My Best Friend

Chapter 3
Gaming

Chapter Description: Alex tries his hand at meeting gamers in his area.

Alex’s reprieve from Ashley was short-lived. He’d keep seeing her out of the corner of his eye. He would never talk to her, but she remained ever present in his peripheral vision. He followed Megan’s advice and looked up social events.

Alex decided to do a gaming event. Gamers in general weren’t very social people, so he figured his odds would be best at this event. The event was a drop-in, so he didn’t have to worry about contacting anybody before showing up. Ashley told him she thought this was a bad idea, but he ignored her, as he usually did these days. If he had Megan there with him, he figured she would tell him that it’s just paranoia setting in and he should just go for it.

The day he set out to go to the event, Ashley warned him once more that it was a bad idea. As Megan had instructed him via email, Alex breathed in slowly, held it for a second, and then breathed out. He thought to himself, ’There is no one there.’ It took several minutes of this, but a very disappointed Ashley finally disappeared, face-palming on her way out. For the first time ever Alex was glad to be rid of Ashley.

When he arrived at the specified location, he noticed that most of the attendees were at the TV with their eyes glued to the screen. They were playing an old first-person shooter. Alex was not impressed nor interested. He did, however, notice a girl by herself at a table behind the assembled seats. She was apparently sipping on an energy drink. Alex decided he wanted to talk to her. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ashley and hear her telling him that this was a very bad idea. As per usual, he ignored her.

“So what are you doing here?” he mumbled. ’Shit, that was very rude,’ he thought. He bit down on his tongue. ’Think of something... think of something...’ When she opened her mouth to answer, he could smell strong booze on her breathe. Alex flinched, but then regained his composure. He was there to meet people, not to pass judgment. “Sorry, that was rude. So... what kind of games are you into?”

She smiled at him, “I-Ike ’PG’s.” He nodded. RPG’s were fun. Not the most fun he’d ever had, but they were fun. “S-sorry I...” she seemed lost in thought after that. She didn’t seem to notice when Alex took her can away from her and dumped it down the sink.

He went to the guys playing. “Uh, hey, you guys know this chick?”

Without turning around, one of the girls answered, “She comes once a week here to drink. I don’t know if she’s underage or what, but we’ve invited her to play several times,” she finally turned around, “You wouldn’t happen to be in the mood for PVP, would you?”

Alex noticed she wasn’t holding a game controller. He hesitated before nodding.

“Alright, there’s another room with a TV right this way,” she took his hand and guided him into the other room. Alex was having a hard time tuning Ashley out, but he managed.

Alex didn’t see a TV when they got into the room. Instead, the room was completely bare. “Uh, there’s no TV in here,” Alex mentioned.

“Oh, shit... they must have moved it... oh well, so what’s your name?” she asked cheerfully.

“Oh, um... it’s Alex.” he replied. He thought he’d be meeting guys today, not a girl. This was completely unexpected.

“Well, Alex, my name’s Tiffany...” they prattled on for a few minutes.

Alex jumped when he saw Tiffany turn into Ashley. He could see her mouth the word, “No” before she faded and was replaced again by Tiffany. Alex looked away and took a deep breathe.

“Is something wrong?” Tiffany asked.

“No, it’s just a little bit cold in here,” Alex replied, “I’m starting to feel a little sick... think I better be on my way.”

Tiffany stopped him before he left. “Could I possibly get your number? We could hang out sometime.”

Alex could hear Ashley saying “Bad idea”, but he brushed it off. If he had stopped to think, he might have thought that this was possibly too good to be true, but he wasn’t the type to consider such things. “Uh... alright,” he responded. They exchanged numbers.

As Alex left the meeting place Ashley’s presence was overwhelming. “Dude, you can talk to me. What’s wrong about having me as your friend?”

Alex shook his head. He would not dignify her with a response. She’d been the biggest part of his life for far too long and it was time for him to “grow up”. He didn’t say any of that to Ashley and just kept walking.

“I don’t like that Tiffany. Something about her seemed off. I understand that you want to meet new people, but she isn’t the kind of person someone like you wants to get involved with-” Alex stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around and gave Ashley a hateful glare.

“JUST STOP IT ALREADY! I have given you over ten years of my life so why can’t you be happy with that? Why do you continue to haunt me? Why can’t I have other people in my life?” Alex couldn’t hold the tears back. They flowed freely and silently down his face. “If I can’t make this work then fast food is the best I’ll ever get in life...” he fell silent and just let the tears flow.

Saying nothing, Ashley pulled him into an embrace. “I think I understand now. I also think you should reconsider meeting up with Tiffany, but I’ll leave that up to you. You know how to get in touch with me if you need me.” Ashley disappeared once more, leaving a tear-stricken Alex alone on the sidewalk.

***

Alex didn’t see Ashley at all during the next week. He found it strange, because every night she’d pop out from nowhere and see how he was doing. Alex just reminded himself that he had to stop thinking of Ashley as a person. A few days went by without any encounters with Ashley.

