Chapter 31
William
I hate being in the warehouse. Every sound echoes and bounces off the floor, the walls, the high ceiling. It’s not a bad place, but everything here is strong. The lights are brighter, the sounds are louder, the smells—I really don’t like the smells—are oily and plastic. Synthetic and overpowering.
But I find that if I breathe through my mouth slowly, it helps. So I stand at the back of the crowd and fold my arms tightly over my chest. When I start to feel agitated, I tense them suddenly. The pressure helps keep me calm. Just like clenching my jaw helps or squeezing my eyes so tightly I can see spots behind them.
These are tricks I’ve taught myself to deal with the loud, strong, brightness of places like this. It’s either that or my sketchpad, and I left that on my desk because I had no warning about this meeting.
That’s another thing that makes me itchy and agitated. I tense my arms again just at the thought that the whole routine for the day has been thrown off by this announcement the officers want to make. I suppose that Adam would let me stay at my desk if I tell him how much I dislike it. I actually have told him before and he understood—or at least he said he did. But this time, I have a thing or two to say to his annoying best friend. And he’s here too, standing next to April Weiss.
Adam has just finished with the announcement regarding the stock prices and release dates on vesting shares owned by employees. He’s also declared that Draco will be acquiring a company to make the hardware for the new virtual reality equipment. This means more work for me as I am on the team to create the three-dimensional modeling for the new interface.
I blink. I don’t know what to think about that and I try not to, but I squint as Adam announces that Jordan has something he wants to talk about now. I saw him outside in the parking lot this morning, holding hands with April Weiss when he thought no one could see. He gets all the girls to fall in love with him.
And yet all of his advice is pure bullshit.
Maybe he lies so that no one else will compete with him. Maybe his techniques are secrets. The look on his face means he is nervous, I think. He is already talking, and I’m in my own thoughts so I’ve missed what he’s said. He is standing about fifty-three feet away and there are a lot of people between us…because in crowds, I never stand in the middle. Always on the outer edge. It’s easier to breathe there.
“If you care about the welfare of this company, know that it’s expected that what we talk about here is internal company business only,” he’s saying. I have to scrunch my brow and narrow my eyes and really focus to follow him. He’s far away, and the noise—feet shuffling, people whispering, echoes of every little thing. “The incident at the pool party in which one of our interns was wrongly humiliated should not have happened. What’s worse, it should not have been shared with the outside world via social media. But the most shameful thing about it is that she was left to face that humiliation all alone. I want to make that right. On behalf of the company and myself, I’d like to apologize to April Weiss for the behavior she had to endure at the party. I also think it’s right to let you know that I was the other party involved in the video.”
Everything is a lot quieter now. No one is moving. Some eyes are growing rounder, postures are changing, mouths are dropping. Surprise. They are surprised. Unpleasantly so.
“I also owe you, my fellow employees, an apology…” But I’m not listening now. I’m feeling tense, my fists are tight. I’m angry. I don’t like Jordan. I used to like him, but today I don’t like him.
And I’m going to tell him…just…just as soon as these people go away and it’s not so crowded. So I focus my attention inward, trying to use my tricks to think about not being in this room with these bright lights and this noise.
I spend time thinking about her. How her hair is so pale that it is almost white. Pale blonde. Sometimes she pulls it away from her face. The way it forms tiny curls around her neck. I like her wrists. They are delicate. Thin. Elegant. Even her wrists are beautiful. And her eyes. So soft a blue that if I were painting them, I’d have to mix white with the cerulean oil paint. Maybe two parts white to one part blue.
She reminds me of a Raphael angel.
It’s thirteen minutes before they start clearing out. I wait until then to step forward and speak with Jordan. He is walking beside Adam and April, and when they are nearby, I wave to catch his attention.
The three of them stop. My cousin says, “Hey Liam, everything all right?”
I take a breath, remind myself not to be irritated. Only family members call me ‘Liam.’ I tolerate it from three people only—Dad, Adam and my sister, Britt. Oh, there’s my new stepmother, too. Sometimes she slips and calls me ‘Liam’ because the others do and she forgets that I don’t like it.
“I need to speak with Jordan.” I point at him.
Jordan’s facial expression changes. His eyebrows scrunch together. Adam says something to him and then turns back to me. “Okay. See you later.” He keeps walking. April follows Adam after a little hesitation.
“I am angry with you,” I say to Jordan.
He sighs and his eyes look into mine. I jerk my eyes away. I don’t like staring in people’s eyes. I clench my fists, trying to calm myself.
“The advice you gave me was very bad.”
Jordan tilts his head to the side. “I’m sorry. Did it not work out?”
“You said to invite Jenna out in a big group of friends. I invited her to my medieval reenactment society, along with Alex, Heath, Connor and Katya.”
Jordan blinks a couple times. “Okay… I take it she didn’t like that?”
“She likes it a lot. She keeps coming back.”
His feet scuff loudly on the floor. I hate the way his feet sound on the warehouse floor. He’s not wearing sneakers today. Those are much quieter.
“Isn’t that a good thing? Don’t you want her to keep coming back so you can see more of her?”
My fists clench again. I want to swing one of them at him. “No, it’s not a good thing. Because that first night she met Doug Callihan. He’s one of the chief knights of our organization.”
My hands ball up and then relax over and over again—another thing I do to calm down. I take a few more deep breaths, because I still really want to hit Jordan.
“Okay…and what happened when she met him?”
“He asked her on a date. And now they are boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Jordan’s mouth gets round, like he’s shocked. “Oh man. I’m sorry…but that doesn’t mean it’s over. You can still swing this. I’ll—”
I hold up my shaking hand. “I don’t want to swing. I want Jenna. I don’t want more advice because I don’t like your advice. You said that if I asked her out in a group that we would get more comfortable with each other, and then we could become boyfriend and girlfriend. You were wrong.”
Jordan holds his hands up, palms out. “I’m sorry, dude. My advice doesn’t come with a guarantee. But let me see if I can—”
“No!” I shout. I don’t like to shout, but I’m so angry that the choices are either hitting Jordan or shouting. I turn and start to walk away from him. I need to leave this warehouse.
“Whoa, William, wait up.” Jordan speeds up his steps to walk beside me. “Let me see if I can fix this.”
“I’m going to do that myself. Doug is my foe. My rival. My arch enemy. I’ve already challenged him to one-on-one combat.”
Jordan stops walking and stares at me. I pick up speed and run from the warehouse, and I don’t stop even though Jordan is calling my name.
I have to prepare for a duel.
The Gaming The System series continues in , William and Jenna’s story, coming in late 2015.