Finally! I think, as I walk out the double doors and into the warm mid-afternoon air. Finally done with this hellhole! I feel a presence on my right side, and smile internally as Caleb grabs my shoulder.

  “We still on for today, bro?” He asks, a giddy smile on his face.

  “Absolutely!” I respond with a smile, the day’s pns coming firmly back into my mind.

  I catch sight of blonde hair as we start walking towards the street, and accidentally lock eyes with May Sail. Her death gre causes me to recede into myself as I hurriedly look away. I sigh internally. May has always been a sore subject… I tried so hard to be her friend, but it didn’t matter. I’m a creep. A weirdo. She was always going to hate me.

  Caleb doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort, as he continues talking about games we’re going to py ter. “So then, I figured we could py Frontline Ops.” He says, his hands moving animatedly as he talks. “I need to show you how much use having a sniper on the team is.”

  I chuckle at that. “Caleb, its FOps, not like No Man’s Land, or SSExtraction. It’s not about roles, just about getting kills.”

  “Bahhh.” He says, waving my statement away. “They’re all the same game. Military shooters about taking objectives.”

  I chuckle. “Uh huh.” He gives me a look. “Whatever you say brother.”

  We keep walking, and despite my efforts, May’s face pops in my mind again. Okay maybe I didn’t try so hard to be her friend. I tried to be more. I shake my head to clear my thoughts. Still, just because she’s a lesbian, doesn’t mean she had to try to ruin my life over one date.

  A soft chime sounds as we enter the gas station that I hadn’t even noticed we walked to. “Alright brother, let's load up! Chips and soda to st us the next few days!”

  I chuckle, and start making my way towards the fridges. “I’ll get the drinks!”

  I pull a couple bottles of vanil co off the shelf, and make sure to grab some rootbeer for Caleb. I turn around, trying to juggle eight bottles of soda in my hands, and look towards my adoptive brother.

  He’s smiling like always as he pulls varying fvors of chips off the racks. In his hands already are a purple bag, and a green bag. My favorites. I feel a tiny prick at the corners of my eyes and quickly wipe it away. Quit that crap, Danny. Men don’t cry.

  Caleb lifts his hand into the air, and spins his finger in a circle, the military sign for ‘regroup’, despite us being within talking distance. I chuckle as I approach him, and make sure the rootbeer is visible.

  “Hell yeah, Brother!” He shouts in excitement as I set the bottles down on the counter. “Some time, I need to get you switched onto the good soda train!”

  “What’s wrong with vanil co?” I ask, while nudging him in the ribs.

  “Co’s already vanil dude!” He responds. “They just mark the over concentrated ones as vanil and call it a day!”

  “Whatever.” I say with a ugh, and look at his chip choices. “At least you have some good taste in chips.”

  “That we can agree on!” He shouts happily, as I pull out my wallet to pay. “Sweet spicy chili is the best!”

  After pulling my card out of the machine, I pick up the bags of our freshly obtained goods. “Sour cream and onion is good too!” I enthuse.

  We continue joking like this as we finish the walk down to his house. To call it a house is an overstatement, it’s more of a quadraplex. One rge house, split into four sections, two above, two below, for four different tenants.

  I greet his mother, who is smoking on the porch, as we head inside. The musty smell of a messy home fills my nostrils, and I let out a soft sigh of relief. This pce feels like home. After unloading our snacks, Caleb sets about cooking some ramen in a wok.

  The ramen is dolr store chicken ramen, and it tastes absolutely amazing. We sit together on the back porch, chatting about school, and our pns for the summer ahead, while we eat.

  He takes our empty bowls back inside, and I can’t help the smile on my face. This is the life. Just me and my brother against the world. He returns quickly, and pces his hand on my shoulder.

  “So,” He says, a grin on his face. “We gaming?”

  I look into the house, and then up at my brother. “Sure. FOps?”

  “Sounds good, Valera.” He says, his use of my st name makes me smile.

  “Ya know, I don’t think I’ve ever asked,” I say with a lighthearted smile. “But why do you always use my st name?”

  “Military and Japan.” He says simply. “Plus, Daniel doesn’t really fit you.”

  “Thanks, Maquias.” I respond.

  He ughs and punches me on the arm gently. “Doesn’t work as well when you do it.”

  “Whatever dude.” I say, and stand up. “Let’s get to gaming.”

  ?????????????

  “That was fun.” He says happily, giving me a wink.

  “Yeah…” I say, my voice dropping slightly.

  He ughs at me, and pokes me in the arm. “Don’t be a sore loser, Brother. It’s unbecoming.”

