And getting kids to open up is important.
Trust me, I know.
Refusing to let my nephew suffer any of the trauma I dealt with growing up, I vowed the day my sister told me she was pregnant that I’d never let him feel alone.
“I got an infraction at school.”
“For what?”
“Hitting a kid.”
“Mmmph.” I drop it for now because I need to tread carefully about subjects like this. I’ll get to the bottom of it, because he shouldn’t be fighting, period. But I also know my nephew wouldn’t do something like that without good reason. “Which realm are we going into?”
“SeaMonster Superdemon.”
That’s the newest one we’ve made with two kids from his school who trash talk worse than Carson. I click on it and wait for instructions. Beetle usually has a plan on what he wants to build next. When he doesn’t say anything, I pipe up with, “Waiting on you, dude.”
Silence.
“Beetle?” I look at my phone and see we’ve been disconnected. Shit. I call back and he picks up on the fourth ring.
“Dude, the f—” Don’t cuss. “You okay?” I can hear him breathing into the phone. These short, angry spurts of air funnel into my ears and I go on high alert. “Beetle, what’s wrong?”
“THEY STOLE OUR STUUUUUFFFF!”
It takes me a few seconds to realize he’s not talking about being robbed in real life but in the game. Awww shit. I look at our world, where our towers use to be, the treasure chests hidden underground.
“They took everything, Uncle Glitch!”
Yes. They. Did.
I want to tell him it’s fine. That it’s just a game. That it doesn’t really matter because we can make a new world. But that’s not true. It’s not just a game, it’s his outlet. It matters to him. He’s spent all his allotted screen time building this world with his brilliant little mind, and I refuse to downplay this catastrophe.
Those two classmates he invited to play and create in his world have destroyed it instead.
“Beetle!” I hear my sister Erin yell in the background. She must have thought he was hurt the way she panicked. I don’t blame her. He’s spitting mad and acting out, which is something they’re working on. “What’s wrong?”
“They stole everything from my fucking world!” he screams at her.
Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
My sister grabs the cell from him, and I cringe when she says, “Glitch, you better not be the one to have taught him that word.”
I’m not. But my sister will never admit she has a foul mouth and no filter. Beetle didn’t get the f-bomb from me, that’s a promise, but he might have picked it up at home, or at school. “Wasn’t me.”
Beetle yells angrily in the background.
“Damnit,” Erin sighs. “I’ll call you back.”
“Hey, don’t yell at him, okay? He’s been riding the struggle bus a lot lately.” Worst. Thing. I. Could. Have. Said.
Erin goes dead quiet.
“Shit, Erin. I’m sorry I—”
“Don’t talk to me like you know my son better than me, Glitch.” She hangs up on me and I stare at the TV screen. The pixelated image that once was a sprawling, exciting world my nephew created out of brilliance and patience was destroyed.
Kids are assholes. And now my sister thinks I’m an asshole too. Damnit.
My cell dings. Bracing for a nasty text from Erin, I swallow the lump in my throat and look down.
Trey: Sorry man. It had to be done.
What the—
Another text comes through just as I’m typing a response back. It’s from an unknown number and when I click on it, my heart stops.
Unknown: Hey Glitch, it’s Ara. Trey gave me your number and said you agreed to look at my computer. Thanks so much for this. I’ll do anything to get this baby up and running again. When and where can we meet?
I read it three times.
I can’t breathe.
Of course, I’ll look at her computer. I was going to offer on our Discord channel privately—because I hate when other people get all in my business—and she’s not paying me a dime for anything I do for her.
Still, I’m pissed at Trey. He’s trying to shove us together when I’d rather do this my own way.
Trey: You can thank me later.
He thinks he’s done me a favor. He has no idea Ara and I chat privately on Discord sometimes, but really, what has that gotten us? Nowhere in months. We’re too cautious, too generic, and safe. Too filtered and buffered. And she’s been too taken by someone else.