The Summer I Became a Nerd

#13

“I can’t believe everyone has to play with a new character this year. I’ve been playing Craytor for like two years. He’s such

a badass now,” Dan says as he leans forward and props his elbows on our seats.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Logan says. “We need some new blood, and people never stick around long if their new characters

can’t hang with the more experienced ones. Besides, you’ll be able to bring Craytor back three times over the summer, I think.”

“Why is Craytor such a badass?” I ask.

“Your character gets points for every game session they participate in,” Dan says. “Plus, there’s a chance for bonus points if

you do some extra special stuff during a game. You can then use those points to increase attributes or powers or buy items. And

Craytor was the man last year. Remember when I took down that chimera all by myself, dude, while all you guys decided to run and—

”

“Yes, I remember. I was there. And you’ve told me the story about a million times since then,” Logan says.

“Well, it’s like my dear old grandma always says, ‘If you never get told you’re a wuss, you’ll always be a wuss,’” Dan

says.

“I know your grandma, and she would never say that,” Logan says.

“Hey, my MeeMaw is a tough old bird. Don’t underestimate her.”

I swear, these two fight like a married couple. When we get to the gaming venue—which turns out to be just the backyard of the

game master’s house—the butterflies that have been building in my stomach turn into a swarm of angry pixies.

Logan and Dan get out of the car to get the sodas from the trunk, but I stay put. There are so many people here we had to park on

the side of the road. All types of otherworldly creatures meander around the house.

How could I ever have considered this? I have no idea how to play this game. What if my character gets killed? In the first game,

no less? I’ll be the dumbest nerd who ever nerded.

“You ready?” Logan says when he opens my door.

“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” I say.

“You’ll be fine.” He holds out a blue tinted hand. He looks at me with eyes that seem to be bluer than ever because of his face

paint. His smile isn’t the knowing one I’ve come to expect. It’s gentle and confident.

I take his hand and don’t let go as we walk into the mass of role players.

We go through the front door which has a sign taped to it that reads:

YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A NIGHTCLUB FOR PARANORMAL CREATURES CALLED SANCTUARY, WHICH MEANS STEPPING OVER THIS THRESHOLD PUTS YOU IN

GAME:

RULE #1: NO DRINKING OR DRUGS ALLOWED. ANYONE SUSPECTED OF BEING UNDER THE INFLUENCE WILL BE EJECTED FROM THE GAME.

RULE #2: LEAVE YOUR TRUE SELF AT THE DOOR. DO NOT DRAG OUT-OF-GAME EVENTS AND FEELINGS INTO THE GAME. JUST BECAUSE SO-AND-SO STOLE

YOUR GIRLFRIEND DOES NOT MEAN YOUR CHARACTER WILL ALSO WANT TO RIP SO-AND-SO TO SHREDS.

RULE #3: IF YOU NEED TO RUN A SCENE THAT INVOLVES ATTRIBUTES, POWERS, OR ITEMS, PLEASE FIND A GAME MASTER TO OVERSEE. LET’S KEEP

THINGS OFFICIAL.

RULE #4: BE RESPECTFUL TO OTHERS AND HAVE FUN!

As we make our way through the front room toward the kitchen, my eyes don’t know where to look. Dwarves, vampires, shape-

shifters, bright fairies, dark fairies, werewolves, and creatures I can’t even put a name to mill about all over the place. In

the kitchen, Logan and Dan add their sodas to a growing pile of other drinks and snacks. We head toward the back door but have to

wait for some type of dragon guy with a long, lumpy tail to go by before we can go through to the gaming venue.

Moody, almost hypnotizing music washes over me as I step into the thick grass. A towering magnolia tree grows in the middle of the

yard. From it hangs an enormous, rotating disco ball that reflects dots of light onto many more gamers. It looks like creatures of

the same race are splitting up into groups. In a back corner of the yard, there’s a group of glittery fairies wearing sparkly

mesh wings. They look so pretty, I make a mental note to search for fairy costumes this coming Halloween.

In the completely opposite corner, closer to the house, is a group of dark fairies. They’re all dressed in black with black hair,

black eye shadow, black lips, and torn black wings. Just black all over. I make eye contact with one of these fairies, and she

scowls. Her charcoal-encircled eyes narrow, and her deathly lips form a snarl. I immediately look away because I’m actually

frightened. I can almost feel the animosity rolling off this chick.