  “Yeah, yeah…” I say, giving him a smile to show I’m just joking. “It’s been fun though. Thanks for having me over.”

  “No problem dude.” He responds. “See ya tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely.” I reply, and head out towards my dad’s car.

  “Hey kiddo.” My dad says as I sit down in the luxury sedan.

  “Hey.” I respond mely.

  “Did you have fun?” He asks, giving me a smile.

  I lean back into the seat, sighing lightly as I pull the seat belt across my chest and p. “I did.”

  He pulls out of the short gravel driveway that all four units share, and turns onto the main road. “What did you two do?”

  “Pyed video games.” I respond simply. “Had snacks.”

  My dad doesn’t respond, and instead looks straight forward. The drive to my house is very short, and before long we’re pulling into the driveway. I don’t say anything as we walk inside, and neither does he.

  I shut the door to my bedroom as I walk in, and head for my computer. Without a second thought, I turn on my pc and pull on my headphones. It doesn’t take me long to load up Nightfall, and open Harmony, to see if any of my friends are on.

  No one is currently pying. Good. No obligations, which means I can get some trolling done tonight. The game opens, and I hop into a ranked queue. It doesn’t take long for me to find a game, and I insta-lock my favorite support.

  I take a moment to work the muscles in my throat, lifting my trachea slightly. “Good luck, have fun everyone!” I say, my words coming out in a nearly perfect impersonation of a girl’s voice.

  “No you.” Someone in my team responds, but surprisingly, no one comments on having a ‘gamer girl’ in the lobby.

  We set up our defense at a choke point, and get ready for the game to start. I stay near the backline, letting the rest of my team protect me while I focus on healing. The game goes… Alright at best. We win, but no one really responds to me speaking.

  I queue into another match, and it goes very simirly to the previous one. We win, but no one really interacts with me. The third game of the night however is exactly what I needed.

  “Y’all supports had better actually heal.” Some annoying guy says as soon as we can all speak to each other.

  “Ask nicely, and I’ll think about it.” I respond, a snarky tone in my voice.

  “Yeah, fuck that. How about you uninstall and go make me a sandwich, bitch.” He replies.

  A smirk lights on my face. I really needed this. “How about, after I carry us, you go to my garage and change the oil in my car.”

  He doesn’t respond, and we start the game. It immediately starts going poorly. One of our tanks dies early, and I focus my healing on the other one. By the time our other tank has rejoined the battle, Myself and our other tank have both died.

  “What are these heals?!” The man from earlier screams into his mic.

  “I’m at nearly double the enemy’s heals.” I say, after opening the scoreboard. “How come you have no damage and no mit? Seems like a tank diff to me.”

  “I’ll show you a tank diff bitch.” He responds, as if that was some sort of insult.

  “I’m already watching it.” I reply, enjoying the feeling of getting under his skin. “Now, if you were to diff them for a change, that I would like to see.”

  Once again, he doesn’t reply. The game continues, and we continue losing. At the halfway mark, I’ve got more healing than all three supports combined, and double the elims of the tank who is crap talking me.

  “So, we need to do something different.” Someone else on my team says. The other support.

  “I could focus more on kills. That way we could actually take out the enemy for once.” No one responds, and I defte slightly. Maybe I’m going too far. “Okay look, Grattorx, you’re diving in a brawl comp. I’m basically the only one who can help you dive, but our other tank isn’t conducive for it, neither are our damage pyers. You need to py more conservatively. Focus on supporting our other tank, and peeling when they jump on me or WindaVas.”

  No one responds. Nothing I can do about it, I suppose. The second round begins, and we’re attacking. As with the previous round, the roll us immediately, barely letting us get past the first corner.

  “Wait in spawn, group together and move as a team.” I say, and immediately watch our tank to the exact opposite and die to a chaingun. “Or not.”

  I pull out my pistol, and spam shots at the enemy sniper’s head. She shoots at me, but misses, and dies to my bullets. Our other tank pushes forwards, giving me cover, and I step out and start to plink a healer’s head. Some of my shots miss, but most are on target and the toad falls quickly.

  At this moment, the mean tank respawns, and surprisingly doesn’t rush in. I let the others move ahead of me, and spend my time flitting around, topping off my team’s health that fell while our other support was focused on keeping me alive.

  The enemy swordsman jumps on our other support, and just as I am about to pull out my pistol, I watch Mean Tank nd on his head, and unleash a hail of bullets into him. Most miss, but he does eventually pick up the kill.

  “Good.” Is all I say, before moving towards our own sniper to keep him full of health.

  Slowly but surely we push the enemy back, and eventually are nearing the finish line. “I’m gonna ult.” Mean Tank says.

