Page 1 of Glitched Play

one

. . .

Maci

Encrypted Message: Rune

If life comes with a tutorial mode, I definitely skipped it.

My room is overflowing with all the things I can’t bring myself to say. Crumpled pages spill over the trash can rim like evidence, each one another failed attempt at goodbye. I should stop. I should pick them up. Instead, I fold the latest disaster into a tight paper ball, weigh it in my palm like it matters, and launch it across the room.

Swish.

My lips twitch, then grow into a smile. “If my parents could see me now. Trash Can Basketball Extraordinaire.”

I lean back in my chair and study the overflowing basket like it might have answers tucked between all those crumpled pages. Maybe that’s the sign I’ve been waiting for. Maybe this is exactly where these letters belong—in the trash, not mailed, not rewritten, not agonized over for another night until the words stop looking like words and start looking like proof that I’m a coward. After ten years of writing to Glitch—my pen pal, my online gaming partner, the person who knows every version of me except the one with a real name and a face—I should know how to say goodbye. But we’ve been growing apart in tiny, quiet ways, and somehow that hurts more than one big ending ever could.

My gaze lands on the latest victim, wrinkled and half-buried near the top of the pile. Two words peek out from the paper.

Dear Glitch.

The sight makes something twist painfully in my chest. Because the problem isn't writing the letter. It's that no version says what I actually mean.

I pull another sheet of paper closer and try again.

Dear Glitch, I think we’ve outgrown this.

The words sit there, neat and brutal, and I stare at them until my chest tightens. No. Because that isn’t true.

Outgrowing someone should feel natural, like shoes that pinch or a game you finally stop replaying. This feels more like losing connection in the middle of a match and waiting for the screen to reload even though some quiet part of you already knows it won’t. I crumple the page before I can change my mind and send it flying across the room.

Swish.

Dear Glitch, I met someone.

Lie.

My hand stills the second the lie appears on the page. Technically, I have met people. I meet people all the time. That doesn’t make the sentence true, not in the way it’s supposed to be true, not in the way that would make walking away from him easier. The lie sits there like a flashing warning sign, bright and ugly and impossible to ignore. Nope. I crumple that one too.

Swish.

Dear Glitch, I’m tired.

This time, I don’t move right away. I stare at those two words longer than all the others because they’re true. Painfully true. I’m tired of waiting for a message that doesn’t come, tired of wondering if he’s busy or bored or already gone, tired of feeling ridiculous for missing someone I’ve known for ten years and still wouldn’t recognize if he walked past me on the street. The paper eventually joins the rest of them in the basket.

Swish.

By the looks of it, I should have tried out for basketball.

My phone buzzes across the desk. Mom. I let it ring twice before answering. "Hello?"

"Where are you?" No hello or how are you, classic Mom.

"At home."

"You said you'd leave an hour ago."

Crap. I glance at the clock.