When I look at Logan, he smiles down at me and squeezes my hand, which he has thankfully yet to let go of.

“Brothers, ho!” Dan yells and stomps across the yard to a group dwarves also covered in foam spikes. He’s met with elaborate

handshakes and chest pounds and head slams.

“Come on, dude, I have neighbors,” a guy standing next to us in a flowing, dark green robe and sporting an extremely fake, white

beard, says to Dan.

Logan leads me to a couple of lawn chairs on the edge of the yard. When we sit, he says, “See, not so crazy, is it?”

I let out a nervous laugh. “Of course not. This is all completely normal.”

“Just relax. Remember, you’re an elven princess. Get into your character.”

“Right, right.” My name is Laowyn. I am the heir to a throne. I should sit straight and cross my ankles. I’m prissy, but not

snobby. I’m naive about the world outside my kingdom.

“By the way, I added something to your character sheet in the history section, so it would be more believable that you’re here

tonight.”

He hands me my character sheet, and I scan it over to find the history. Tacked onto the last paragraph I wrote is a sentence in

Logan’s handwriting which is small and precise, easy to read. It says: Laowyn is in a relationship with Graffin.

“Oh really, Graffin?” I look at him out of the corner of my eye.

“You had to have a reason to be here tonight. Your character wouldn’t have had any clue this was a club for our kind. I figure

our parents could have known each other and introduced us.” When I don’t immediately say anything, he fiddles with the zipper of

his jacket and says, “Don’t worry, it’s only a game. We just have to pretend to be together.”

It’s a good thing I’m wearing blue paint because I can feel my cheeks heat up. I glance at his hands. He can’t stop fiddling

with the zipper. When I try to make eye contact, he avoids looking at me. His zipper must be really awesome.

I nudge his arm with my elbow. “Okay. Gotta keep things believable, right?”

“Right. It’s all to make things as real as possible.”

His shoulders relax, and he lays his arm across the back of my chair. He fidgets a little more, his fingers drumming a rhythm on

the back of my chair, then drops his arm back down to his side. It’s adorable, really. I scoot my chair closer to him and wrap my

arm around his elbow, smiling up at him as coyly as I can while batting my super-long eyelashes. He laughs that honest laugh.

“Have you ever done this before? Had your character in a relationship?” I ask. “It seems like such a professional gamer thing

to do.”

“I, uh—” His gaze darts to the group of dark fairies. He opens his mouth to continue, but the music stops. Everyone around us

begins to move to surround the tree, but I can see someone trying to fight through the stream of people. That scary dark fairy has

her evil eyes trained on Logan and me as she weaves through the crowd.

“Looks like things are about to get going. Let’s go see what Tommy, I mean, game master Sorenson has to say,” Logan says. He

stands, and I follow him into the crush of people.

By the time everyone settles down, the evil fairy is nowhere in our vicinity. I relax slightly.

The Dumbledore wannabe from earlier climbs onto a coffee table that’s been placed in front of the tree. He holds his hands up for

quiet, and I have to admit it’s pretty cool when everyone goes silent.

“Welcome to every one of you, new and old,” he says in a decent English accent. “I hope you’ve all come to Sanctuary tonight

to have some civilized fun, because we have an interesting evening in store for you.” He ends with a flourish of his robe, and

the crowd erupts into applause.

He drops the accent and says, “If you have Area Knowledge under your specialties, see game master Torrak.” He motions to one of

Dan’s clansman. “That’s it, and remember the rules, folks.”

People spread out. Some dance to the music that has taken an upswing in tempo, but most form the same groups as before. Logan

takes me with him to Torrak because he has the area knowledge thing. He says his character would tell my character everything he

knows anyway so I might as well hear it straight from the dwarf’s mouth.

Torrak has spared no expense on his getup. His foot-long red beard looks freakishly real. The plate of armor covering his chest

could have been picked up at the Lord of the Rings garage sale.

A sickly-looking vampire who smells like baby powder gets to Torrak first, so we hang back and wait our turn. I take the moment to

do some more creature-watching, which turns out to be a bad idea. Everyone here seems so comfortable in their fake skins. It’s

intimidating and wonderful, and I want to be just like them. But I keep thinking I don’t deserve to be here. If these people knew

how ashamed I’ve been that I’m like them, they wouldn’t accept me. They’d dub me an imposter, a poseur. My gaze drifts to

Logan’s face. It’s overly scrunched up in a worried look which makes me realize he’s mimicking my own expression. I force my

brows to unknit and try to put on a relaxed smile.

