Teresa struggled to resist the urge to run around her room to shake off the excited energy. It was finally here. She glanced at the amount on her phone one more time just to be sure it was here. True enough, it was. Payment for her commission had fully gone through and the job was finished. It took every ounce of willpower she had to not run and tackle William the moment she heard him opening the door.

“Honey, did you see? Did you get the alert? Has it gone in yet?” Teresa asked once she calmed down enough she could walk out of the room without skipping.

William smiled at her and gave a small nod. “Yes, yes. The money is in, congratulations. I actually wanted to talk with you about that. I figured you finally got a job done, we could go and celebrate. I invited James and his new girlfriend out with us tonight.”

Teresa stared at him, her mouth falling open slightly. “What? Who?”

“James. Lives down the street? Work? Made curry that one time? I figured it might be nice for you to get out and meet some real people. You were telling me the other day how you need to make some friends.”

Teresa stared at him for a few moments longer, struggling to remember when she had said that. “What? When did I say that?”

“Remember? It was just a few nights ago, you were saying you wanted me to join your game because you didn’t have any friends in it,” William said, the smile on his face slowly wilting.

“What? No,” Teresa said quickly. “I didn’t say I didn’t have friends. I asked if you wanted to join my friends. I thought it might be fun.”

“Yeah, I mean real friends. Not online friends. Come on, honey. You’ll like her. She likes those kinds of games, just like you. James says she plays them all the time,” William said before he walked to her, reaching out and hugging her gently to him. “Come on. Give it a chance, okay?”

Teresa nodded. “For you, anything,” she said before hugging him back. “It’ll be fun. I actually wanted to ask you a favor, though.”

“Oh? What?” William asked, looking down at her with a look of mild amusement.

“Since I got the final payment, do you mind if I get something for my friends in the game? There’s this collection of parts I want to use for the guild hall,” Teresa said.

“No,” William said, the smile on his face disappearing into a firm scowl.

Teresa stared at him for a few moments, unsure of how to proceed. She hadn’t expected a no from that. “What? Why?”

“We don’t have the kind of money to just throw away on make believe things,” William said firmly.

“What? But it’s not that much. Why not?” Teresa asked, trying to keep her voice calm and avoid whining. She knew if she let herself get too emotional he’d just shut it down harder.

“Listen, if it was something that was real, you know I’d be okay with it in a heartbeat. But you want to buy some silly thing for your pretend friends online. That’s just a waste of our money. Besides, we’re already going out to celebrate. Isn’t that enough for you?” William asked.

“What? But I didn’t even want to go out,” Teresa said, shaking her head. “This was your idea.”

“Yes, for you. Because I wanted to introduce you to someone who was actually real. But fine, fine. Go ahead, buy your little pretend items for make believe. I’ll just tell James you don’t really want to meet any real people today,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Teresa’s eys widened and she felt an anxious knot forming in her stomach. She wondered if that was really how she sounded? Was she really being so greedy? “Wait, no. Don’t--”

“No, it’s fine. I get it. I don’t know why I try so hard to do things like this for you,” he said before letting her go and reaching into his pocket for his phone.

“William, please,” Teresa said, her hand reaching out to grab his arm. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Let’s go out and meet them, okay? Don’t worry about the other stuff. Please.”

“You sure?” William asked. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. There’s no point to even doing it if you aren’t going to try and have fun, the whole get together was for you to begin with.”

“I’m sure. Really. I really am. I promise,” Teresa said before slowly reaching a hand out and gripping his. “It’ll be fun. Besides, if she really likes these kinds of things, we’ll have a wonderful time.”

“Fine. But only if you want it,” William said again.

“I do. I swear,” Teresa said, trying her hardest to force a smile.

------

Teresa tried to keep the smile on her face but, the truth was, she was bored to tears.

James had a nice girlfriend, Vanessa. The girl was an absolute delight and, if things had been different, Teresa might have actually been having a fun time getting to know her.

Except the two were nothing alike. Vanessa was into games as well. Unfortunately, she seemed far more interested in augmented reality games than virtual reality. Teresa never minded those, of course, but most were more puzzle based and focused on finding massive groups of people to meet up with. Since they were more about altering the real world with a simple overlay, they tended to be incredibly dangerous if too detailed, since people could get hurt.

