Percy

Look, I didn't want to be a gamer. I always wanted to be one of the cool kids at school that got to sit with a huge group of friends, and everyone knew who I was. Sadly, that's not how that happened. It really sucks not being able to just decide to go out and be with people that you can call friends whenever you want, but I guess it isn't so bad when the friends you do have are absolute.

It all started when I was about 10 years old. My mom and I lived in a really small apartment in the Upper East Side with a step dad that wasn't the best. I never really wanted to leave my room because I knew as soon as I did I would have to deal with Gabe, so when my mom got enough money, from working her small job at a candy shop, she bought me a nice computer that I could play almost any game on. As soon as I started to play them I was instantly sucked in and made a bunch of new friends in the online scene.

Over the years I played a bunch of different games, and once my mom and I moved out of that apartment, and I could actually leave my room without being attacked, I kind of stopped playing as much. I moved out of my mom's house when I was 19 and have been living in my own apartment working at an office. It wasn't the best jobs by any means, but it paid enough to live and enjoy a few of the things that I did.

Every once in a while though I would get on to play, and about two years ago I started to play a new game that had recently gotten really popular. This is how I met the player named WiseG93. We met one day online because one of the other people I played with invited them into our party because we needed an extra person. We all used Skype to talk to each other while we played, but they didn't. They always said they didn't have a working mic, and I guess for some reason I believed them.

The only problem when you are a gamer is that you never actually get to meet your friends, because odds are you live on opposite sides of the country, and sometimes even opposite sides of the world. Naturally, you always joke about meeting each other. Well, as time went on me and this WiseG93 became pretty good friends, and then one spring break these jokes actually became a reality.

"

Me: It would be pretty cool tho if we could actually meet each other over spring break

WiseG93: Actually, we might be able to. I'm going to New York for a semester for an internship, and I could talk to my parents about purchasing my plane tickets a week early and we could spend that week hanging out.

Me: Wait that thing is in New York? As in the city? Why didn't you say that before! You totally need to come out now. I've waited so long to actually meet someone in person that I met online. I think it'd be like the coolest thing.

WiseG93: I did tell you. I'll call my dad really quick now and talk to him about it

"

After that conversation I got another message from them and we confirmed plans and such. They were going to arrive in JFK International and take a taxi up to my apartment and I'd pay for it there. Well, at least I planned to pay for it, but they refused to let me.

I spent probably three days before they arrived cleaning my apartment and making sure that it wasn't a complete mess. I figured that it probably didn't matter that much, but I might as well. I always hoped that there was still a chance I might one day bring a girl home, and it might as well be clean. I didn't even know how it got messy in the first place, to be honest; things just kind of ended up on the floor, and the wall, and everywhere else. It was really weird.

The day that WiseG93 was supposed to arrive I spent the entire morning pretty much just looking over a bunch of different things that I figured would probably be enjoyable to talk about. The basic plan for the week was to just hang out and play games. We were probably going to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant one night just to experience it, but that was about it.

I looked up at the clock. Three o'clock,I thought, they should be here any time. Their plane wasn't delayed at all, and as far as I could tell it had landed almost an hour ago. Assuming that it took 45 minutes to get here –

That was as far as I got with that thought. There was a knocking on the door, and all of a sudden I got really nervous. For all I knew I was going to open the door and the stereotypical gamer was going to be standing there. Or a murderer. Not that there was a problem with that, the gamer at least. Not the murderer. Murderer would be bad.

I walked over to the door, and straightened my shirt before opening it. After I did I had pretty much nothing to say. I think what came out of my mouth sounded something like "Uhhbuhh". She was staring at me, probably because I was doing the same only I looked like an idiot probably. She had long blonde hair that was up in a ponytail, and grey eyes. She looked to be about the same age that I was, and was probably a few inches shorter than me.

"Well hello there Mr. Jackson. I hope I didn't scare you." She smiled at me, and it was around then that I realized she knew what she was doing and was making fun of me. I wanted to by angry at her for not really saying anything about it, but I was more excited over the fact that I was finally meeting someone from online in person.

"Uhm. No. Yeah. Um. Come in?"