“Any new drawings?”
* * *
The cobblestone streets leading back toward my house feel like they stretch on forever as Ryan and I walk along them in silence. They push into the bottoms of my too-thin sneakers, the curved rocks digging into my feet, in this weird, comforting-but-kinda-painful sort of way.
“Dude, you can’t let it get to you,” Ryan finally says, breaking the silence we’ve been strolling in for the past ten minutes. “Especially if this is what you actually want to do with your life. Writing and all, for video games or anywhere, really. Criticism is part of the game, so to speak.”
“I don’t mind criticism, it’s just... I mean, damn, if Jason doesn’t want to play games that engage in meaningful conversation, why try to make an RPG?” I ask, mostly to myself. I know the answer. We both do. Money. “He made fun of all the dialogue, and he was so harsh with your storyboards and illustrations, and I just don’t—”
Ryan cuts in. “Are you upset over that, or is it Laura?”
“Can’t it be a little bit of both?” I ask, offering up a weak smile. He grabs my shoulder and gives me a shake. “I know, I know. I just worry about—”
“Not every woman is a princess who needs saving,” Ryan says. “You have to let her make her own decisions.”
“I just—”
“Look. Focus on the game. The money will be good, if he ever pays us.” Ryan laughs, but there’s something hollow to it, and I agree with the feeling. “You can use it for whatever school you want to go to, or maybe for actually buying a real computer instead of that...” He trails off, struggling for a definition. “That monster you have in your room. Just think about that. And besides, it’s a taste of the real world. People in big ol’ corporate video game studios probably aren’t going to be nice.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. At least they’ll pay us on time, though.” Still, I can’t stop thinking about Laura. And Jason’s harsh words about my writing. And how the two of them just don’t belong together.
There’s this part of me that absolutely knows Ryan is right, and that this is none of my business. And I hardly even know Laura that well, just from a few interactions at school and our gigs with ManaPunk. But it’s just irking at me, and I can’t fight it.
“Well, when Jason finally publishes this game and pays up, you’ll be too busy spending all that money to worry about other people’s relationships,” Ryan points out, slowing his pace as we reach the side street leading to his house. “I’d come hang or game, but Alberto is coming by.”
“Nice, tell him I said hi,” I say. We shake hands and pull each other in for a hug. “I’ll see you later, man.”
“Sure will,” he agrees, then pulls back and smacks me lightly on the shoulder. “In the meantime, be a little less Paragon and a little more Renegade. You’re allowed.”
With a smirk, Ryan hurries off down his street, whistling to himself. I smile ruefully at the Mass Effect joke and continue the walk toward my house, the summer sun still bright and burning. It’s edging toward late afternoon, the day still full of so much possibility, but really, only one thing is on my mind.
Video games.
And that potential money from Jason and ManaPunk.
The check that is supposedly coming, both in the future, and the one he already owes us.
Last year, we made a little bit working for Jason. Nothing crazy, but it was enough to pay to upgrade my gaming rig with gear not found in the neighbors’ trash or at local flea markets. Jason and ManaPunk as a company, though? He’d made so much money. And I know we’re not going to get much for the work we’ve done lately—I’d only done some copyediting for his latest game, this puzzler where you have to match different-colored shapes to the pulse of music. Writing things like the instructions, tutorial text, stuff like that. And Ryan had only worked on a couple of vector graphics, but still. It felt like we deserved more. A bigger cut of the profits or something, you know?
But this role-playing game, the one he seems to hate so much, has the potential to net us so much more. Because Jason hadn’t just agreed to pay us a fair wage this time—he’d promised us a share of the profits.
And maybe, just maybe, if the game does well—hell, if it sells even kinda well—I’ll be able to pay to go to whatever college I want. Far away, maybe. Not someplace that my mom makes me apply to. Not a place where I’ll have to be a doctor or whatever dream it is she’s got plotted out for me. It’s a plan I kick around with Ryan all the time. Philadelphia has some great colleges; I’ve gone to enough events at Drexel, Penn, and Temple to know that. But there’s no way I’ll be able to afford any of those places without taking out a staggering number of student loans. A straight-A scholarship student I am not.
Jason said it was possible. Laura, too. Still, the idea of pulling in...what, over six figures? From my little slice of what the game makes? It doesn’t feel that realistic.
But earning a little bit to get myself started making my own games...that feels more possible. I don’t even need to make that much, comparatively speaking, to what Jason ends up netting with his games. Give me like, $10,000. I could buy a proper computer to develop my own games on, not something cobbled together. I could invest in the software and add on effects I’d need, in something like Unity. Work on my own studio while readying myself for graduation. Have a backup plan.
My house appears, waiting down the street, the little side office of my mother’s private practice sticking out of our home like an unwanted redbrick growth. It’s a strange effect, the old historic Philadelphia brownstone exterior, with the ivy that’s probably older than I am and the bricks that most certainly are by a couple hundred years, contrasted with the inside, the doctor’s office part of the place. Without Mom’s sign, you’d never know that a sterile waiting nook and patient rooms lay tucked away beneath the warm bricks and dark green vines.
If I became a doctor like she wanted, maybe I could surgically remove it.
But I’d rather make video games. Make a digital version of that house. And that little side building. And maybe blow it up with a laser cannon. Or a dragon. Anything, other than sitting in there looking at papers and checking in patients.
I look at the time on my phone and sneak a quick peek inside the front window, and see Dad talking to someone. Whoever the patient is, it’s not going well, and Dad is shaking his head, looking down, while this person is clearly flipping out. I can hear the muffled shouting all the way out here, and I hurry around to the office’s side entrance to see what I can do to rescue Dad.
I walk in and close the door a little harder than necessary behind me. The patient turns around, his expression full of irritation. I don’t recognize the man, and he narrows his eyes at me as I walk past him toward my dad. In the faded fluorescent lights of the waiting room, Dad looks a lot older than Mom does, even though he’s barely two years older. Thick lines are worn into the corners of his eyes, giving him a perpetually tired look.