Chapter 4: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Em

“This is your last one, hun.” The bartender in her upper twenties or early thirties cut me off with a gentle smile while I cringed as a dark liquid burned its way down my throat.

 

I grumbled at her but I couldn’t force any real heat into my voice. I liked it here even if I shouldn’t. A crappy dive-bar a couple of blocks down from my apartment called “The Low Bar.” The name was a poor play on words about the quality of the space itself and the fact that it was literally in a basement. 

 

“I don’t suppose you’ll join me on the outside? Then maybe till late at night or the early morning after.” I smiled at her with a stupid expression but in my alcohol dimmed mind seemed flirtatious. 

 

She gave me a light hearted smile and slid a glass of water over to me, before leaning on the bar. 

 

We were the only people left there as the bar wasn’t busy in the first place, frequented only by a few active locals and those wanting to drown their pains and wallow pathetically in peace. “You know I’m asked that at least once a night but you're probably one of the few to be so blatant about what you want.”

 

I forced myself to laugh, attempting to sip at my water. Trying to conjure sobriety but really just making the gesture. I was far to gone at this point for anything but posturing. “Well I mean you're really hot and I’m single sooo….” I drawled my words out and just looked at her, disappointed to see her shaking her head.

 

“No.” She firmly denied me. “Whenever I see someone like you. A bit too cute and a bit too reckless it just tells me one thing.” I scowled at  the coming accusation. “You want to be hurt.”

 

I started to get up but she stopped me, “No, come on listen to me.” She reached for my hand, softly gripping it. She brought me back from the stool making me sit down before pouring two shots from a labeless bottle with “Afterhours” written on it in black sharpie, followed by two cups of ice water

 

I glared at it and her. “I thought you cut me off.” 

 

She nodded and took both shots herself groaning in disgust. “I did. This is just some shit we keep back here for hard nights. Waters for you.”

 

I shook my head and let it lean on the counter, not able to even get the energy to reply. 

 

“What do you want from me?” I asked quietly.

 

She leaned down over my head resting her chin on her hands. “I just want you to listen. I actually do like you, if your attitude didn’t scream ‘fuck me and make me forget’ I might have actually taken you up on that offer.” She swallowed the second glass before going about beginning to clean as she spoke to me.

 

“I think of it as making an investment for the future. If my words help you might come back here one night and we’ll have a bit of fun. The worst that happens is you learn that asking out people paid to take care of you is a bit rude.” After saying that she laughed and added “Plus, I’m not sure you’ll even remember any of this after all you drank.”

 

I grunted and mumbled back. “Ok. I get it. I want to go home and sleep. What's your point.” 

 

“Whatever you're running from isn’t going to wait for you to be ready to deal with it. Sometimes you need to swallow up your pain and frustration and hit back. Every time you're in here you just drink until you can barely walk and then stumble out, not talking to anyone and not even listening to the music. Nobody is ever going to be able to help you unless you ask for help… from the right people of course.” She stopped her cleaning for a moment and walked back over to me, resting her hand over mine. She leaned in and gently kissed my forehead before sliding the glass of water closer to me, tapping the rim indicating for me to drink it.

 

I tried to scowl but any hostility however mild was long gone. All I could do was grumble back with an offhand comment. “Why isn’t there music playing?” 

 

She laughed at my clumsy attempt to change the topic before pointing at the clock. “Daylight savings time. We closed an hour ago.”

 

I nodded gently and drank the water in one gulp unsure of what to say to her. 

 

“Oh. I-” after an awkward minute of her just softly smiling at me began to play out before I started sputtering out an apology for taking up her time. I felt like I should calm down but for some reason I just felt my heart begin to pound ever harder. Instead I quickly thanked her and rubbed at my eyes before standing up and stumbling over to the door, and out of the bar.

 

I heard the bartender say something about closing my tab but I was already half out the door running from the place in a hurry my slowed and cluttered mind over taken by an anxiety I couldn’t put my finger on. 

 

I heard her footsteps rushing over behind me saying something about a ride but I didn’t wait that long, my fast walking developing into a run in the city's overwhelming shadows and blurring bright lights. 

 

The only thought in my mind was “I need to get out of here.”

