In Summertime Saga

The dungeon boss had six health bars and Erik was explaining the pattern while I dodged fire.

"Third phase he does the sweep, you have to roll left, and then there's a window where his tail is vulnerable but only for like two seconds and you have to use the frost ability, not the regular attack, because the regular attack doesn't proc the debuff and without the debuff the sixth phase is basically impossible."

"Erik."

"Yeah?"

"I'm on fire."

"Roll left."

I rolled left. The fire stopped. Erik's character hit the boss with an ability that made the screen flash white and a chunk of health bar disappeared and he pumped his fist without looking away from the monitor. His desk chair creaked under him and his headset was around his neck and the room was lit entirely by the two monitors and the LED strip he'd taped to the underside of his desk that turned everything a low blue. His room smelled like Cool Ranch Doritos and the faint sour of a space that didn't get aired out enough. Posters on the walls: anime girls I didn't recognize, a band I'd never heard of, a World of Orcette promotional poster with an orc standing on a mountain holding a sword that was bigger than the orc.

World of Orcette was, objectively, a bad game. The graphics were dated, the UI was cluttered, the quest dialogue was written by someone who thought "forsooth" was still acceptable in modern English, and the server lag made every boss fight feel like playing through pudding. In my past life I'd played games with budgets a hundred times larger and servers that didn't hiccup when more than thirty people were in the same zone. But Erik loved it and Erik knew everything about it and playing it with Erik was the best gaming experience I'd had in either life because the game was just the thing we did while we talked.

"OK third phase," Erik said. "Sweep incoming. Roll. Roll. ROLL."

I rolled. Erik's character did a combo that I couldn't follow because his fingers were moving faster than the animation could render and the boss staggered and the health bar dropped and Erik was talking the whole time, narrating the fight like a sportscaster, his voice rising when the boss did a move he'd predicted and falling into a satisfied murmur when his strategy worked.

We'd been playing for a couple hours. The Doritos bag was empty and there were two cans of soda on his desk, both warm, and my back was stiff from the chair and my eyes were tired from the screen.

In my past life I didn't have friends. I had women I was sleeping with and men I was drinking with and neither group would have picked me up from the airport. The men were wingmen, gym partners, work acquaintances who became bar acquaintances. We'd buy each other drinks and talk about women and sports and money and none of it meant anything and when I died on that bedroom floor the number of men who would've noticed I was gone was probably zero. Maybe one. The bartender at the place near my apartment who knew my order.

Erik noticed me on Day 1. I'd walked into this town in a dead kid's body and Erik had been at my door that afternoon saying "hey, want to come play games?" because that's what Erik did. He showed up and he didn't need a reason and he didn't want anything except someone to split the snacks with.

"Fourth phase," Erik said. "This is where most people wipe. Stay behind the pillar and don't attack until I say."

I stayed behind the pillar. Erik's character ran circles around the boss pulling aggro and his health was dropping and he wasn't panicking even though it was getting low because Erik had done this fight a hundred times and he knew exactly when to pop the heal and exactly where to stand and he timed it and his health went back up and he yelled "NOW" and I hit the boss with everything I had and the health bar cracked and we were through to phase five.

"You're better at the combat than me," Erik said. "Your reaction time is insane. But I know the patterns better."

"We're a good team."

"We're a great team." He grinned at the screen. His hair was messy and his glasses reflected the blue light and he was skinny and pale and he'd been sitting in this chair since I arrived and probably for hours before that. A kid playing a game with his friend and that was enough.

The door opened and Tammy came in with a plate. Cut apple slices fanned out around a bowl of peanut butter in the center. The plate was ceramic, not paper, and the apples were cut into even wedges and the peanut butter was in an actual bowl, not the jar, and there was a small napkin folded next to it.

"Snack break, boys." She set the plate on the corner of Erik's desk between the monitor stands. "You've been at it for hours. Eat something real."

"Thanks, Mom." Erik grabbed an apple slice and dipped it and kept playing one-handed.

Tammy ruffled his hair. Just reached down and messed it up with her palm and Erik ducked his head and said "Mom, come on" but he was smiling and he didn't pull away and she was smiling and it lasted two seconds and then she straightened up and looked at me.