  “Wait a moment. I’m at ninety-eight. Let’s combo ours. You get them in one spot, I’ll knock 'em down.” He doesn’t reply, but also doesn’t jump in. I swap to my pistol, take a few more pot shots at the enemy, and then circle behind a pilr. “Now.”

  I watch as red lightning begins to crackle around his character, before exploding into a massive bck shockwave. Electricity crackles around the enemies who were caught in the radius, and they freeze in pce.

  I step around the other side of the pilr, and pop my ult. My bullets come out fast, their damage and size increased, and I start shooting for heads. My team brings down one, and I bring down the other three who were caught up. Something hits me from my right, and I immediately strafe and start spamming the enemy support with bullets before they can stop us from finishing the round.

  We do make it to the end, and the next round starts. “Hey um, those were good call outs.” The other healer says.

  “Thanks.” I respond quickly. “Thank you. Genuinely.”

  “No problem.” He says, clearly more relieved.

  “You doing okay, Grattorx?” I ask, checking in on the mean tank.

  “Yeah…” He says, his voice much softer. “Thanks for asking.”

  I giggle into the mic. “Of course. I’m sorry for being mean earlier. It’s been a day.”

  “Same.” He responds, but doesn’t eborate.

  The next two rounds go by quickly, and we end up losing both. No one speaks up immediately, so I take the initiative. “Hey you two, with mics. Want to party up?” They both respond with enthusiasm, and I can’t help but let out a joyous, “Yay!”

  The next few matches go by quickly enough, and by the end I’m debating whether I even want to reveal myself. This is what happened with your st friend group… I sigh, but elect to take the risk, and not reveal the joke. It’s more fun this way anyways.

  I pull off my headset, grab my phone, and y down in bed. As I go to set my arm, I see a text from an unknown number.

  ‘Hey Danny, it’s Holly. I know we haven’t really been on good terms in the past, but I wanted to reach out and talk to you. I feel like I never really gave you a chance, and just started being mean because of my sister.’

  ‘If you want, we can call tomorrow, otherwise just text me when you can.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Hey Holly’

  ‘I’ll be honest this is a bit of a surprise’

  ‘But i’m happy to try and be friends’

  ‘I can probably call at some point tomorrow but lets pn on just texting and figure it out from there’

  ‘Nini’

  That was strange. It’s very unlike Holly to do this, but not impossible. Maybe she’s being serious. Worst case scenario she’s full of crap. I’ll deal with that ter though. I yawn, and set my phone down, ready for sleep.

  ?????????????

  “May, come here a moment.” I say to my sister as I watch her pass by my room.

  “Yea?” She asks as she enters my room. “What’s up?”

  “Do you still have Danny’s number?” I ask, smiling as she sits on my bed.

  “Uhhh…” She says slowly, looking me over. “Probably, why?”

  “I had an idea. I want to try and get back at him for the shit he did to you. Mind giving me his number?”

  “I guess not.” She says, while pulling out her phone. “What are you going to do?”

  I give her a wicked grin. “Okay so…” I sit up further, resting my elbows on my knees. “I want to prove to everyone that he’s an obsessive weirdo. So, I’m going to make friends with him.”

  “Okay…” May says, looking at me, curiosity on her face. “And?”

  “Knowing him, he’ll ask me out eventually. Start being weird. You know, his usual.” I expin, my half-baked pn spilling onto my lips. “Once he does, I’ll tell him that I like him emotionally, but I’m unsure about physically.”

  “And, you’ve lost me.” May says, a slight frown on her face.

  “Let me finish!” I whine, holding my hands up. She nods and I continue. “Okay so, I remind him that I’m a lesbian, and tell him I want to try something. See if he’ll let me put him in makeup.”

  “I think I’m starting to understand.” May says with a smile. “Get photos of him in makeup, and share them, yea?”

  “No.” I respond quickly. “Way more than that. Over the course of the summer, I’m going to push it further. Slowly get him hooked on me, and doing more and more. Eventually I’m going to get him into girl clothes, and make him go to his first day of highschool dressed like a girl. Then, that night, after he’s done that, I’m going to dump him, and that’s when I’ll reveal everything.”

  “I don’t know, Holly.” May says, a worried look on her face. “That might be a bit too far.”

  “Nahhhh.” I reply with a smirk. “You heard what he did to Alice. He deserves worse.”

  “I know, I know…” She says softly. “I just… We never really proved that, you know?”

  “You don’t really believe that weirdo over our friend, do you?” I ask, worried for my big sister’s metaphorical marbles.

  She shakes her head immediately. “No. You’re right. Let me give you his number.”