At Any Moment (Gaming The System Book 3) Read online

  I finally judged that I needed to stop moving because no matter where I turned, the maze became more and more bewildering, closing in on me and making me dizzy.

  Can you find your way out? What if the person you loved most in the world was at the end of the maze and you had no idea which way to turn?

  Yes, I was angry, resentful. Even after I found out everything. And because you were sick, that anger got buried deep inside and turned into guilt. You were sick and I had no right to be angry with you.

  I sat back, sucking in a sob. I didn’t like where this was leading. I put my face in my hands and read through cracked fingers, as if watching a horror movie alone in an empty house on a dark night.

  The maze faded away and instead, a vapor-like vision formed in front of me. It was hard to see through the haze, but there were clouds. And the words formed again.

  That guilt became excuses. I know you wanted us to go back to the way things had been. I know you were as clueless about how to do that as I was. So my anger and resentment and guilt came out as excuses—excuses to keep you at a distance.

  The vision of puffy white clouds solidified and words formed across them. “I’m tired.”

  Then they darkened into storm clouds accompanied by the words, “I’m worried about her.”

  Then rain started to pour down from them in torrents. “We need to go slow, wait until she is healthy.”

  Then lightning struck, over and over again, blinding me. “I’m so angry at her and I hate myself for it because she is sick.”

  And then, the visions clearing, I stood in a graveyard. I recognized this place—a point of respawn—one of the first of many graveyards in DE, where your ghost goes after you are killed in the game. And the words, the most heart-wrenching of all: “What if she dies?”

  But these were illusions I used to hide the real issue. The one I never even realized I had. The most difficult to discover and the most painful to endure…

  Suddenly I was back in the original, beautiful mountainscape, standing on the banks of a rushing river that flowed past my feet. I toggled my view screen to look up in the sky. New words formed.

  I wanted to be the man to protect you and comfort you…instead I was the man who had harmed you…

  I buried my face in my hands, my vision blurring with tears, my throat stinging with them.

  But words were scrolling on the screen again and I quickly blinked, afraid that I would miss them, not sure how I would see them again if I didn’t capture them now.

  I know you wanted a different answer from me that day, when you asked me about how I felt about the baby. I couldn’t give it to you then. I still can’t give it to you. The only thing I could think about was the risk to you.

  I do feel guilty about the lack of feelings because I know it’s something you really wanted. And I could only think of you.

  But when I think about how close you came to choosing the baby’s life over your own, the fear of that moment chokes me. Because it was completely out of my control and I was utterly at your mercy. I hate, more than anything, to feel helpless, but in that moment, I was.

  What would have happened if you had chosen to have the baby—and then you’d died? Could I have been anything but a resentful and bitter parent to that child?

  I know you suffered, physically, emotionally. I know that for you it was a terrible, traumatic decision. But I’ll never be anything but glad you made the choice you did—and that makes me feel guilty, too.

  And it makes me question and have doubts about our future. Because I wonder…will we ever be able to have joy that isn’t weighted down with loss and guilt and tears?

  I toggled my mouse button to pause the playback of the game. Sitting back, I stared at that last bit of text, unable to breathe. Was Adam breaking up with me for good? I put a hand over my mouth to muffle the sobs but found I couldn’t. Mom rolled over in her bed and without looking up she muttered, “Everything okay?”

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah…sorry. I’m just fine. I’m, um, I’m going to do the rest of this in the bathroom. I don’t want to keep you up.”

  But she was quickly falling back asleep and I was trying to curb the wild hiccupping of my stomach. I scooped up my laptop and slunk into the bathroom where I sank down onto the floor and let the tears out, finally.

  I bent, reached out and grabbed a massive wad of toilet paper from its holder on the wall, burying my face in it to muffle the sobs now unwilling to stay at the pit of my stomach. I felt like I was coming undone. My world was falling apart.

  I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. After Adam’s bare and frank admission of his internal misery, his feelings of guilt. His helplessness. What could I say or do that could ever repair that? I stared at the laptop again, as if it were a wild animal about to jump up and bite me.

  Knives stabbed at my throat, the backs of my eyes. I wiped my snotty face and took a deep breath. I’d come this far on his wild ride…

  I might as well see where it led me. Us.

  …And I know that it’s important to you to have a child someday. And if that’s still true when the time comes, then we will find a way. But I was honest when I said that you are enough for me. When I found you, I found what I had been looking for without even knowing it.

  Because my life without you…?

  And the river, the mountains, the trees, the deep blue sky all faded and I was now in the middle of a barren, gray desert. The landscape was dotted with cactus plants, and sand stretched as far as the eye could see. A lone, arid wind howled through the bushes, blowing tumbleweeds under a blazing, relentless sun. I could almost feel the waves of heat rising off the sand.

  It would be emptier, more desolate than this place.

  I need you. I’ve always needed you. But that means nothing if you won’t let me in.