He steps closer to me and takes my hand. Instead of a normal, friendly handhold, he laces his fingers between mine. I don’t know

if it’s real or just my imagination, but the warmth that travels from our interlocked fingers, up my arm, and over my whole body

makes all the tension in my muscles melt away.

Finally, the vampire leaves, and we step up. Torrak pounds his chest with a closed fist and says, “Ho, friends.” He tells us

there have been some abnormal events going on in the city. Random human citizens have been committing crimes that just don’t fit

with who they are. Stay-at-home moms are robbing banks. Upstanding business men have been caught shoplifting makeup. The drunk

tank at the police station has become so full of old ladies they had to empty the public swimming pool to make room for more

wasted grandmothers. The insanity is escalating. Rumors are circulating amongst the paranormal community that one of our own is

responsible.

As we walk away to let a guy with a sign on his back that reads “I’m a Centaur” hear the information, I ask Logan, “Okay, so

what do we do now?”

“We mingle, we chitchat, we try to find out what other people know. Looks like it’s going to be a good old-fashioned whodunnit

this summer.”

“Well, if we already know that’s it’s one of us doing this stuff…” I look up at Logan. One of his eyebrows raises, and the

corner of his mouth quirks up. “Um, wouldn’t we try to find out who can control humans like that? Make humans do things they

wouldn’t want to do.”

“Wait, let me see your character sheet.” I hand it to him. “I thought so. You have a nice level of Race Knowledge. I guess you

spent a lot of those two hundred years in the library while you were stuck in your parents’ castle. Let’s go talk to Torrak and

see if we can find out some more.”

We pull Torrak aside, and Logan nudges me. “Go on, ask him.”

“Okay, um, I have this Race Knowledge thing and—”

“Well done.” Torrak leans in close to whisper, “You would know certain races have the ability to control humans’ actions. You

would also know dark fairies are one of these races, and they have a tendency to enjoy chaos and pranks.”

My eyes go wide. “Okay, thanks.”

Torrak nods and goes back to his clan.

Logan throws his arm around my shoulders and squeezes. “Good job. I bet we know more than anyone else. Knowledge is power, right?

Let’s get a soda.”

We move over to the refreshment table. There are chips and dip, cookies, and candy. There’s also an array of sodas, all

caffeinated. These people are going to be wired by night’s end if this is all there is to snack on.

“Hi, Logan,” a silky voice says from behind us. Logan’s hand, which is in the middle of pouring his soda into a cup of ice,

jerks, sloshing brown liquid onto my open-toed shoes.

“Oh crap. Sorry, Mad, I mean, Laowyn.” He rips off a paper towel from the roll on the foldout table and tries to clean off my

shoes.

“Logan?” the voice says again, and I turn. It’s her, the dark fairy that’s been giving me the willies all night. The second we

make eye contact, the corner of her top lip twitches like she’s fighting the urge to growl.

“Hey, Kelsey, how’s it going?” Logan says.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” She puts a hand on his forearm. “Alone?”

Now I feel my own growl creep up in my throat.

Logan steps away from her. “We’re in the middle of game here. Can’t it wait?”

“No,” she says, her tone impatient. “It’ll just take a second, I promise. It’s important.”

He lets out a long sigh and turns to me. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Sure,” I say in my it’s-not-okay-but-I’m-going-to-say-it-is-anyway voice.

Her jet black bob swishes and her wings smack me in the face when she turns to go to the other side of the house with Logan in

tow. I pretend my eyes are girlifying lasers and concentrate on her. Unfortunately, she doesn’t turn into a Barbie look-alike,

but I imagine what her reaction would be anyway: Terror, horror, and ultimately, running away screaming.

“What’d she want?” Dan says as he walks up.

“To talk. Alone.”

“Poor Logan. He has the worst luck with girls,” he says. “I guess we all can’t be as discerning as myself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I am single by choice, not because no girl will have me.” He points a finger at me like he’s making a very valid

statement.

I give him a long blank stare, but he doesn’t get the hint. “I meant, what do you mean about Logan having the worst luck with

girls?”