 

The seconds stretched into minutes and minutes into hours before I realized I had no idea where I was. Looking around I didn’t recognize the street or buildings, I was simply in a big park at the end of the block some ways away from the bar. A cold November wind was rushing through the air and without any buildings to protect me I felt like curling into a ball as my light hoodie, thin top, and skinny jeans offered little more than absolutely no protection from the cold. Looking around I saw a nearby bench that I stumbled over to, between the alcohol and the bone chilling wind I could barely keep my eyes open let alone stand.

 

I fell sideways onto the bench curling into a ball as I pulled out my phone. I started to open directions when I noticed my notifications blinking with almost twenty missed calls from James. Imagining his haughty tone and critical attitude I felt my face flash in angry heat and I threw my phone as hard as I could at a nearby tree trying to ignore the tears building up in my eyes and the aching pain in my chest that I couldn’t identify. 

 

With my eyes clamped shut and the roaring wind blocking out the city's noise I could only listen to the pounding of my heart as time seemed to pass in an indeterminate way.

 

“I just-I just want to be happy.” I stuttered out to the world, my voice barely a whisper as a cold sprinkling of rain began to fall. In the distance I could hear sirens but they were non-existent to my own world. A world that seemed to have shrunk to include just the bench, the park, and the soothing chill embracing me. “Why is that such a sin… Why?”  

 

“I always felt you’d be a sad drunk.” My eyes shot open in a hurry as I hesitantly, fearfully, looked over at the girl laying beside me. Esme, my best friend and the love of my life, a young woman, about twenty with dark brown eyes and multi-colored hair full of vibrant colors teased me with laughter bubbling up out of her voice. Her smile was so stunning it brightened up the space around her like the morning rays of the Sun. 

 

Slowly I remembered, we were laying together in our hotel room. Following a long night of streaming some games together. Usually her crowd was pretty decent and respectful but tonight everyone was tipping extra and daring us to do things on camera for them. Of course the fact that I wasn’t “Hide0us_Replica pro-gamer” but just “Emily Burdowe amateur lets player” didn’t help. 

 

After the stream we drank ourselves into a stupor and for the last half hour she’d been listening to me angrily rant at her viewers for jeering at her when she refused to comply. “They're a bunch of assholes. They don’t deserve you!” I swore sitting up for a moment before plopping back down next to her annoyed by her laughter.

 

“I don’t know. It was nice in a way.” she said softly leaning her head against my body.

 

My voice ran dry and was choked for a moment as I desperately looked for the words to reply to her, before getting quiet and mumbling back to her shyly. “How could any of that have been nice?”

 

She climbed up a bit to look me in the eyes before kissing me gently. “Just the chance to be ourselves. Be public. Together.”

 

For a heartbeat I felt myself smile alongside her before the kiss seemed to burn me and I pulled myself away in rejection of her dream. “It was… But it was also just an act.” The alcohol and its stupor seemed to leave me as my heartbeat slowed down and emotions chilled me to the bone. “We can’t do this Esme.”

 

I could feel the darkness in the air around her as she hugged me anyways and laid her body against my back. “Don’t you love me?” Her voice was choked with tears that seemed to alight my body with fiery guilt.

 

“How can you even ask me that?!” I pleaded unable to face her as my own tears fell to the floor in front of me and I felt an insurmountable gap grow between us.

 

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“Then why won’t you make this real?! It’s not like were the only people in the world who are gay and in love? I’m myself on stream and in public in every other way so why can’t we have this?!” She pleaded with me getting up and yelling.

 

Unable to put up with it any longer I jumped up myself  and yelled in response, speaking for the first time my genuine feelings on an argument we have had far too much. “This is always so easy for you! You always get to be yourself! People pay you and watch you because you're you! A beautiful and smart and ideal gamer girl who puts up with no shit from anyone. That's what they want and that’s what you give them, but me? 

 

I’m a pro gamer, my identity is a blank slate assembled so hundreds of thousands of people can watch me and act like they can do what I can do! That baghead disguise you loath so much is just a part of the act I put on for them. I took a metaphorical disguise and made it literal so they don’t have to ask any uncomfortable questions when watching me. Nobody has to wonder about my identity, gender or sexuality or any of it because I am nobody. I’m just a bag, with grey clothes and a non-descript voice…” I fell to my knees in shame as my loathing came to the service and I felt Esme’s hands over me.  

