As soon as I logged in, I checked our guild roster to see if Parker was on. Kaydinn and Eilarae weren’t playing (though I hadn’t really expected them to be so late at night), but Sovay and Parker were both logged in, so I was happy.
Hey you, I typed to Parker, feeling a particular fondness for him today, since he had been sweet enough to try to pull me off of Tawny.
That’s what true friends did—pulled you away from someone who could definitely beat you up if they wanted to.
Why are you on so late? he asked.
I could ask you the same thing, I pointed out.
Touché.
So, how was your day today? I asked, trying to be casual when, in all honesty, I was desperate to see what he thought of Reagan (aka me) now that she had “grown a backbone.”
My avatar walked into the city barbershop so I could try out some new hairstyles while waiting for Parker to respond. I didn’t want to seem too desperate by holding my breath while he typed.
“Oh, cute pigtails,” I said out loud before quickly looking over my shoulder. It was probably better if I didn’t talk to myself when I was supposed to be asleep and grounded from gaming.
It was good, he replied neutrally.
Good?
That was all he was going to say to his best online friend? Had my little display of courage done nothing? It was like he was trying to nerf my whole scheme to win his heart while never really admitting to him that I liked him.
Did you finally talk to your little cheerleader? I asked, hoping I sounded like I was joking and not like I had suspiciously good insight on the events of his day.
This whole double life thing was seriously starting to make me feel like a stalker.
I didn’t, he typed.
Ugh. Liar.
But I talked to her friend, he went on.
That made me slightly less mad at him for being so hesitant to talk about how awesome it was that I actually stood up to Tawny.
Okay, maybe I was unjustified in feeling so good about myself for not being a total sellout anymore.
You’re never this hard to get information out of! What happened?
So that probably seemed a little desperate, but I was sick of trying to coax information out of him.
My chat box was silent for a long time, and I tried to concentrate on picking a new hairstyle when all I wanted to do was ask Parker what was taking him so long to respond. We seriously needed our own private voice chat channel.
Her annoying friend (who we’ll call The Troll) called me over and was trying to make me look like an idiot, and I was just so sick of her controlling everyone that I didn’t let her push me around. It was kind of fun actually, to see the look on her face when I insulted her. Of course, it was terrifying as well, since her nails are long and I’m pretty sure she could inflict some massive damage with those. But anyway, the blonde cheerleader (heretofore known as Elite Cheerleader) must have been inspired by the sight of her Troll leader losing to a nerd because she definitely . . .
His message cut off there. Apparently he’d used his maximum allotted typing space, and so I was left to wonder what he was going to say next as I stared at the screen like a nerd waiting for Comic Con tickets to go on sale.
Not that I had ever done that.
Well . . . I hadn’t done it more than twice, at least.
Punched her right in the face! Well, that was after she tackled her to the ground and told her she hated her. I do feel bad, though, because she got knocked in the face pretty hard by The Troll. But Elite Cheerleader can handle anything!
He made it sound like I was a superhero in a comic book.
Are we seriously calling her Elite Cheerleader now?
Is that all you got out of that story?
I laughed at the screen before quickly covering my mouth. I was pretty awful at sneaking around when I was grounded.
So she earned some major faction points with you? I teased.
You’re impossible to talk to.
Oh, you’re so amazing Rekrap! How did you manage to bring out the pure heart buried deep inside of one so evil? Only you could be that amazing. Is that what you wanted to hear? I joked.
Laugh it up, but I’m pretty sure Elite Cheerleader is a lot cooler than we thought she was at first.
Wait. I thought we knew she was cool and that was the problem, I pointed out.
As much as I felt guilty for not telling Parker who I really was, I had to admit that it was nice to witness his feelings firsthand. It was like having the ability to read his thoughts. Who else got this kind of insight into their relationship?
Sorry, let me rephrase. I guess she’s a lot less cool than we thought. How cool is that?
You make no sense sometimes, I told him.
Hello! he typed, as his avatar appeared right beside mine. I see you wasted no time in taking advantage of the new hairstyles from the patch.
You know it! My character is so cute now.
You play this game like a girl, he told me.
I guess at least you know I’m not some forty-year-old man playing the game in my mom’s basement and pretending to be a girl, right?
That happens way too often to joke about, he responded. Anyway, your character looks good.
Something only a lonely guy would say, I teased.
Hey, I’m not alone, remember? I have Elite Cheerleader.
+++
“Match!” Cannon yelled triumphantly, though I wasn’t quite sure why he seemed so triumphant; it wasn’t that difficult for him to beat me at a game that required so much intellect.
“You’re such a cheater,” I mumbled as I scanned the cards, trying desperately not to be outdone by my little brother.
“I can pretend not to see the matches if it’ll make you feel better,” he offered, sounding much sweeter than he was being.
“Do you want me to play this stupid game with you or not?” I asked.
“Okay, sorry! Don’t punch me or anything,” he responded with a laugh, making me roll my eyes at his poor sense of humor.
“That’s not funny.”
“But it is kind of accurate,” he said.
“Just play the game and be quiet,” I warned.
