CHAPTER 2 GAME VS REALITY
I hate mornings. Why must people get up so early anyway? Can't daily life just start at noon? I grumble as I reach for my phone. My annoying alarm is going off and i just want to toss it out the window. I get it turned off as I sit up. I look like hell and I can't see a damn thing with my hair everywhere.
After about 15 minutes, I manage to get dressed for work, though I am highly dreading it. I always hate work. It's something about having to get up so early just to hear people complain about what they buy or if the system doesn't work so it is automatically your fault. I hate working retail.
After I've had my breakfast, a poptart as usual, I hear my phone vibrating. I yawn, looking at my phone. It's Garde calling me. I answer.
"Hey hun. Isn't it a bit early for you to call?" I say, grabbing my purse.
"You know me, I never sleep. Getting ready for work?" He says. I sigh.
"Yeah, unfortunately. I'd rather stay here not deal with idiots."
"Sweety, there are idiots everywhere. Just look at Jj."
"Garde, that's not nice. I know he can get on my nerves, but he is just a kid."
"Kid or not, he's after my girl and you are mine." He says firmly. I giggled.
"And you are mine." I hear him chuckled before I hear Nick in the background. Garde sighs.
"I'm kind of in the middle of something, Nick." I hear Nick's voice pretty clearly on the other end.
"You have to see this, man." I hear them both go silent.
"What is it, Garde?" I ask. What could be that important?
"It's just a web article saying Overwatch has been experiencing log in issues and other glitches. So? It's a game. it happens." Garde says pretty irritated.
"Yeah but someone reported their character model glitching out like they had no control over it." Nick retorts. I sigh.
"Tell Nick, he is overreacting. They'll get whatever it is fixed soon. Look, I have to go to work. I'll see you guys later tonight." I say, grabbing my coat and throwing it on.
"Alright, sweetie. Have a good day at work. I love you."
"Love you too. Bye." I hang up, opening the door and locking it behind me.
Work is boring as usual except for the loads of work my Store Manager has put on me. Stocking shelves and making the store look nice while dealing with rude ass people. It's annoying but it's a job and it pays my bills. I only have a five hour shift and once it's over, I'm beyond relieved.
After work, I head down to the local library. I check out a few books and get on one of the computers for while. I check out one of the articles Nick was going on about. Just then, I feel a tap on my shoulder.I turn around and see one of my best friend's, Holly, standing behind me. On the game, she is known as TheForeverWife. She smiles at me.
"What's up? How was work?" I turn my chair around to face her.
"Oh hey, it was boring as usual."
"So, I guess you've seen the articles about the Overwatch glitches?" She says, pointing at the computer screen.
"Oh yeah. Well, Nick was talking about it when I was on the phone with Garret this morning. He was freaking out about it."
"But Overwatch has alot of glitches. I'm sure it's nothing. Hey, you wanna go get some ice cream?" I smile at her, standing up and logging out of the computer.
"Sure." She smirks.
"And I'm buying! No buts!" She says before hurrying out of the library. I speed after her.
"What? Wait! Holly!"
…
"Glitches in the game, huh? Yeah, I've heard some shit." Jj says, sitting back down on one of the benches in the Hanamura map hub world. Being widowmaker as usual. A reaper sitting next to him. Her name is Sicibat, she is JJ's girlfriend.
"Maybe, but it's a lot of glitches. Something about character models not moving and logouts screwing up." I add as Garde crosses his arms.
"But remember, Overwatch has a long history of glitches. The Reaper stuck in the wall glitch, Reaper shooting above the map, Mercy couldn't rez in Valkyrie. They just need to fix some stuff. It's not anything to worry about, dear." Garde says, reaching over and holding my hand, I squeeze it in return. Sicibat stands up.
"Yeah, I'm not worried about it. Can we play a game now?" She says as Jj also stands up.
"Yeah, Crescent?" I sigh.
"Yeah. Want to get our asses kicked in capture the flag again?" Garde stands up.
"Hey, that's negative talk. You got to have some confidence in us, babe."
"Okay then. I'm confident we'll get our asses kicked. Sound better?" I smirk. He just laughs.
"Eh, I'll take it." he laughs as I open the menu and start searching for a game.
After about two hours of getting our asses kicked in capture the flag, JJ and Sicibat get off, leaving me with Garde and Nick. We decide to play some quickplay and end up on Hanamura on Defense. Someone else chooses Mercy so I decide to work on my tanks and choose Roadhog while Nick chooses Diva and Garde goes with Mcree. As we're setting up to defend the point, Nick starts heading farther up close to the enemy spawn room. I decide to follow him.
"Alright, let's do this!" He says as he does DiVA's sitting emote. Then, I suddenly get a dumb idea.
"Nick, stay there and don't move. I got an idea." I move over to the right of him and sit down with him. Garde stays back, watching us.
"What are you two doing?" He questioned. I giggled.
"Just watch and you'll see, haha."
We stayed like that as the clock counted down before finally opening the enemy spawn door. We stayed still as the enemy team started running up to the choke in front of the gate. They started attacking our teammates but completely ignored us for a good three minutes before a Symmetra started attacking me. Nick flies out of the way, laughing his ass off as the Symmetra kills me but I'm too busy laughing to care. Garde laughs as he shakes his head.
"Come on you knuckleheads, let's defend this point."
…
Sometimes it's hard to believe we had fun like that. Goofing off, laughing, and just enjoying each other's company. Things were so simple then. Playing a game for fun. But, eventually, everything must change and sometimes, change is not a good thing.
It had been a few days since I had seen Garde. I knew he was in college and his family life was pretty busy but that was the thing with him, he would never tell me many details. He preferred to keep others in the dark because he felt his problems would be a burden to them but I never saw it that way. We were in this together and I wanted to help him however I could but what could I do when he kept his walls up?
One night, he messages me, saying he wants to meet up on Overwatch and talk. I happily respond as I jumped on. I had really missed him the past few days and I couldn't wait to hear from him. We met up on Numbani, the map we met on. I select Mercy and wait in the hub word for him. Soon, I see my Junkrat walking over. I smile at him but then I stop. He looks at me, frowning. Clearly, something is bothering him.
"What's wrong? Did something happen? Does it have to do with what you want to talk about?" I ask.
"It does. I've been doing alot of thinking lately. It may be upsetting but I'm doing this for you." I look at him confused and scared because I have a bad feeling.
"Garret, just spit it out…" He sighs.
"...I'm breaking up with you."
And with that, my world felt like it was crashing down and burning to ashes.
