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For the first time since being committed to V-hab, I lost track of time. The star stickers glowed a sickly green above my bunk. The air conditioner grumbled.
I lay on my bunk for I don’t know how long—staring at nothing, feeling nothing, just imagining lovely, beautiful Gravity, lips painted a sensuous red, sitting alone at Mandrake’s.
Then I felt the familiar pat of a giant hand. My head rolled to the side. Fezzik smiled. Or at least tried to.
“What time is it?” I asked.
He looked at the shattered clock. “I think it’s a little after seven.”
My heart broke. I’d missed it. I had just stood up the loveliest girl I’d ever met.
The star stickers glowed. The universe meant nothing.
“Miles . . .”
“I don’t care right now,” I said, pulling the sheet over my head.
Fezzik continued anyway. “There are lots of problems with this facility. I personally don’t think G-man understands what it’s like to struggle with life so much that Arcadia becomes your only escape. Being the Emperor got me through some very dark times. . . .” He gave his head a little shake. “Also, games are meant to be voluntary, and gamified therapy seems to bring out the worst in some.”
We both pretended he wasn’t talking about me.
“But that doesn’t mean you and I don’t need this place. As fun as video games are, they have given us unrealistic expectations about the world.” He went quiet, like he was considering whether or not to tell me something. “I quit games so I could live. But getting turned down by Sue felt like dying.” He breathed deeply. “Miles, why would we ever want to pursue something where, with just a little bit of effort, success was guaranteed? There’s a reason we play Arcadia instead of LEGO: Batman. It’s the challenge that won’t let us take good things for granted.”
I pushed the sheet off my head. “A little bit of effort? I worked my ass off these last few days.”
Fezzik nodded. “That’s what I mean by unrealistic expectations. You can’t work hard for four days and expect everything to just fall into your lap.”
I rolled and faced the wall. “I could if G-man would let me go.”
“Maybe,” Fezzik said. “But you can’t blame him.”
Yes, I could.
“I can’t say I approve of how you treated your guildmates this week,” Fezzik said. “But who knows? Maybe a fair maiden—er, young woman would stop you from going back to Arcadia. Maybe she would bring out the best in you.”
“She would have,” I said, picking at the wall’s gray paint.
Fezzik sighed. “And there she is, just sitting at that restaurant, all alone.”
I turned back over. “Are you trying to make me feel worse?”
Fezzik smiled. “I don’t want you to give up on living in the real world just yet.” He held up a cell phone with a Final Fantasy case that showed Cloud holding a Buster Sword. “I think you’ve been knocked down enough. Time for a limit break.”
“Fezzik.” A hearth fire crackled to life in my chest. “Best Final Fantasy reference yet.”
I sat up and took the phone.
“I already looked up Mandrake’s number,” he said. “You just have to press call.”
The button glowed green on the phone’s screen. Gravity was one touch away. I adored Fezzik in that moment. The Emperor of Arcadia had swooped into real life and saved me at the last possible second.
“I got ya covered,” he said, and blocked me with his giant frame so I couldn’t be seen from the Nest door.
I took a deep breath.
I pressed the green button.
It rang.
Contact from beyond the infinite sandbox.
With each ring my heart doubled its speed.
“Mandrake’s,” a girl’s voice said. I could hear the bustle and clink of a busy restaurant in the background.
“Um, hi.” My voice shook. “This is a really weird question, but is Serena there? Black hair. Sixteen maybe? Sitting at a table alone?”
“Oh yeah,” the hostess said. “I know Serena. She comes in all the time. Let me see if she’s here.”
The line muffled and went to hold music.
Fezzik looked over his shoulder. “Deep breaths.”
I took his advice. It didn’t help.
Panic swelled. The exit light buzzed. Fezzik’s nostrils whistled. What was I going to say? What would be my excuse? Should I tell her about V-hab? I’d been so anxious to call, I had pressed the button before thinking this through.
As if reading my mind, Fezzik said, “Tell her you were injured in a car crash.” He nodded at my shoulder. “It isn’t too far from the truth.”
I smiled. The music cut. My heart leapt. The phone crackled and fumbled.
“You still there?” the hostess said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I don’t see her. I don’t think she’s been in here tonight.”
“Oh . . .”
I looked at the phone. Seven fifteen. Fezzik’s eyebrows wrinkled.
“You want me to tell her who called if I see her?” the hostess said.
Fezzik heard and shook his head.
“Um, no thanks.”
I hung up.
Fezzik took his phone. “She’s just running late. Making herself extra pretty for ya.”
“Yeah, probably,” I said. I hoped.
“I have to go make sure the Burds are set up at the Feed, then I’ll come back and we can try again.”
“Thanks, Fezzik.”
He left the Nest.
I sank back into my pillow. I began to play with the idea “what if?” What if Serena wasn’t there when I called back? What if she had stood me up? Had she pretended not to have a phone or a Facebook account in order to get away from me at the car wash? What if she never liked me at all and I really was a pathetic loser that she’d taken temporary pity on, and all of my effort this week had been for a girl who didn’t give a damn about me?
Then again, she had laughed. A couple of times. That had been real . . . right?
The green glow of the star stickers grew nauseating. I remembered standing alone at the airport the last time my mom had no-showed on me . . . watching the crowds, hoping each new face would be hers. My insides got that feeling Aurora described as curdled milk and skinned knees.
If I’d been nervous when I’d made that first call, it was nothing compared to when Fezzik returned. Suddenly I was terrified of that phone. It was no longer a matter of what I was going to say to Gravity. It was a matter of whether I’d get to say anything to her ever again.
“Round two,” Fezzik said, handing me the phone.
I pressed the green button.
The phone rang.
He gave me a thumbs-up.
“Mandrake’s.”
“Hi. So sorry. Me again. Did Serena make it there yet?”
“Um, let me check.” The hostess sounded annoyed. “It might be a minute. It’s really busy.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Take your time.”
She put me on hold.
Fezzik gave me a kindly smile.
I wanted to think about anything other than what I was doing. The desperation of it. The neediness. And then I remembered. Mine wasn’t the only broken heart in the Nest.
I covered the phone. “Were you and the Silver Lady . . . y’know, a couple?”
Fezzik opened his mouth. “It’s complicated. Or maybe it isn’t. She just doesn’t have any room in her life for someone like me.” His shoulders deflated, but he still managed that giant smile.
The hold music jumped to another track. My heart jumped with it.
“I know I shouldn’t give up on love altogether,” Fezzik said. “You don’t quit when you get killed in Dark Souls for the hundredth—”
The strings music stopped, and I held up a finger.
“You still there?” the hostess asked.
I covered my eyes. “Yeah.”
“She’s not here. Sorry.”
I exhaled. “Thanks.”
I looked at the phone. It was 7:48. The screen went black.
“Maybe something came up,” Fezzik said, taking his phone.
“No. She was too good for me.”
“If you think a girl who stands you up is too good for you, then you’re just cranking up your own difficulty setting.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I sank back into the bed.
“I’ll give you some time alone,” Fezzik said.
The Nest door closed behind him. All I wanted then was video games. Video games and the Wight Knights. Just give me a computer and an axe and a wave of clockwork chipmunks.
That sounded like the perfect thing.
The only thing.