We were silent for a moment as Cannon got three more matches in a row and I sat helplessly by, not even sure how he had found those.
“Hey Reagan?” he asked, instantly making me sigh.
“What, Cannon?”
“Why did you hit that girl?”
I stopped searching for matches for a moment and looked up at Cannon. I definitely needed to make sure I gave him the responsible older sister response.
“Because she was being mean to my friend,” I answered neutrally.
In all honesty, if I wanted to be a truly good sister, I probably should have said, “fighting is never the answer,” which is kind of true. But Cannon was smart, and he’d know my heart wasn’t in that response. So I gave him the real answer.
“Really, you shouldn’t ever hit people,” I amended, “and I feel bad that I did it. But I’m not sorry that I stood up for a friend.”
“There’s a girl at school that people pick on,” Cannon said.
I wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this, but I didn’t want to ruin a potentially nice brother-sister moment, so I kept my mouth shut.
“She’s really nice, but I already get made fun of, so I feel like I can’t be her friend,” he continued, making me feel pretty awful.
Cannon was like all of the people Tawny and I had terrorized over the years. My little brother was a sweet and seriously cute little boy, but because he was so freakishly smart, people wouldn’t see that. It made me furious to think that people were being mean to Cannon just because he was smart, but I couldn’t really be all high-and-mighty about it, since that had been my default setting ever since I met Tawny.
“What should I do?” he asked.
I thought about this for a moment, wondering if I was even qualified to give him advice when I wouldn’t be following
it myself.
“I think you should talk to her. If you guys are both getting picked on anyway, isn’t it better to have someone you can talk to about it rather than having to deal with it alone?” I asked.
“Is that why you really hit that girl? Because she was making fun of someone you could talk to about stuff?”
“Yeah, buddy,” I answered. “That’s why I did it.”
“Hey Reagan?”
“Yeah Cannon?”
“For my non-genius big sister, you’re pretty smart.”
15. Sibling Aggro
“Reagan?” my mom asked, knocking on my bedroom door on Saturday morning and forcing me to (once more) unplug my computer violently from the wall so she wouldn’t see that I was gaming when I was grounded.
I pulled my decoy copy of Looking For Alaska off my bed and held it up in front of my face right as she entered the room.
“Hey Mom,” I said, a little too brightly. “Just reading. What’s up?”
I was kind of a terrible liar, but Mom either didn’t pick up on it or didn’t care enough to point it out, because she had something to tell me.
“Your father and I have to go run some errands today, so I need you to be here for Cannon’s play date,” she said, leaving out the obvious fact that I had to stay home anyway.
You know . . . being grounded and all?
“Isn’t Cannon a little old for play dates?” I asked, thinking the word sounded strange for a nine-year-old. I didn’t care how smart or socially awkward my brother was, no nine-year-old should have an arranged friend.
“Call it whatever you want—he has a girl from his school coming over to ‘hang out,’” she said, putting air quotes around “hang out” like she thought “play date” was a better term for it.
“A girl, huh?” I asked, wondering if it was the girl he’d told me about a few days ago.
“I know. He’s only nine and he’s already having girls over,” my mom answered in disbelief, looking much more stressed out than she should have been about the whole thing. “Anyway, she’ll be here in an hour but we have to get going, so just keep an eye on them for me.”
“Will do, chief,” I said with a salute.
Mom’s eyes shifted from me over to my computer screen and for a moment I was worried I hadn’t pulled the cord out. I tensed up but refused to look behind me and give myself away.
She didn’t say anything but gave me a meaningful look before leaving my room.
I let out a deep breath and checked my computer for any sign that it had been on, only to realize that I’d had my headset on the whole time I’d been talking to my mom.
Smooth Reagan. Really smooth.
+++
When Cannon’s little date (or whatever you called it when two nine-year-olds got together) showed up early, he instantly went into a panic, acting much less reserved than he normally was.
“Reagan, do I look okay?” he asked in alarm, his big blue eyes wide.
It was pretty cute to see him getting all nervous over a girl, and I was glad that he had made a friend at school. It meant that I didn’t have to go beat up some little kids for picking on my brother . . . Probably a good thing to avoid.
“You look fine,” I laughed. “Do you want me to get the door?”
Cannon nodded his head vigorously and pushed me toward the entryway with more force than I thought possible, given his small size.
“Take it easy, Casanova,” I said with a grin as he ran back into his room.
Apparently he was trying to play it cool.
I opened the door to see a little girl with red curly hair, freckles, and big green eyes staring up at me with the biggest smile I’d ever seen. She was absolutely adorable, and it broke my heart that people like Tawny and I would spend all of our extra time making her school career miserable.
At least I had decided to change, right? That had to count for something.
“Is Cannon here?” she asked in a high-pitched voice, twirling a bright red curl around her finger.
“Yeah, come on inside,” I said, trying not to laugh at the fact that I was the chaperone for an elementary school romance.
“Lily, I told you to wait for me,” said an all-too-familiar voice as Parker ran up my driveway, chasing after the little girl. “Mom would kill me if I just let you walk into a stranger’s house. Sorry,” he added as he approached the door.
