Two
Books hit the table with a thud and her friend glanced up from his notebook, brow arching delicately as his pen stilled against the paper. Hadrian Bridger straightened slightly, leaned back, and regarded her with a puzzled look to match that arched brow.
“What?” Elaine Cavanaugh asked as she dropped into the chair across from him, sequestered in one corner of the university library—their usual spot up on the fourth floor, near the windows and hidden amidst the seemingly endless stacks. She let her bag slide from her shoulder to drop gently to the floor alongside her chair, pens and notebooks and her laptop rattling against each other as it settled.
“I didn’t think you were coming today,” he said simply, watching her as she started unstacking books, sorting them into separate piles. “Isn’t that launch or whatever today?”
She stared at him for a few seconds, blinking, trying to figure out what he meant. “What?”
“Universe or whatever. The VR immersion launch or whatever. Didn’t you back that?”
“Oh.” Elaine wet her lips, staring down at the table for a few seconds. “Yeah, I did.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, the word coming perhaps a bit too fast—no, definitely too fast, because Hadrian’s brow had only climbed higher after she’d said it. Elaine slumped, sighing. “It’s Thursday. We always do this on a Thursday.”
“Trust me, missing one Thursday buried in the library working on research projects won’t kill you,” Hadrian said gently. “There are a lot more important things than this.”
“This is our careers,” she protested lamely. “Our future.”
“Not for you and I in our second year,” he said, watching her. “Believe me when I say it. There are more important things.”
“A game launch isn’t more important than this research.”
“You can’t hide from everything, Laney,” Hadrian said gently. “Stop trying. Burying yourself in all of this isn’t going to change what you’re feeling.”
“I’m not hiding from anything,” she lied, starting to sort the books again. She was fully aware of the weight of Hadrian’s gaze on her, though she tried to ignore it.
She couldn’t. A sigh escaped her and she shook her head slightly, brow furrowing as she looked up to meet his eyes. “Sometimes I feel like I have to try.”
“It’s an anniversary,” he said quietly. “I understand that. But maybe you should think about making better memories than hiding from the painful ones. You’re allowed to have fun, y’know. Wouldn’t they want you to?”
“I don’t know,” she said, even though she knew he was right. Her parents would have wanted her to be happy, to make new memories and not to dwell on their loss. After all, it was like her mother had always said—life was for the living, and she was still alive. Her father would have reminded her that happiness was a thing worth fighting for, no matter how much the world tried to make it hurt instead.
Across the table, Hadrian smiled a little. “What time is the launch?”
“Not until two,” she said.
“They’re opening one of the gaming cafes at the mall, right?”
Elaine nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, they are. Joss is going.”
“Yeah, I thought you were going with her,” Hadrian said. He tapped one of the stacks of books. “This can wait, Laney. One afternoon isn’t going to hurt, especially if it helps you make a new memory to help ease the pain of an old one.”
She stared at him across the table, stomach feeling hollow. “How the hell do you know how to talk like this, Hadrian?”
A wry smile curved his lips and he shrugged with one shoulder. “I’ve seen some shit, I guess.”
“I guess so,” she echoed, shaking her head and sighing. “Is it experience? Is that how you know that making new memories will help?”
He hitched one shoulder in a shrug, bending to his notebook again. “You could say that.”
They’d met the year before, both as first year graduate students and bonded over coffee and reading loads that would have crushed mere mortals—or at least, that was the running joke. She knew a little about him, knew that he was married and had two kids and he was their stay-at-home dad while his wife worked—in law enforcement, she thought, based on what little he’d mentioned. She also knew that something bad—or several somethings—had happened to him in the past, things that had delayed his education. He was a little older than she was, though not too much, and was slightly quiet and withdrawn with most people. Elaine wasn’t sure what made her different from everyone else, but she was silently grateful for it. Hadrian was great company and they worked well together. Their friendship wasn’t something she wanted to endanger.