 

I started to hug and plead for Esme to apologize with me when I felt something cold and wet shaking me awake. “Hey! You can’t sleep here!” an old man with a puffy and messy beard that reeked of moldy food, cheap liquor, and copious amounts of body odor was shaking me awake. His gloves had soaked through from the sleet that was pouring down on top of us as he pulled me awake and carried me over to the tree giving us just a little bit of shelter from the downpour. 

 

“Esme…” I was mumbling in a strange stupor unable to process the contradiction of the bitter but idyllic world I’d shared with her in my dream and the ugly, cold, and loathsome one I’d been pulled back into.

 

I spat in anger at the man who’d shattered my dream. “You should have just left me be! What are you doing?!”

 

He whirled on me in an angry huff and I expected him to lunge at me when he instead grabbed me and held my face in place forcing me to make eye contact with him. “Who do you think you are you ungretful little brat! If you want to kill yourself do it at home instead of making others feel guilty over your freezing body.” He let go of me, letting my body fall back to the bench in a mute state of shock.

 

He turned around and grabbed my phone, wiping off the snow and water that had fallen on it, and threw it over at me. Catching it I saw it sitting at five percent with another batch of missed calls on it. “Someone cares enough about you to call and that's more than most of us have. Go home kid. Before they stop trying.”

 

He swore about stupid kids before turning away and walking off into the cold sleet and rain.

 

After staring into the distance at where the homeless man had wandered away I felt something crack inside me. Like a dam I’d been plastering leaks into for years, pain and anger and rage came pouring out as I felt to my knees crying. 

 

“I don’t want to die!” I screamed as my body whirled around and I slammed my fist into the tree bloodying it. As I demanded to feel the pain in my heart displayed outward on my body. I punched it again and again until my fingers were bloody and bruised and I was too exhausted to even think of moving. “I hate everything.” I spoke to nobody in particular as the sleet gave way to rain and I could see the barest hints of the mourning sun breaking through the clouds over the horizon. 

 

“I hate you for leaving me Esme. Just one more night! That’s all. I would have come out and dropped the damned disguise. I would have embraced you on stage in front of the entire world and finally been myself. 

 

Did I love you? Of course I did! How did you ever doubt that? I wanted you to be safe! That’s all. I didn’t care what they did to me but you were my world. My only safe-haven and someone took you from me forever. They never even found him! How can I live in a world that can’t even find justice for you? How can I seek a future without you in it, you haunt me every second of every day, and I ran away from you when I should have been there for you! Of course I want to live on and be who you wanted me to be but…” I ran out of words as I leaned against the tree staring into the distance. 

 

“But how can I justify being alive and doing any of it if you're not here with me?” It felt like hours had passed when I was shaken out of my daze by my phone vibrating. A call from James, my phone was on the verge of dieing but he’d been trying to reach me all night.  “I guess he’s our only friend left Esme... He’s always asking me to come back home, maybe I finally should…” 

 

I swiped across the screen after rubbing some of the sleet free from it and answered the phone, hearing his frantic voice I interrupt him.

“James, hey before you say anything I was thinking. I need to do right by Esme’s memory. She’d want us to keep living and keep being ourselves. I’m gonna try again, not as Hide0us_Replica but just as me… I want to come home. Will you help me again? Like old times…” Expecting his desperate agreement I was surprised when he was quiet instead. 

 

“You- Of course… Of course it’s about her… But this doesn’t work. It can’t be like this.” His voice was so calm and void of any kind of emotions I couldn’t help but think I imagined it.

 

“James… Hey are you ok?” I asked my head clearing and the hair rising on the back of my neck. “What’s going on?”

 

He paused for a second before seeming to take a breath, his voice reverted back to his usual self, light and friendly, like you can just hear that’s he’s smiling,  so easily I couldn’t help but think I’d imagined it. “Yea, sorry I’m fine Em.” I was surprised for a second as he actually used my correct name for once. I guess he was trying, maybe I’ve just been too hard on him. He’s been with me the longest so it’s probably harder for him than most people to remember.  “I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you this, and you know how much I’ve been wanting you to come home but you shouldn’t right now… Em, your doxxing went viral. I promise you however bad it is there, it’s much worse here. I’m doing what I can but…”

 

I swallowed my pain and forced myself to speak as I felt myself fighting old instincts to run away. “I understand James, thanks for letting me know. I’ll stay here for now. Hey, let's play a round of Respawn soon ok?” I tried to force myself to smile as I invited him to play our game, the game we built our life around for years. 