Teresa didn’t like puzzle games, though. She was fine with puzzles in her games, in fact a lot of action games she adored had them at different points. But puzzles for the sake of puzzles were never something she enjoyed and always made her want to grind her teeth. More importantly, augmented reality games were rarely self-contained puzzles from what she’d seen, often requiring research to be done in different books and online in order to solve them.

“So, once we found the crystal star, I realized if it was supposed to be lost in a lighthouse, NOT in a church, then that likely meant the end goal was a boat. So once we did that, we ran the coordinates into an old maps service and found the location was about ten miles out to sea. Of course, we couldn’t afford to get out there, so we pooled our money to get a VR-warp ticket for the game and used that. Sure enough, we found the wreck there and got the code for the diamond sword. It really helped in our control war,” Vanessa said, gesturing wildly with her hands as she described the recent achievement of her guild.

Teresa gave a small nod, trying to follow along. “Right. So the diamond sword became a… card in that game, right?”

“Exactly,” Vanessa said, nearly bursting with excitement when she spoke. If nothing else, the girl was at least passionate about the game. It made it somewhat tolerable even if Teresa didn’t understand all of it. “Now, up to this point I’d been using a more mana heavy style. But I decided to try and get an equipment deck going since the diamond sword was just too good to pass up.”

“Uh huh, you don’t say,” Teresa said before glancing back towards James and William. They seemed lost in their own conversation, something about a work installation. She wondered if he’d get the point if she kicked him under the table. No, she doubted it. She gave a soft sigh before glancing back to the girl again.

“Sorry, am I boring you?” Vanessa asked sheepishly.

“No, it’s not that. It sounds really cool, honest. I’m just not much of a card game player,” Teresa said. “I really prefer games with more running and fighting and stuff. I’ve never been any good at card games.”

“Ah,” Vanessa said, glancing away.

“What?” Teresa asked.

“Just surprised you prefer those kinds of games. They’re a bit dangerous, after all. Messing with your head, changing how you perceive the world,” Vanessa said.

“You literally play games that operate off of altering the world,” Teresa said with barely suppressed annoyance.

“It puts a filter over it. I can take the filter off at any time,” Vanessa said with a shake of her head. “That stuff, though? It really messes with your head. You can get your brain all kinds of damaged. Lose the ability to perceive reality from fantasy. I’ve heard of some people who got trapped in games and weren’t able to get out at all, eventually dying.”

“That’s incredibly unlikely,” Teresa said with an exasperated sigh. “Maybe before. But headsets are now designed with so many safety features it’d be all but impossible. Sure, there are people who have died because of heart issues or other things, but that was because they were playing the wrong games. Not because the game itself was less safe than any other form of entertainment.”

“Oh, don’t mind her,” William said with a laugh. “Teresa has always preferred to live in her own world. Ever since we were kids she’d spend as many hours as she could locked in those games and trying to break them. It’s all she does most days.”

Teresa’s cheeks burned and she glanced towards the receipt. “William, it’s getting a bit late, isn’t it? Maybe it’s about time we start getting ready?”

“Oh? Trying to get rid of us already?” James asked, grinning at her. She knew he was just joking, but she couldn’t help feeling guilty at that.

“Not at all,” Teresa said, trying to cover up the fact she really did want to. “I just--”

“Want to go play with more of your online friends?” William asked with a knowing smirk. “See? Only out a couple of hours and she’s already wanting to go back into those games. Fine, fine. Here, our treat, okay?” he said before reaching out to toss his card onto the receipt.

Teresa lowered her eyes and felt her cheeks burning so hot they almost hurt. “It’s just getting late,” she said gently. “It really has been nice. I hope we can do this again sometime.”

“Me too, it was nice,” Vanessa said. “You know, if you want you’re always welcome to join us. We’re always looking for more fighters and it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes we can get groups of ten or even twenty people, you’d love it.”

Teresa’s cheeks burned and she gave a small nod. “I’ll think about it. It sounds a lot of fun. I can’t really drive to any of those events, though.”