As soon as he saw my face, his lighthearted grin melted away into an expression of pure confusion.
“Reagan?”
“Hey Parker,” I said stiffly. “So, you’re Lily’s brother? You two don’t look anything alike.”
Tactful, as always.
“Yeah, she got my mom’s red hair and my dad’s green eyes. I got the boring genes,” he joked, rubbing the back of his neck nervously like he always did.
It was a characteristic that I was growing accustomed to.
“Hey Lily!” Cannon called from upstairs, sounding overjoyed that he had a friend over for the first time.
He wasn’t exactly playing it cool, but I was glad. I didn’t want my brother to turn out like me, constantly trying to play the game in high school. I would much rather he be himself, even if it got him labeled as a nerd.
“Rekrap, can I go see Cannon now that you know his sister isn’t crazy?” Lily asked.
“Don’t get into too much trouble,” he warned at her retreating form, smiling fondly at his sister.
“Rekrap, huh?” I asked.
It was odd to hear Parker’s character’s name in the real world.
“Yeah, my sister went through this phase where she liked to spell words backward and say them. It’s pretty weird. But she liked my name backward, so it kind of stuck as a nickname,” he explained.
The whole time I’d known Parker online, I’d just assumed his character’s name was his idea. Knowing it was his little sister’s nickname for him was slightly adorable.
Okay, fine, it melted my heart, but that was just the possible concussion from Tawny’s hit talking.
“She went through a backward spelling phase?” I asked, trying not to mention Voyager’s Quest at all and give myself away by asking about his character’s name.
“Yeah. Genius kids,” he said with a shrug, knowing that I would understand better than anyone what weird things genius children did.
“I could write a book about all of the crazy things Cannon does,” I agreed, laughing.
Then we were silent.
I guess when the boy you like doesn’t realize that you’re actually his best online friend and that you share all of the same interests, conversation runs dry pretty fast.
I shifted my weight uncomfortably a few times like an avatar left idle for too long before Parker startled me by bringing his hand slowly up to my cheek. At first I thought he might kiss me and I had to figure out if I would still play snobby, indignant Reagan, or if I’d let him know how much I wanted to kiss him.
But he didn’t try to kiss me.
Instead, he let his finger lightly trace my almost-vanished bruise along my cheekbone.
“I’m really sorry about all of that,” he said with a wince, as he dropped his hand back to his side.
My cheek felt like it was on fire where he had touched it, but I very aggressively ignored that sensation.
“It’s not your fault,” I said in a small choked voice that didn’t sound like my own.
Who knew that after years of dating jocks who could easily pass as Abercrombie models, I’d be rendered speechless by a scrawny nerd?
“It kind of is,” he went on. “I definitely could have been nicer to your friend. I was just sick of seeing her pick on you.”
“She doesn’t pick on me,” I lied, though Parker gave me a look that said he wasn’t an idiot. “Maybe she’s not the nicest all the time,” I amended.
“She’s awful. I still don’t know why you hang out with her,” he said.
“Well, I probably won’t be hanging out with her after what I did. I’l
l be lucky if she lets me finish out high school alive.”
“I don’t understand what you think she can do to you.”
“Parker, if you’re not scared of Tawny, then you don’t know her. At least, not as well as I do. You should be scared of her,” I told him, trying to make him understand.
“Is she going to kill me?” he asked jokingly.
While I didn’t think Tawny was evil enough to murder someone, I wouldn’t completely rule out that possibility.
“Not you, just your spirit,” I told him with a smile.
He laughed and looked down at the ground. Cannon and Lily came barreling down the stairs at full speed, loudly breaking up the little moment Parker and I were having. Honestly, though, it was probably a good thing, since I hadn’t decided which camp my foot was officially in yet.
“Lily knows how to play the matching game,” Cannon yelled to me as the two ran into the living room and spread the cards all over the floor.
“Oh no, is it that MIT matching game?” Parker asked me in a whisper.
“I didn’t know it was from MIT, but yeah.”
“That game makes me feel like an idiot,” he admitted. “And I generally feel like a pretty smart person. It kind of comes with the territory of being a nerd, you know?”
“Yeah, well, it makes me feel like I’m an idiot, but I’m a cheerleader, so people pretty much expect me to be brainless.”
“That sounds like fun,” he said sarcastically.
I shoved him in the shoulder and smiled.
And then we endured another awkward silence.
If I were being myself, I could have asked him what he thought about the new spell cool-down time from the latest patch. I could have asked him if he had ever managed to get through the glitch in the wall to a dungeon the game makers had abandon and closed down after the first version of the game. But instead, I stood there uncomfortably, wondering what he was thinking.
“I guess . . .” he began, trailing off for a moment. Suddenly, the sound of the TARDIS landing filled the room. He quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned the alarm off.
“Shoot, I have to go. I have a raid,” he said urgently.
“Oh yeah,” I agreed, almost forgetting that I was supposed to be at that same raid. Kaydinn would definitely kill us if we were late.