  The air rushed out of me with a rattle and a hiss, as if I’d been punched in the stomach. I was shaking, but I wasn’t cold. My mouth was dry, but I wasn’t scared.

  And I couldn’t look away. Because the desert was fading again and now I was inside a jail cell, a dark prison. Jagged, rough stone walls rose above me in every direction, with only one wall of bars on one side. I used the controls to turn myself around, this way and that. And only on the third try did I notice a small figure in the corner. I recognized her immediately from the latest portion of the secret quest that we had worked on for months.

  This was the lost Elvish princess from Dragon Epoch, the one who was the object of the secret quest. She was thin, half starved, dressed in rags, her face full of sorrow. Four magical bonds held her down, one on each arm and leg. She looked up at me with pleading eyes full of misery.

  The cell dissolved and I was now in a room with two doors. Two choices.

  Which one will you choose? If we are going to be together, we both have to pick the same one, make the same choice. We have to decide, in spite of all that has gone on between us in the past, in spite of how hard it gets, that our love is tougher than any of the obstacles that have almost impeded it.

  Everything faded to black and there was nothing but an old-style green cursor, blinking against the black background with just one symbol at the prompt. A question mark.

  I typed, wondering where it would lead. Would it send him a text or some other type of alert? Would it trigger some other crazy effect in this strange little game he had led me through?

  With a deep breath, I tapped out the words.

  I choose us. Forever.

  My computer was at the desktop again. I waited, not really knowing where my message had gone or if I’d get a response. I thought through the strange, fantastic journey I’d just been led through, particularly moved by that image of the princess, pinned down by her bonds, looking up at me with misery in her brilliant green eyes. She was just like me—in a prison of her own making.

  My eyes were half closed in reverie when suddenly they flew open and I sat up straight with shock at that realization. The princess was just
like me!

  “Four bonds. Four allies,” I muttered to myself, furiously typing commands into my computer. My heart was racing. Before I’d left for Anza, we’d been stuck at what I was certain was the final step of the secret quest for weeks.

  I punched in the commands to log in to the game and it came to the log in screen, flashing the fancy intro graphics and video. In a frenzy, I hit the escape button to skip all that and selected my character from the screen.

  The last time I’d logged in to the game with my friends, we’d made it to just outside the jail cell. We could see the princess inside and I’d wondered at the time why she had four bonds holding her down while still locked inside a cell.

  *Eloisa has entered the world of Yondareth

  My character was in the same location as when I’d last logged out, standing at the bars of the jail cell. In the past, our group had tried breaking into the cell with the help of the allies we’d gathered but every time we’d done that, huge swarms of trolls had come into the room, overwhelming us in seconds. After countless tries at this, we’d deduced that the way to help the princess did not involve breaking down the doorway. But after that, we’d been completely stuck. In the meantime, I’d left for Anza and sworn off the game for a while.

  I moved Eloisa forward to speak to the princess once again to see if I’d remembered her words right from the last time I’d spoken to her. She always said the same thing and only that one thing when she was hailed.

  *Eloisa says, “Hail, Princess Alloreah’ala”

  *Princess Alloreah’ala says, “I am bound by despair.”

  Four bonds. Four allies. Despair. The allies had to help the princess free herself. Somehow I had to convince them to do it.

  After we had discovered that Sergeant GriffonShield had been waiting for us to ask him for help and he’d told us to gather his allies, we’d gathered the four closest allies to the princess and brought them with us.

  I approached the princess’s trusted maidservant, Maiden Liliannl’a.

  *Eloisa says, “Hail, Maiden Liliannl’a”

  *Maiden Liliannl’a says, “What must I do?”

  *Eloisa says, “Use your love to free the princess from despair.”

  *Maiden Liliannl’a says, “I will try.”

  Then I watched as the maidservant approached her princess, curtsied and said, “My dearest princess. I love you and I wish to use my love to set you free.”

  I held my breath, waiting for something to happen.

  Suddenly the bond holding down her right foot glowed golden and vanished.

  Holy. Shit.

  The breath rushed out of me. I almost hollered in victory until I remembered that it was three in the morning and Mom was asleep on the other side of the wall.

  I sucked in a quick breath, feeling giddy with excitement. I hoped that my group wouldn’t hate me for doing this without them but I couldn’t wake them up at this hour. I hoped they’d understand why I had to have this finished before I saw Adam again.

  I approached the three other allies all in turn. First the bodyguard, who did the exact same thing the Maiden did and freed her other leg. Then the princess’s best friend. She freed the princess’s left arm.

  The last one I approached, the princess’s lost love—General SylvenWood, the broken-down man from the very first quest given in the game. He was the non-player character whom I had figured out last year was the one who triggered the secret quest.

  When I asked him to do the same thing, to use his love to free the princess from despair, he turned to me with sad eyes.

  *General SylvenWood says, “Alas, Eloisa, we once had a great love. But I made some terrible mistakes and so did she. Our love was not enough to save us from the heartache that life put in our path. We separated and the great evil used this separation to spirit my love away from me. Since she left, I am a broken man, a prisoner of my own despair.”

