I Got Your Left

You don't remember falling asleep. You remember your phone on your chest, the screen still lit, and a conversation you had to scroll back through twice in the morning to make sure it really happened.

It did. All of it. The caps lock, the roasts, the moment somewhere around 3 a.m. when the caps lock dropped and she typed something in plain lowercase, and then the long gap after, and then ANYWAY. SCRIMS AT 10. DON'T BE A MENACE.

You go downstairs at nine-thirty with your face carefully arranged.

Riley is already at the kitchen counter in a hoodie and pajama shorts, eating cereal straight out of the box with her hand. She doesn't look up.

"Morning, Patch Notes."

"Morning, Lundqvist."

Ika, at the table, looks between the two of you so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. "Wait. Wait wait wait. Did something happen?"

"No," you both say.

Vash, at the stove, turns a pancake. "They texted until three."

Everyone stares at him.

"The walls are thin," he says. "Her phone buzzes like a wasp. His phone buzzes like a sad wasp. Bzz, bzz. Three hours. I have notes."

Riley throws a piece of cereal at him. It bounces off his beard. He does not react.

Ika slaps the table. "I KNEW it. The Respawn duo is real. I'm making an edit."

"There's no duo," you say. "There's a sponsor obligation."

"Sure, Ethan," Ika says. "Sure there is."

"Oh my god, he said obligation," Riley says to the cereal box. "Somebody get him a hobby."

It's the line from the clip, almost. Close enough that for a second the kitchen goes quiet. Riley's spoon, or hand, stops halfway to her mouth. She looks up at you, and something in her face says I didn't mean that one.

You let it go. You're surprised how easy it is.

Then Solomon walks in.

He gets coffee. He doesn't say good morning. He reaches past Riley for the sugar like she's furniture, and she shifts out of his way without a word, and the warm, stupid feeling in the kitchen evaporates.

"Sol," you say.

"Scrims at ten," he says. "Wouldn't want our entry to be late." He takes his coffee back to the den.

Riley watches him go. Her jaw is tight. She puts the cereal box down and wipes her hand on her shorts and goes upstairs without finishing, and you stand at the counter feeling like you've lost a round you didn't know you were playing.

At 2 a.m., nobody_7 is green.

Your chest does a thing you're not proud of. You accept the invite before it finishes loading.

nobody_7: sorry about last night

nobody_7: couldn't

Anvil: you okay?

nobody_7: yeah. long day. you?

You think about it. The cursor blinks. With Nobody it's always been easier. No face to read, no voice to hear you crack. Just words in a box at two in the morning.

Anvil: we did the stream. it was a disaster for an hour. then she listened to one call. one. and we clutched a 2v5 and won from 6-12 down

nobody_7: i saw the clip

nobody_7: it's everywhere

Anvil: she said good call. off mic. like she meant it

Anvil: i think i might've been wrong about her

There's a long pause. Long enough that you check whether they're still connected.

nobody_7: ...

nobody_7: she'd probably like hearing that

Anvil: she'd never let me live it down

nobody_7: probably that too

nobody_7: queue?

You play three games. Nobody is sloppy tonight, by their standards, which means they're still better than anyone you've ever played with except one person, and you don't want to think about that comparison. At 3:40 they type go sleep cap. You do.

The scrim against Galewind is on Lantern Row, a map of narrow streets and paper lanterns and doors, so many doors.

"Spearhead," Coach Ynez says from behind your chairs, arms folded. "Show me something, Ethan."

You open with a new call. You barely slept, but you spent an hour of the night with the whiteboard and a dry-erase marker you stole from Ika, drawing a plan that doesn't need Riley to wait. It needs her to go.

"Riley. Go first, go fast. Don't wait for me. Take the street and hold the corner. I'll follow your noise and trade whoever kills you."

There's a beat of silence on comms.

"You want me to go alone."

"I want you to go first. Not alone."

You can't see her face; she's three chairs down. But you hear her breath change.

"Copy, Cap."

It works. It works the way an engine works when you finally put in the right part. She goes and you follow, and every time someone kills her you're already there, already aimed, trading them before they can turn. By round eight it's 6 to 2. Ika is giggling on comms like a kid at a fireworks show. Vash says "Good" in a tone of voice you've only heard him use for brisket.

Round eleven. Galewind is stacked in the lantern market behind a heavy wooden door, and everyone knows it. The door is a death trap. You can't push through it. You can't throw a flash over it because the arch is too low.

Riley crouches at the door. You see her character pull a flash.

"Don't," you say. "The arch blocks it."

She throws it straight up.

Not at the door. Not over the arch. At the ceiling right above the doorway. It hits the beam, drops, bounces once off the frame and pops dead center in the middle of the room behind the door, at head height, so every player inside goes white-blind at once.

Your hands go cold on the mouse.

You know that flash.

You've seen it a hundred times. Two hundred. You've seen it at 2 a.m. on your monitor in the dark, thrown by a player who never turns on their mic. You asked once in chat how they found the bounce. practice, Nobody typed. nobody else uses it. it's mine.

You've never seen another player in the world throw it. Not in pro play, not in VODs. You checked once, for an hour, and found nothing.

Riley is already through the door. Two kills. Three. The round is over.

"Huh," Ika says. "What was that? That was sick. What was that?"

"Practice," Riley says.

You don't say anything. Your heart is beating hard against your ribs like it's trying to get your attention.

It's a coincidence. It has to be. Pros watch everything; somebody could've clipped it from a ranked game. She could've seen it once and stolen it. That's what she does, she's a magpie, she steals the best of everything.

Round twelve. You're both pushing the east street, side by side, and the wall to your left is open, a wide window you can't watch while you're watching the front.

"Window," you say, starting to turn. "I need someone on—"

"i got your left," Riley says.

Lowercase. You can hear it. The way the words come out flat and quiet and easy, no stream voice, no grin. The exact four words. The exact rhythm.

The words that have been showing up in a chat box at two in the morning for fourteen months.

Your character stops dead in the street.

A Galewind player pops out and headshots you while you're standing there like a statue, and on comms Ika yells "Ethan!" and Vash says something in Belarusian, and you don't hear any of it.

You're looking three chairs down at the girl with the silver ponytail.

She isn't looking back.