"You too, hon. Eat."

"Thanks, Tammy."

She was wearing yoga pants and a loose sweater and her chestnut hair was down and she looked like a woman who'd spent her evening in the kitchen and was glad to check on her kid and his friend. Her eyes were green and warm and the sweater hung off one shoulder and the strap of her tank top was visible underneath and I looked at the apple slices.

"You boys staying up late?"

"We're on phase five," Erik said. "This could take a while."

"Don't stay up too late. School tomorrow." She left. The door closed and the room was blue again and the apple slices were cold and crisp and the peanut butter was the good kind, the natural one that separates if you don't stir it and she'd stirred it.

I ate an apple slice and watched Erik fight. He'd adjusted his glasses and was leaning forward and his tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth and he was narrating the boss's pattern to himself under his breath.

"Hey," Erik said between phases. His voice dropped. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever, like..." He trailed off. Killed a mob on his screen. "Have you ever wanted to ask someone out but you didn't know how to start the conversation?"

"Who is she?"

"I didn't say it was a she."

"Is it?"

"Yeah. Obviously. Shut up." He was still looking at the screen and his ears were red. "I just mean, like, how do you know if someone's interested? Before you say anything? Is there, like, a sign?"

In my past life I'd have given him a smooth answer. A playbook. Told him the moves, the signals, the escalation ladder. But Erik wasn't asking for a playbook. He was asking because he'd never done this before and he was scared and he trusted me enough to ask and the honest answer was that I'd never actually asked anyone out in my life. I'd always just moved. Read the signals and acted and the asking was in the doing. That wasn't going to help Erik because Erik didn't move. Erik waited and hoped and then didn't say anything and then came home and played World of Orcette and the girl never knew.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you."

"Why?"

"Because you'll make it weird."

"I won't make it weird."

"You will absolutely make it weird. You make everything weird." He killed another mob. "It's just- there's this girl. She's- I don't know. She's cool. And I think she might be interested but I also might be reading into it because I want her to be interested and I can't tell the difference and I've been thinking about it for like two weeks and it's ruining my focus."

"Your focus seems fine. You just solo'd phase four."

"That's muscle memory. I'm talking about, like, life focus. I can't think about homework because I'm thinking about whether she was being nice to me or NICE to me. You know? There's a difference."

"There is a difference."

"Right? And I can't ask anyone else because who am I going to ask? Kevin? Kevin would tell the whole school. My mom would try to help and that would be worse."

"Does she talk to you?"

"Sometimes."

"Does she go out of her way to talk to you? Like, finds you specifically?"

"I... maybe?" He adjusted his glasses. "Yeah. I think so. She laughs at my jokes. And my jokes are bad."

"Your jokes are terrible."

"Exactly! So if she's laughing she's either being nice or she's interested and I need to know which one."

"Then she might be interested."

"That's not helpful."

"Dude, I can't solve this with the information you're giving me. Tell me who it is."

"No. It's embarrassing."

"Everything about being eighteen is embarrassing. Tell me who."

"Maybe later." He went back to the game. "Fifth phase, let's go. Stay left this time."

I stayed left. We fought. Erik called out patterns and I executed them and the boss's health dropped bar by bar and Erik's confidence grew with each phase and he was talking faster and his voice was up and we hit the sixth phase and the debuff proc'd and the frost ability did what it was supposed to do and the boss staggered and the final health bar dropped to zero and the screen erupted in loot drops and achievement banners and Erik stood up from his chair and threw both arms in the air.

"GG!" He turned to me. His glasses were crooked and his grin was huge. "Dude. GG."

"GG," I said.

I was going to hurt this kid eventually. Tammy's route was in my head and Erik's obliviousness was the foundation I was building on and the guilt of that was small and quiet and I looked at it and then I looked at the loot on the screen and I didn't examine it further.

"Same time next week?" Erik said.

"Yeah," I said. "Same time."

I walked home across the dark yard between his house and mine and the grass was wet and the porch light was on and Jenny's window was dark and the house was quiet and I went inside and went to bed and the blue light from Erik's room was still glowing through his window when I closed my eyes.