“I didn’t mean to stir anything up,” she says. “And if it was in any article about you or your brother, I promise I didn’t read it to know.”
“No one knows,” I say, putting down my container of food. “Every interview my brother and I give, we always say that we had a normal, average childhood. That seems to satisfy reporters, so they don’t dig.”
“I’m guessing it was anything but?”
I look up to Maeve, who has also put down whatever entree she was eating. Can I tell her about my parents? I want to. And Iknow she signed an NDA to work here, but even without that, I feel as if I can trust her. I want her to know about me, including the bad stuff. And there’s something about this moment, sitting in the space that will one day be my bedroom, that feels like I can.
Maybe it’s because I’m delusional and hope that one day Maeve will share this room with me. Maybe it’s because she’s the only woman I’ve ever met who hasn’t given two shits about my money. The woman who didn’t know me from Adam.
The woman I first met as just Logan.
“We shouldn’t have been poor, but we were,” I begin. “It’s where I get my penny-pinching tendencies from.”
“Shouldn’t have been?”
“Dad was a drinker. Most nights he’d leave for the pub and not come back for hours. Hell, sometimes he’d be gone for days.”
“Oh, Logan…”
“He was what Americans call a blue-collar guy. Worked in a factory. Made a decent living, but we never saw any of that money because it was just going to the pubs. When he was home, he was usually angry at Mum for not being there to cater to him. She then screamed back, because to make up for his habit, she was working two jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.” I feel the anger starting to brew as I think back to that time. “If I close my eyes, I can still hear them now. Fights over money. Over food. But neither would leave the other. The phrase wasn’t used then, but they were the definition of a toxic relationship.”
I close my eyes as I try to put myself back in that time when I feel a hand on my leg. I slowly open them to see Maeve’s manicured fingers resting there, giving me comfort I didn’t ask for, but now know I desperately need.
“I’m so sorry you had to grow up like that,” Maeve says. “I can’t fathom having that for a childhood.”
“That’s why Callum and I found hobbies that kept us away from the arguing. My brother was always athletic, and putting all of his efforts into rugby kept him out of the house.”
“And you found video games?”
“That’s my origin story,” I say. “I saved up money from odd jobs around the neighborhood to buy my first gaming system, along with a pair of headphones, when I was ten.”
“Smart investment.”
“It was. I dove into worlds that took me away from the one I lived in. It was my escape.”
“The calm amongst the chaos.”
A moment passes through us as that phrase hangs in the air. The night I met Maeve wasn’t the first time I’ve used that statement. It started when I was around eight. My parents were having an exceptional fight. Callum and I were both home. Nothing we did could block us from hearing their screams. So we did what any young lads would do—we hid in the closet.
We found calm in the chaos. It was the first time, and it surely wasn’t our last.
“Video games were my calm. My only joy. And it turns out, I was pretty good. At the time, some secondary schools in the country were starting e-Sports leagues. I was at the right place at the right time.”
I smile instantly while recalling the memory. I think it was the only time in my teenage years I was truly happy. I was doing what I loved. I found friends. I had a place to go outside of my home and away from the fighting.
“That’s amazing. I bet your school loves saying that the creator of SpaceCraft once walked the halls.”
I laugh, but there’s a bitter tone to it. “They’re proud. Yes. The donations I send also help.”
Maeve senses my change of tone. “Why do I feel like there was a ‘but’ in there?”
She does know me well. “The school was, and is, proud. My brother is proud and tells everyone he can that I’m the best gamer to ever come out of England. But my parents? They didn’t agree on much, but me focusing all of my energy on video games, in their opinion, was a giant waste of time. It didn’t matter that I always received top marks in school, or about to be the first champion in school history for anything, all they saw was that I was playing video games and wasting my life.”
“Seriously?” Maeve asks. “I mean, okay, back then I can see where they might have a slight trepidation at first because it was new. But even after doing so well, they still didn’t get it?”
I shake my head. “Not in the slightest.”
“I’m sorry, Logan, but fuck them,” Maeve says. “Clearly you made the right choice. But after all these years, now they have to get it. Right? Please tell me that they shout your accomplishments from the rooftops.”
