Heal Me

Chapter Ten

After a quick bout of self pity, during which I slammed a few cupboards in the bathroom and brushed my teeth extra hard, I found my way to my computer and took a deep, haggard breath.

How dare these guys imply I was unrelenting, or annoying, or pushy! Because that was the insinuation, right? Well, not with Smith. He outright told me what a brat I was – right before he blatantly flirted with me. There was no insinuation there... And I still didn't know if it was a joke, or not. But I was about to find out... Right after I found something to give me a sugar spike.

Quickly, I typed my login name and password, waited for my character screen, chose Healslater, and hit enter. Then as the program was loading, I ran back to the kitchen where Sarah was helping Cat design a new kind of protein breakfast bar for hippies, I mean, vegans.

"You can't just add ingredients all willy-nilly," Sarah, the stripper, was saying. I loved when she talked like a kindergarten school teacher. It made me wonder if she spoke to her clients like that. "There has to be a perfect ratio of wet to dry ingredients, or it doesn't work."

Cat paused in her efforts to pour extra hemp seeds into the mixing bowl. She eyed me coolly. "You better now?" she asked. "After your little tantrum in the bathroom?"

"You didn't break anything, did you?" Sarah took the hemp seeds away from Cat and handed her a measuring cup of almond milk.

"Yes, and no," I answered them each in turn.

There wasn't any candy in the fridge. I slammed the door, not really sure why I'd been looking in there anyway. The pantry wasn't much better. "Has anyone gone shopping, lately? Why are we out of anything good?"

Cat mentioned raw trail-mix and earned herself a glare. "It's healthy," she advised. "So that movie really got to you, huh? Ruined all your illusions about love in the real world?"

"No," I grumbled. "It wasn't the movie."

Concerned, Sarah joined in. "Then what's up? Is it your new job? Jobs can be a pain." She was probably talking about pole burns.

On a stool, I riffled through a blue basket that had gotten shoved to the back of the pantry's uppermost shelf. In it, everything appeared old and stale, but the choices were all of the high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden variety.

Distracted by boxes of gum and a plastic bag holding the remains of what used to be toffee peanuts, I replied that, "No, the job's fine – the movie's fine. It's just this guy I met... It's a long story."

"We have time," Sarah urged, always up for a bit of gossip. Cat looked on with something akin to satisfaction that I was having guy problems. Not that she reveled in my discomfort. She was often telling me how strength could only be born of struggle – probably why she enjoyed the war genre so thoroughly.

I jumped from the stool, taking with me a misshapen candy bar. "Well, I don't," I answered. "I have a date with my game."

I wiggled my eyebrows for effect, and Cat's laughter followed me from the kitchen.

"Ooh, the game," she teased." Don't let it feel you up before buying you dinner!"

In spite of myself, I laughed along.

At my desk, I stuffed half the candy bar into my mouth and chewed. I was a nervous wreck now, not sure of what might happen – how Smith would respond to me, or how he'd chose to treat me. Our conversations had been tumultuous, ambiguous, and perhaps even suggestive, but never with any measure of actual, truthful communication. I couldn't speculate with any amount of accuracy how the night would 'play' out...

Sword had whispered me six or seven times since I'd been away, in very frantic tones. There was an invite-to-group notice at eye level. I lined my cursor up with the accept button, squeezed my eyes shut, and clicked my mouse. When I opened my eyes, eight little avatars appeared along the left side of my monitor, complete with personal statistics like health, or rage.