 

For a second I thought I heard that coldness seep into his voice as he replied but quickly he seemed again, like his old self. “Had that always been there?” I wondered.

 

“You're not going to move again?”

 

I shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t see it. “No, I have someone here, and I don’t want to run away ever again” He sat in silence for a moment and gave me time to notice the rain had started to stop.

 

“That’s good.” He finally replied before hanging up the phone. 

 

I gave the phone a strange stare before quickly pulling up the map, I was able to just see the map and realize I was just a few more blocks away from my apartment than I had been when I’d been at Low Bar. Before I could think anymore my phone died. I sighed and started walking. 

 

It’d been a long and exhausting night, and even my breathing was starting to hurt but I was able to move at the very least. I took off my hoodie and just hung onto it. My shirt had gotten a bit wet from the rain but wasn’t anywhere as bad as my hoodie and with the sun breaking through the clouds I was able to walk the short distance home with at least one less thing magnifying the chill in my bones. 

 

“Lets adopt  easier, less cold, ways to punish ourselves in the future.” I jokingly thought to myself, trying to force a smile onto my miserable face. 

 

The sun was out but I could still feel the wind whipping through the air, forming tunnels along the city streets magnifying my suffering seemingly out of spite for daring to think the worst had passed by.

 

I neared my apartment and felt my heart plummet as I stood in place aghast. My windows were busted in and my curtains were covered in pictures of Esme and I in various lewd positions, I recognized some of them from my previous life. So called fan art made to represent the two of us. On top of that spray painted across the front of my home was the phrase, “STAY OUT OF GAMING DYKE” My vision turned red as I stormed up to the apartment ready to tear the pictures down and maybe my home along with it.

 

“Hey, you can’t come in here, it's a crime scene.” His name tag identified him as Officer Pugilist, a name that really didn’t appear to fit his appearance at all. Instead of looking athletic and energetic he had a heavyset and bitter appearance, with a face like someone biting into a lemon. 

 

I bit back insults and forced myself to calm down. “This is my home. I’m frozen to the bone, and I just walked here through sleet. Let me in.” I tried to keep my voice calm but from seeing Esme’s memory vandalized, my home broken into and violated, and this cop now blocking my way I was struggling. 

 

The officer started to demand some kind of ID but I lost that hours ago when I left my wallet at the date. “Was that really just hours ago? Will this night never end.” I reached past him and placed my hands along the door handle triggering the fingerprint scanner and awakening the home AI that I’d pay way too much money to have installed to connect my entire home and devices to one easy to control network. 

 

The home AI gave me a standard greeting by name, as I gestured to the cop, a secondary verification that this was indeed my home. He didn’t seem surprised but I guess it's already been proven by me entering in the first place. 

 

“Unless you like standing in the cold come inside.” I yelled at the officer as I immediately moved to tear down the curtains. 

 

He rushed over to stop me before I could reach them. “I understand how you feel mam but please, I’ll let you be in here for your own safety so you can warm up  outside of the cold. Unfortunately, you can’t stay though and you definitely can't take those down. They’re crucial evidence.”

 

I closed my eyes and pushed down the anger and indignation of being told what I can and can’t do inside my own damn home. As hard as I could before gritting my teeth and walking away in a huff I moved from my room, to my shower, and out again dressed and almost dry. This time I was wearing a proper jacket and though my complexion had seen better days and I could already feel a bitter cough coming on.

 

 I grabbed my phone sitting at a ten percent charge and a business card I had made when I got hired as a games journalist who actually still went out and did things like interviews with publishers. As I walked past the cop I slammed the card down on the nightstand. “Call me when you're done in my home!” I yelled at him before storming out. 

 

He shouted at me to wait but I couldn’t stand another second in there, the fake eyes of the drawings of Esme and I seemed to follow me as I left in a huff storming down the street to Leo’s cafe hoping he was there and would speak to me.

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