Chapter four

I believe words—hell, eventhoughts—have the ability to jinx something into oblivion. But with how awful things are going tonight, there's really no way around the very obvious facts that I'm screwed; my documentary, if made, will be shitty; and I, Saine Sinclair, can't have nice things.

Sunday night is crashing and burning right before my eyes and I have no clue how to save it—I don't know CPR, I would never volunteer to run into fire, and I am just wholly inadequate when it comes to anything that's not cheerleading, filming, and Netflix marathons when I should be doing homework.

The agreed-upon time when Yvette was supposed to pick me up has come and gone. I call her and get sent straight to voicemail. I text and am ignored. My fingers, to Corrine's future horror, are a bloody mess of hangnails and stress.

An hour before the contest is supposed to start, Yvette finally eases some of my panic by calling to apologize and then admits she can't pick me up because she has to drop her small humanoff at the small human's father's house before the event and wouldn't make it in time to compete if she swung by Mechanicsburg first—even though it was so convenient for her just two days ago.

So, I order a Lyft. I would rather be talking to the subject of my soon-to-be college-acceptance-earning documentary for half an hour instead of Santiago, who, despite not being Yvette, makes the ride entertaining with his five-star politeness and interest in the event at what he calls "a store too fun to be allowed."

Repairisburg is like something out of a movie. I've only ever been here once, with my dad before he skipped town, but even that can't taint my memory of it. It's one of those best-kept-secret type places, where word of mouth keeps it in business. They mostly do repairs, like fixing your computer when it's on the fritz or replacing a smashed cell phone screen, but they also offer one-of-a-kind eccentricities, devices that used to do one thing and now do another. Their website, which looks like it was made before the internet even existed, showcases one of these items every month, and this month's is one that James Heath himself helped make as a twentysomething. I personally just think it's something that Repairisburg couldn't sell: a standing lamp with speakers instead of lights.

Outside the store, I wait twenty-three minutes for Yvette to show up. This delay pushes us right against the start time for the event. Even now, in the final moments before she starts the contest, she stands next to me, staring at something on her phone with a blank expression. This is a pivotal moment for thisdocumentary—she's mentally preparing to see her childhood crush, to play this ridiculous game in hopes of winning not the VR headset but hisheart, and yes, I plan on using that line in the documentary narration because it's fucking good—but she's using this time,my time, to... check Facebook, apparently. I will never understand her generation's obsession with it.

The contest is being heldinsideRepairisburg, which I think is risky because of all the shelves and electronics and the fact that twenty people are going to be running around the store trying to kill each other.

In this first event, participants are playing Time Out, an online multiplayer first-person shooter in which staying alive means beating the clock and killing an opponent. Those are pretty much the only rules. Essentially, it's every person for themselves and you can't just hide to wait out the clock. You have to kill at least one other opponent—and survive until the end—to be considered a winner. Or so the YouTube playthroughs led me to believe during my research.

To play this game in real life, Vice and Virtual has set it up to be, essentially, laser tag around the store, and the time limit is just however long it takes until only half the contestants remain alive. Again, I'm concerned about the products lining the shelves, but I suppose the benefit of having the event here is to get the foot traffic and (hopefully) sales. An empty shelf is a safe shelf.

Yvette finally glances up, her shoulders back but eyes still blank. I begin filming. "Sorry," she says with a faltering smile.

"It's okay," I lie. "Thinking about your game strategy?"

She chews her lip. "The opposite, actually. My exit strategy."

A bomb goes off in my stomach. "What? Why?"

"He didn't accept my friend request."

I can see her motivation dissolving away through my view screen. "But that could mean a lot of things—"

"Like he doesn't remember me." Yvette glances around the packed store and lowers her voice. "Or that he does and doesn't want to make a connection."

"I'm sure that's not it." I struggle to find another reason he would have rejected her like that. Too scared to face his own feelings? Yvette went to James's tech events; she cheered him on from the stands when he did football for a season in middle school—she was supportive and totally charmed by him. She described such tension between them. Is it just that he's secretly taken and can't face his feelings for her for fear of screwing up something he has going on now?

"Well, I'm sure that I don't want to be the weirdo who gets rejected and then tries to win his contest to see him. He'll think I'm a creep."

"Or he'll think you're impressive and regret not accepting your request. Maybe it was an accident." I gesture around the store. "I haven't even seen him here. He might only be at the final event. All you have to worry about tonight is getting through to the next round. We'll come up with a game plan from there."

She nods stiffly.

Tonight's winners continue to the next event at the Harrisburg Mall. And it isn't until now, seeing her second-guessingher quest for love, that I realize there's a strong possibility that if she doesn't walk away intentionally, she still might be forced to. Was I really so foolish to think the power of love could propel this wholly unprepared woman to become one of the final ten? Five? The finalone? She didn't even create her own (virtual) reality for the application process.

The contestants are called forward before I can get any more from her, something that might calm my own nerves. The good news is, she seems so panicked that her body decides to follow the pack. I trail after her, trying to capture her face, but bump into bystanders. An Asian woman who looks like she's in charge because of her black-and-gold Vice and Virtual shirt asks the contestants to show the IDs they received in the mail to verify who they are. Yvette shows hers, completing a circle of the contestants, and blocks me out.

I pause for a moment and then find a new spot in the crowd so I can see her face as she listens to the rules, which I can barely hear over the rumble of people impatiently waiting for the contest to start. I film as much as I can, but my hands get shaky. Maybe things will be fine. Yvette will move forward and we'll have a good interview after the contest that, combined with her win, will make her reconsider abandoning her mission. Then she'll take me home, where I can edit all the footage I have until the next event.

Assuming she gets to the next one.