  *Eloisa says, “Your love will set her free.”

  *General SylvenWood hangs his head and sighs.

  *General SylvenWood says, “I will try.”

  The General approached the cell and, in similar words, professed his love. But instead of the bond glowing and breaking immediately, the princess looked up at him and said, “SylvenWood, my one true love. I thought you had abandoned me. All these years, I’d never forgotten you. But I thought you had forgotten me.”

  The general held his hands forward, as if pleading with her. “My one true love. I’ve suffered every day that you’ve been away from me. I never abandoned you. I just had no idea how to help you. I love you with all my heart.”

  Suddenly the last bond dissipated and the princess weakly stood. With each movement, she appeared stronger, more powerful, until she made her way to the cell door and, with her own powerful magic, sent it flying open.

  The allies gathered around her, cheering, hugging and kissing her.

  But as if remembering by happenstance, the princess turned and approached me.

  *Princess Alloreah’ala says, “Hail, Eloisa.”

  *Eloisa curtsies.

  *Princess Alloreah’ala says, “Thank you for gathering my allies. Thank you for finding my true love. You will be rewarded for your kindness. And you will find that your one true love is waiting for you to find him, too, Emilia.”

  With a gasp, I fell back against the door of the bathroom, stunned. Had he written this all for me?

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Adam

  It was almost midnight when I fell back against the pillow of my bed and opened Emilia’s journal to read what she had written to me. I had to admit, I was both curious and a little scared of what I’d see there. And I also wondered if, at this very moment, she was reading the messages I’d left for her…

  Dear Adam,

  This evening, I am furious with you. I won’t lie. I write this with a hand that’s shaking with rage and tears of anger in my eyes. Because today you sent me away. You gave up. And let me tell you that makes me so pissed off at you right now. Was this just your way of getting back at me for what I did to you last year? Because I’ve been in a hell of my own making and you didn’t need to create a new one for me…

  I leaned forward, tensing. This didn’t look good…I flipped through a few pages idly, hoping the entire thing wasn’t full of the same hurt and anger. I didn’t know how I could bring myself to read that. With no small fear, I flipped back to that first page and forced myself to read every word she had written. Wasn’t this what I’d wanted—what we’d both wanted? Open, honest communication.

  I grabbed my reading glasses off the nightstand because I felt a headache coming on and I’d taken to using the damn things in the hopes that they’d ward off the headaches. But I had a feeling that the real pain that would come from reading these pages wouldn’t be in my head.

  …How can I not feel guilty for what I did? Every breath I take, every day that I live comes from the lifetime that I stole from the person our child would have been. And I had no choice but to do it. My choice was robbed from me.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed them through the lids with my thumb and forefinger. With a shaky breath I willed myself to keep reading.

  …Tonight as I was undressing for bed, I took time to study the scars and tattoo marks on my body. I studied them as if looking at them for the first time, through your eyes. They repulse me, but not for vain reasons. Not just for the permanent mark of imperfection, but because of what they represent. It’s not just the scar on my flesh but a reminder of the way I wounded us. And like the one on my body, I’m reminded that that wound will never go away. I did this. I broke us…

  …Part of me fears—no, scratch that—most of me fears that one day, when it becomes important to you, when you realize that I may not be able to give you a child, I’ll lose you.

  Dear Adam,

  You once told me to put the burden on your shoulders. But it never occurred to me that you had taken all that on—and more. And in so doing, it had become an impossibly heavy
load. How can one couple—even with all the love in the world—survive such a thing? We are broken, it’s true, and not all that’s broken can be fixed…

  Dear Adam,

  Today I had a long talk with Heath in the barn. He wanted to know what was going on with you and me. And, really, since I’d dragged him into this kicking and screaming, I felt I owed him an explanation. So there I was trying to explain, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. I had no explanation. We did things wrong. We made mistakes. Big mistakes. I did. And you did. We did this. And I lie here tonight wondering if we can ever get past this. Do you want to?

  …And then I started to think about that goddamn bucket list and that night I’d forced you to sit down and write it when you were worried out of your mind about me. But you did—you wrote down everything I asked you to write down. I don’t remember a thing about that, but I can’t stop thinking about how unfair that was…

  …And as I sit here making this new list…the thing that overwhelms me is the desire to do it all with you. Because if it’s not with you, then it’s not worth doing. What do you think? Anything to add?

  My New Bucket List

  ● Find something to laugh at, every day

  ● Remember all the things I’m thankful for every day

  ● Remember all the people I love

  ● Remember all the people who love me

  ● Know in my heart that I can’t do this alone.

  Dear Adam,

  Tonight I’m missing you so badly that I almost called you on the phone, even if it meant just listening to your voicemail message. God, it hurts so bad that I ache with it. I just need to hear your voice. I just want to feel your arms around me. So tight. Tight, tight hugs.