And if I didn’t need a fake boyfriend to help me get their respect, then why keep up this charade with Daniel? I had no intention of ending our tutoring, but did I need the selfies? The dates? The PDAs? If I wanted the crush to go away, then maybe it was time to end this fake relationship.
Daniel texted me Sunday morning to tell me he’d managed to get his character to fifteen, which didn’t really surprise me. Like I’d told him, the early levels were easy—I’d originally leveled GreenEggsAndSam to fifteen in two days. The game really started at that level, since it was at that point characters could play with others online.
Daniel:So we can play together now, right?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. I should be ending this relationship, not finding yet another thing for us to do together.
Me:I’m not sure...you know I don’t really play much anymore.
Daniel:Please? I’m not very good—I don’t want to play online with strangers who’ll laugh at me. C’mon, I really want to see an actual dragon in the game, and there’s no way I’d survive long enough in a battle to get to a dragon without you.
Me:Okay, but I can’t tonight. I have a bunch of schoolwork and game dev stuff to catch up on.
Daniel:Of course! I’m not going anywhere!
Me:Okay. See you Thursday at the shelter.
I’d wanted to keep my distance, but I found it very hard to say no to Daniel Ramos.
As I was walking into the game-dev meeting on Monday, I got an email from Mrs.Singh to tell me I had officially earned enough community service hours to graduate, so I didn’t have to go to the shelter anymore.
I bit my lip after reading it on my phone. I could end all this now, and not even see Daniel at the shelter anymore.
But ... I didn’t want to do that. I’d made a commitment to Muniba and Andre to be there all semester, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. Or the shelter staff and residents. And also? Just like when Daniel asked me to playDragon Arena, I had trouble disappointing him. And I knew he would be disappointed if we stopped baking together every week.
I’d really been looking forward to our game-dev meeting after school today since our progress on the forest-fairy game was going so well. Cass and I had the opening sequence almost coded by now, and some others had updated me on their progress on graphics and scripts for the other levels. But about ten minutes into the meeting, I realized I shouldn’t have been so optimistic. Jayden and Omar had been working on the script for level three, but I didn’t know what they’d been planning.
Apparently, what they’d done was write the entire level as pretty much a sniper battle. With our forest fairies using semiautomatic weapons.What?
“You’ve turned the level into a first-person shooter?” I shook my head. “This is supposed to be an adventure game!”
Jayden crossed his arms in front of him. “This is way better. Trust me. This is how we win this thing.”
“But it’s a puzzle adventure game! In a forest!”
“I know it’s a forest. That’s why they’re shooting squirrels and birds.”
I cringed at the thought of bloody squirrels in our game. “Absolutely not. As team captain, I’m vetoing this. It goes against the entire vision for the game.”
Everyone else started talking at once again, just like that first meeting. Most agreed with me—that a first-person sniper battle had no place in a puzzle adventure game. Others agreed with Jayden. I tried to get everyone to stop, but Jayden and Omar kept interrupting me to get the last word in.
“This is a democracy!” Omar said. “We should vote! How about everyone write a script, and we vote next week?”
I rolled my eyes, looking at MissZhao, to see if she could help me out. She was working on her computer, clearly keeping to her assertion that she’d be a hands-off adviser. That was probably a good thing—MissZhao would be evaluating my leadership abilities here—so it would be best if she didn’t notice me losing control.
I needed to handle this. “We’ll never get anywhere if we need to wait to vote on every tiny decision. We should keep with the puzzle adventure game play and not do a first-person shooter. Put your hand up if you agree with me.”
More than half of the team put their hands up. “Good,” I said. “Now, Cass, how goes debugging the code for the fairies’ wings in the cave?”
That night after school I was working on the scripts for level four, when my phone pinged. It was a text from Aimee on the group chat with her and Cass.
Aimee:I know what you’re thinking, and it wasn’t Jayden. Also, my nails are REAL!
Me:What Are you talking about Aimee?
Cass:Samaya, check Earl’s Whispers.
Oh god, not again. Dread settled in my stomach. I flipped to the Instagram app and found the picture in question. It was a picture of me, from the game-dev meeting.
