lock my eyes on my monitor. If I listen to one more word, I’ll start crying.
She’s still talking. I wonder how long I can get away with this.
I log in to OtherLANDS and keep my eyes on the log-in message.
An iMessage from Cait appears on the screen.
Cait: Are you gaming?
Emma: No, I’m ignoring my mother.
Cait: What do you mean?
Emma: I mean she’s sitting right here and I am not listening to her. What’s going on?
Cait: I got all set up to do a video, but then Calvin needed the laptop for homework. Now I’m just killing time.
Calvin is her younger brother. I should ask what her video is about, but I really don’t want to talk about eyeliner or cosplay or foundation right now.
At the same time, I don’t like this weird distance between us. I type quickly.
Emma: Do you want to come over?
Cait: Doesn’t sound that happy at your house right now.
She’s right. I glance up. Mom is still there. She’s glaring at me now.
That’s actually helpful. A glare means she’s angry instead of pretending to understand. I can deal with angry.
I pull the headphones down. “What?”
“I’m trying to have a conversation. If you’re trying to demonstrate your maturity, ignoring me won’t do the trick.”
“Look, I know you think Dad is a waste of space right now. Sorry I got the bulk of his DNA. Must be so rough for you.” My voice threatens to waver. I pull the headphones back up.
I force my eyes to stay on the screen, but I can see her in my peripheral vision. Her face is red, her jaw clenched. She looks like she’s ready to yell. Or to hit something.
I hope she does. I’d love to see her lose it.
Instead, she walks out.
Emma: Mom just walked out. That didn’t take long at all.
Cait: What’s going on?
Emma: She’s mad that I don’t want to be a doctor.
Cait: Have you showed her the game?
Emma: I don’t think it would matter.
The little dots appear below my message, showing th
at she’s writing back, and they seem to go on forever.
And ever.
And ever.
I log in to my game while I’m waiting.
A message flashes at me immediately. No connection found.
What? I glance at my bookcase, at my flashing router.
Which isn’t flashing.
WHAT?
I get up and pull the plug, then wait a full minute.
When I plug it back in, it still doesn’t work.
I go to the door and fling it open.
Before I can say a word, my mom calls from down the hall. “Problems, Emma?”
Irritation stabs me right in the back. I can tell, just from her voice, that she’s done something. “Did you cut the Internet?”
“Maybe you would have noticed if you weren’t so busy ignoring me.”
I want to punch the wall. “And you called me immature?”
She comes to the doorway of her bedroom. She’s rubbing lotion into her hands. For a moment, I feel as though we’re having some kind of standoff.
“Maybe a night without the Internet will do you some good,” she says. “Some time to think.”
“I don’t know why Dad puts up with you,” I snap.
She jerks back, like I’ve hit her.
Turning off the Internet feels like she’s hit me.
I slink back into my room and push the door closed. My throat refuses to loosen. I’ve already started regretting what I just said.
The worst part is that I sound just like her. The gaming DNA might have come from my father, but the biting one-liners are all her.
I close my laptop and pick up my phone. I could connect to the phone via Bluetooth and get Internet that way, but it would never support gaming. The only place she could have disconnected the Internet is at the Verizon box in the basement, so I just need to wait until she’s asleep to reconnect it. Not a crisis, but a pain in the ass.
Emma: My mom just cut the Internet.
Cait: I guess she wasn’t happy about the ignoring.
Emma: Whose side are you on?
Cait: I wasn’t taking sides! I’m just saying.
I don’t know what to say. My mental state has gone straight to hell in a matter of minutes. I want to pick a fight with everyone right now.
Where’s Nightmare when I need him?
There’s a long pause before the little gray dots appear from Cait’s side of the conversation.
More Than We Can Tell Page 6