“Right,” she said softly, deciding not to press. This wasn’t the time. “Maybe I will go.”
“You should,” he said. “Go, have fun, enjoy yourself for once. No one’s going to begrudge you that, especially the people you think you’re honoring by not having fun today.”
“Let’s be honest, Hadrian. I don’t have fun that often to begin with.”
Hadrian smiled. “Maybe that’s something you should think about changing, too.”
That was a familiar refrain—he’d been on her to figure out how to live for months now. She’d started to wonder why it mattered so much to him but again had never quite found the courage to ask. She’d convinced herself it didn’t matter and maybe it was true, maybe it didn’t matter.
“Joss says the same thing,” she murmured, digging her laptop out of her bag. In fact, Joslyn had been saying it more and more often since December, and even before when she’d talked Elaine into backing GreySoft’s experimental MMO even before that, the summer after graduation from undergrad.
“Joss is a good friend,” Hadrian said. “You should listen to her more often.”
Elaine snorted a laugh and Hadrian grinned.
“It’ll take you, what, two hours to get ready and get out there?” Hadrian glanced up from his notebook again. “Work until noon, then go home, get ready, and go there. Enjoy it and quit worrying about all of this for a little while. It’s not like you’re behind.”
She winced, watching him as he bent back to his work. She knew what he was referring to and it made her ache a little. He was right, she wasn’t behind, but he was—though not nearly so much as she thought he might think he was. He’d been gone for most of September and though there had been quiet suggestions that maybe he should take the semester off, but he’d been back by the time October began and was working harder than any other grad student in his department.
As far as she was concerned, that alone was telling.
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” she said, watching him for a few seconds. “You’re already way ahead of everyone else in the cohort and you’re smarter by half than most of them.”
“Yeah, well,” he murmured. “That may be, but I think I’ve got plenty to worry about.”
Elaine took a breath, intending to argue, then thought better of it and shrugged. “You would know better than I would, I guess.”
“Not all the time,” he said, glancing up again with a faint smile. “Sometimes friends need to pull other friends out of their own heads and up for air before they drown.”
“Is that what all of this was about this morning?”
He shrugged and she smiled.
“Thanks, Hadrian,” she said. “I do appreciate it, even if I maybe don’t seem like it.”
“Most people don’t, even when it’s something they need.” His attention was already back to his work. “Sometimes it’s like that. I don’t take it personally.”
“Do you want to come?”
He blinked, then looked up. “What?”
“To the launch. Do you want to come? I’m sure we can get you in if you want to tag along.”
Hadrian thought about it for a moment, then shook his head slightly. “Some other time maybe I’ll tag along with you to the café. I promised Ky I’d be home early today.”
Ky was his wife. Elaine studied him for a moment, then smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t dream of getting you in trouble with your wife. Some other time.”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I’m not going to lie, what they’ve proposed sounds incredible and I’m more than a little curious. You’ve played the actual game already, right?”
“Yeah,” Elaine said, booting up her laptop and reaching for one of the books she’d sorted. “Yeah, since launch—Joss hopped into beta but I just didn’t seem to have time. I’ve played enough to get a feel but I don’t have a ton of time for it, you know?”
“Yeah, I could see that,” he said. “Still, I’m glad you allow yourself that much of a break.”
“Such as it is,” Elaine said, starting to thumb through the book in front of her. “Still. It’s a nice escape when I can afford it.”
“Everyone needs one,” he said, lips curving into a slight smile. “Even hardworking graduate students.”
Elaine grinned. “True story.”
“Always is,” Hadrian said, watching her for a second. “One hundred percent always is.”
Then he bent to his work again and she did, too. A few hours’ work was better than none, and he really was right. She did work too hard and she did deserve to be happy. Playing Universe made her happy most of the time, but she wondered if it was what she really needed, what she really wanted, or if it was something else.
Even if it was, for the moment, it was what she had, and would have to be enough for now.