He and Tiffany were going to get together at her place for a bit of gaming. Alex didn’t really know what to expect. He was a little shy, especially around girls. It took him about an hour to walk to her place, which she noticed was a home, so he made the assumption she lived with her parents.

When he got to the house he saw that there were a lot of cars, so she obviously had company over. He knocked anyway. They had specified for that particular time and he was sticking to it. He rang the buzzer. “Oh, hi Alex come on in,” his hostess greeted him.

“I notice you already have a bunch of people over, and I thought it would be just the two of us...” Alex began.

“Oh, my sister has friends over, but they’ll be out of the way.” she replied, “Besides, they’re not into gaming like we are. Leaving the door open, she pulled him in to her own room. She had a TV with a newer system and one of the latest games.

“Do you want to do PVP or CoOp?” She asked. Alex just shrugged. It didn’t really matter to him. They spent the next hour happily playing until Tiffany broke their silence.

“Alex, I’m just curious, but have you ever put on makeup before?” Alex didn’t particularly like that question, but decided to answer anyway.

“Uh, no. I haven’t...” he said nervously.

A sly grin spread across Tiffany’s lips. “You ever wanna give it a try? I dress up as a guy sometimes and get a huge kick out of it, so maybe you’d like to give makeup a try?” She took out pictures as proof of her weird hobbies.

Alex felt very uncomfortable, but since Tiffany was his first real friend, he supposed he might give it a try. For all he knew it could be pretty fun. He shook his head before replying “...God, this is awkward, fine. Have a day. All I ask is that you don’t take pictures.”

Tiffany agreed to the term and excitedly got to work. They’d switched the game to single-player mode so Alex could have his distraction as Tiffany did her thing. When she was finished, she gave Alex a mirror. He turned a deep red. If he hadn’t known any better he’d say the face reflected was a girl’s face.

Tiffany sat beside him on her bed, both hands on his shoulder. This felt increasingly awkward. “So... what do you think?” Alex turned toward the closet. He could have sworn he’d heard giggling. Chalking it up to paranoia, he turned back to Tiffany.

“Uh... that was fun, but I’m kinda glad it’s over. I’m gonna go wash up...” he set down his controller to get the crap off his face. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Tiffany ran in front of him, “Oh, come on!!! We’re not nearly done. Now it’s time to dress you up!!!”

Alex knew he really didn’t like where this was going. Having been an only child, he’d never had such an experience before, plus the fact that the last person he’d had any form of conversation with was a student training to be a counselor, made him completely unprepared for this situation. He figured it would be the thing they just did and never talked about again. He finally gave a slow nod of approval.

Tiffany set to work. She had a very cute dress she made him put on, which was the only reason she let him into the bathroom. Alex liked the attention, but had the feeling it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind for friendly activities. Having put it on he let Tiffany in to lace up the back. She giggled the most mischievous laugh Alex had ever heard, which made the bad feeling he was getting even worse. “Alright... that was fun. I’m gonna wash up now.”

Tiffany shook her head. “Nope, still need to put on the gloves and boots.”

Alex sighed. This was too weird for him. ’Definitely not coming back,’ he thought to himself. Surely there were more normal people out there with whom he could be friends. He just picked a bad nut this time was all.

Alex put on the boots and he let Tiffany lace up his gloves. He looked in the mirror. ’I look completely ridiculous,’ he thought to himself. “We done yet?” he asked impatiently. For all the good his asking was doing he might as well just walk out and leave, only Tiffany was holding his clothes hostage, so that wasn’t going to work to well.

“One more thing,” Tiffany sang, pulling out a wig from behind her, “Here ya go.” She placed it on his head and straightened it out for him. “You’re beautiful now.” She failed at suppressing a fit of giggling.

Alex was stunned. He looked almost completely like a girl now. Turning a deep shade of red, he put his hand on his wig to throw it off, but was too late. Tiffany pushed him out into the hallway and shouted, “He’s all yours’ girls!!!”

Many phones flashed as he stumbled out into the hallway. Alex turned around and gave Tiffany a look of deep betrayal. Who would be so despicable as to go through all that trouble? “What the fuck, Tiffany?” he asked coldly.

Tiffany laughed hard, “Oh, you wouldn’t believe the trouble I had to go through to find you!” she howled, “weeks of sitting in on those dorks’ boring video games and not once was I acknowledged. I kept going back in hopes that one of them would start a conversation with me so I could invite them over for this, but they wouldn’t even look up when I said hi.” she caught her breath then continued, “Then you came along and I knew you wouldn’t turn down such an invitation... and, well,” she snorted, “here we are! Thanks for the entertainment!” she thrust a bag with his clothes in it. “You can keep your costume, bye!!!”

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” one of the other girls laughed at the open-mouthed sucker standing in front of him. “Here, you should probably change in the bathroom, I think this has gone a little too far,” she snorted upon finishing her line.

Alex turned the deepest shade of red he had ever been in his life. Trying to retain whatever shred of dignity he had left, he walked out the door.