Assuming she hasn't convinced herself this is a terrible idea.

SomehowI'mthe one "blinded by love" right now.

The contestants break and Yvette's given a vest with attachedgun, just like in laser tag. She stares at it in her hand like it's actually loaded.

"Contestants and fans," the Vice and Virtual employee says into a microphone. There are professional camerapeople on either side of her, one filming her and the other capturing the crowd, which is now being ushered to the second floor overlooking the bottom like a Roman arena. A sign outside the store said they would be filming for a web series and by entering, you were agreeing to have your face shown. Thankfully, mine will be behind my own camera, because I didn't cake on makeup for behind-the-scenes work. "Thank you for being here tonight at the fantastic Repairisburg, home of CEO James Heath's first job after college, as Vice and Virtual begins our contest to provide one lucky winner with an exclusive prototype of our Reality Now headset in New York City next month. I'm Chrissy Lo, head of communications at Vice and Virtual, and I'm so excited to be joined here tonight by the twenty Create Your Own (Virtual) Reality winners. Their submissions are available for viewing on the Vice and Virtual website, along with the just-announced timeline for the Reality Now headset release." The crowd cheers. "You can expect to purchase the headset by the third quarter next year, in time for the holiday shopping season, but you won't be getting just the headset." She smiles, and it's clearly for the camera more than the crowd. "Every purchase of our headset will come with the three games we've adapted for real-life play in this contest, for free."

More cheering. Go, capitalism. Yadda yadda. There's pretty much no indication that Yvette heard her, or cares. It was neverabout the headset, anyway. I hope she's not replaying the shock of being denied over and over. Maybe she just gets really in her head before big things. Kayla, who is the most vibrant person I know, will literally yell at people who try to talk to her before any kind of major test in school, or before her band's shows, so it's possible I'm just waiting for Yvette to explode out of her shell once she feels more confident, with the mental image of her in James's arms in New York City.

"Gamers," Chrissy Lo says with a cheeky grin, "you've heard the rules. So let's play!"

Loud music that I can't get the rights for starts pumping through the store, most likely to impede people from shouting helpful remarks to players. As they head into the designated area to play, their initials pop up on a few screens hanging around. The screens tally their kills and keep them in order of who has the most even though it doesn't matter. Yvette is the last one to enter the area, only taking one step past the threshold. I watch the scene unfold in slow motion. She takes one step back, out of the arena. Her gun drops from her hand and bounces by the cable attached to her vest. She shakes her head.

And then it's over.

She steps fully out and takes off the vest, shoving it into the hands of the first person she can find, and she flees through the crowd.

"Yvette." I follow her, my heart hiccuping in my chest. "Yvette, wait!"

"I can't do this." I barely hear her over the noise.

Had we had a chance before the contest began, I would haveput a microphone on her, but I'll just have to add in subtitles for this scene. Please let this be a scene and not the climax.

She exits the store even though I'm no longer the only one calling her name. Some Vice and Virtual grunt—an intern, if his age means anything—is trying to wave her down, but he must catch the panic on her face when she turns to me because he lets us go.

"What's going on?" I can hear my heart beating, the blood rushing to my head. "I don't know if they'll let you back in to play."

"I don't care about playing," she says through clenched teeth. Tears are brimming in her eyes. She glances at my camera and then back to me. "Please don't film this."

"I—I mean, you agreed—what's going on?" I lower the camera but keep it recording.

"I can't do this. He didn't even want me through a phone screen; why did I think I could get his attention playing a stupid game? No one doing this contest is over twenty-two. I'm not old, but I'm notthatyoung either. I don't stand a chance. And even if I did, what difference would it make?"

"How can you say that?" I try to beg with my eyes, make her see reason. "You want to do something so romantic and so strong—"

"We weren't friends."

My whole body droops. "What?"

"It's not romantic. It's pathetic. We were just classmates, not friends. He didn't know I existed then and he doesn't now. He doesn't care."

"But—" So, it was unrequited love. Was Victor right? I'm helping Yvette get up close and personal with this guy who didn't even know her?

"Saine, you're a sweet girl. I'm sorry. Please tell your mom I'm sorry. I can't do this. I'd embarrass myself, and if it's recorded and shown to people, then I can't pretend it never happened."

Without another word, she crosses the fire lane and slides inside her black Toyota.

I don't know what else to do in this moment, so I film her as she backs up and then pulls onto the main road.

"What thehell?" I whisper into the parking lot. I'm screwed. I knew it when the night began. This was the topic I prepared for—the one Temple preapproved.This is the topic I have to submit. I took off work for the events. I researched the games and already screen captured videos of people playing them online. I have the first ten minutes of the documentary rough cut including Yvette talking about James for, like, five fucking minutes with big heart eyes. She lied—or did I just hear what I wanted to? She never described things he did for her, only things she did for him—things that didn't involve them interacting.

"Who are you talking to?" a small voice asks behind me.

I spin around, agony making my face ache, to lock eyes with a girl, maybe thirteen years old, sitting on the curb with a phone in her hand. A golden braid lies over a black pleather jacket that can't be doing much to keep her warm because her little stick legs are bare under her dress, save for some knee socks she has tucked into her boots.

"Myself. Where's your person?" I step closer, resisting theurge to bend down so we're eye level because it's so condescending. "Your adult?"

"Playing the game. He probably doesn't even notice that I'm gone." She scuffs her boot against the gravel. "I don't like big crowds."

"And yet he brought you along? Your dad's kind of an asshole." I glance around the parking lot. It's pretty dark despite the streetlights. Anyone could just snatch her up. "You know, you shouldn't talk to strangers, kid."

"You're doing it,kid."

"Touché."

"I'm Mara."