“Oh. Well, if you ever change your mind, let me know,” Vanessa said. “It’s really a lot of fun once you get to know it.”

------

“Did you have fun?” William asked, glancing towards her at the stopped light.

“I did,” Teresa said, though she couldn’t help but feel a fresh bit of annoyance. “But...”

“But?” William asked.

“I thought we didn’t have money to waste on things?” Teresa asked, glancing over to him.

“Huh?”

“Well, you decided to treat everyone,” Teresa said. Before she could stop herself, she kept going. “You also left a tip.”

“Of course I left a tip,” William said with a sigh. “It’s rude not to.”

“I know. But whenever I go anywhere, you always tell me not to tip. Even when I eat there,” Teresa said.

William gave another sigh before the light turned green and they started moving again. “Honey, do we have to get into this now?”

“You just told me not to spend a little money on my friends too. But then you had us spend a bunch on dinner for your friends,” Teresa said, the frustration building in her voice.

“I was trying to get you a friend,” William said. “You didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to.”

“You could have asked me before asking them to come. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money either. Especially if it’s that tight,” Teresa said.

“Teresa, honey,” William said in a soft, soothing tone. “I just wanted to celebrate this for you. I wanted to give you something special, I know you’ve been working really hard on all this. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.”

Teresa gave a soft sigh and felt that guilt gnawing at her again. She wished she could find the right words to just make him understand how she felt. “It’s not that, William.”

“Then what is it? Would you have preferred I just ignored your success?” William asked.

“I just don’t see the issue with me spending a bit of money on an online thing with my friends. But then when it comes to this, you want to buy everyone dinner and leave a huge tip.”

“This is real life, Teresa,” William said. “Those games aren’t.”

“So? It’s a meal. It’s only going to last us the hour or two we’re there. A game thing will last a lot longer even if it’s not physical,” Teresa said firmly, her own annoyance only growing. She clenched her fists and turned to look out the window. “I just don’t get why the rules are different for your friends but not mine.”

“Teresa, it’s not like that.”

“Then there’s the tip thing,” Teresa said again, desperately struggling to make him understand. “You always do that. Whenever you have me get the food you tell me not to leave a tip. But whenever you do, you always leave a large one.”

“Honey, you’re overthinking things,” William said.

“Really? Then why?”

William pulled over and put the car into park before leaning forward, his head against the wheel. “Teresa, do we really have to get into this now?”

“I just want an answer,” Teresa said, the frustration only growing inside her. “I just want to know why.”

“Because it’s my money, Teresa,” William said. “Okay? I’m sorry. I work hard all day, sometimes I want to share some of it with my friends. Do something nice, buy them a nice dinner. Spoil you a little bit. But when you spend it, you don’t really think about how much effort I put into making it so you can lay at home all day and play your games.”

Teresa stared at him, her mouth opening but, despite herself, she couldn’t find the words. Slowly, she lowered her eyes. She wanted to say something, anything, but she knew her commission work wasn’t nearly enough to make up for what he was paying. All of that frustration and anger that had built up was now turning into a burning orb of guilt and self loathing.

“Oh baby,” William said before reaching out and putting a hand on her cheek. “It’s okay. Really. It’s okay. I agreed to take care of you. I just want you to be happy.”

“I’m sorry,” Teresa said softly, pulling back from his hand.

“I’m sorry,” William said softly. “I shouldn’t have said that. Listen, if you wanna spend a little bit on your friends, it’s fine. Just don’t overdo it, okay?”

“No, no,” Teresa said softly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Come on, baby. Cheer up. Listen, it’s just money in the end. You don’t need to get so emotional about it,” William said, reaching out again to stroke her cheeks. “I only take care of it because I want you to be safe and happy. That’s all that matters to me.”

“I know,” Teresa said, though she couldn’t bring herself to lean into his gentle strokes of her cheek.

William slowly pulled his hands away and started the car once more, taking off down the road again. “I hate it when you get like this. You don’t need to be so emotional about everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Teresa whispered with another gentle sigh, watching the buildings pass by. He was right, though. He did support her, take care of her. Why was she getting mad about something so stupid like tipping and buying something small for her guild? It was HIS money, not hers.

MelodyAvant

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