“Well, that girl”—he nods in the direction Logan and Kelsey just went—“kind of drug him through the mud, then broke his

heart. She bossed him around all the freaking time, put him down, told him he needed to get out of the comic shop and start a band

or something like that. She just wanted him to do it because her roommate at that smart kid school had a boyfriend who was in a

band. But Logan doesn’t have a clue about how to make music, just how to announce it. The crazy thing is he didn’t really mind

being bossed around and stuff. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the lying. See, she did end up with a guy in a band. Her

roommate’s guy, actually. And she accomplished all that while she was still with Logan.”

“What a bitch.” The words pop out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“You said it. But then again, at least she wasn’t ashamed of him.”

I watch his back as he walks away. What was that supposed to mean? Then my brain catches up. Aren’t I in the process of dragging

him through the mud in exactly the same way?

Logan appears from around the corner of the house, his head dipped as he rubs the back of his neck.

“You ready to go?” he says when he reaches me.

“But we’ve only been here for, like, thirty minutes.”

“We’ve done all we can do. The first game is always slow anyway.”

I wouldn’t know since this is my first game. “Are you okay?” I try to touch his forearm, but he dodges me. Over Logan’s

shoulder, I catch Kelsey watching us with a smirk.

“I’m fine. It’s just…” He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to say something specific, something profound. I guess my

expression of utter confusion isn’t what he’s hoping for. “I’m just tired. All day at the shop, then the show for two hours.”

“What about Dan?”

“I’ll go tell him. He’ll probably just find a ride.”

Ten minutes later, we’re heading back up the street and toward his house. It’s quiet for a long time before I can’t stand it

anymore.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine.”

He doesn’t say another word, and I’m not going to force him to talk if he doesn’t want to. It’s probably best to just leave

him alone. It’s not like I should even be allowed to help him feel better. If what Dan says is true, I should just walk away

before I turn into Kelsey. She straight up used him. I’m using him—sort of, though not for nefarious means or anything—and

lying to everyone around me about who he is, who I am, and where we go when I’m with him. We pull up next to my car, and there’s

a long, uncomfortable silence before I say, “Well, I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

I go to open the door, but Logan says, “What’s going on here?”

“What do you mean?” I scrunch up my face. The face paint has hardened so it’s just as uncomfortable as the question he just

asked.

“There are some wet wipes in the glove compartment. What I mean is what are we doing? Is this like just some summer experiment to

you or…” He trails off and looks out his window.

The accusation is like a punch to the gut. Because he’s totally right. I have been treating this like Las Vegas: what happens in

the summer, stays in the summer.

I start scrubbing at my face and hands with the wipes, mostly so I don’t have to look him in the eye. “Was it that girl? Did she

say something about me?” I can hear the defensiveness in my voice.

“Don’t worry about her,” he says. “What I mean to say is could you ever see me as… There have been some moments between us,

right? I know I’m not imagining them.”

In a span of seconds, those “moments” flash through my mind. Not only do I remember that day in The Phoenix when I was dying to

read #400 and our impromptu happy dance in front of Mr. Whiskers, but I also remember moments he doesn’t know about. Like the

time I watched him try and fail to open his locker for five minutes, then spent the rest of that day fantasizing about what would

have happened if I had gone over and helped him. Or when I talked the squad into cheering at a soccer game just so I’d have a

reason to see him play.

But those memories are quickly replaced with moments that haven’t happened yet. Moments like seeing Logan in the hall on the

first day of senior year and having to pretend I don’t know him. Rayann asking, “Who was that?” and me answering, “I have no

idea.”

I don’t want to do that to him. Which is why I say, “No. No moments. I have a boyfriend. You know this, Logan.”

His lips slowly tighten into a thin line. “Just… Whatever. It doesn’t matter.” He sounds so angry, so hurt. He climbs out of

the car and slams the door. If that isn’t a screw-you, I don’t know what is. He doesn’t even turn around to make sure I get out

of his car. Just strides up the steps to his house and disappears inside.

By the time I finally get into my car and dig through my purse looking for something to help with this paint, my hands are

shaking. Logan’s the first person outside of my family to accept me for who I am, and I’ve stomped all over him. The NerdCon

pass surfaces with the package of tissue I find, and I look at the ceiling of my car, wishing I wasn’t such a jerk. Logan’s

pissed at me, and rightfully so, but it looks like I’m not done dragging him through the mud yet.

As I walk back to Logan’s car, my feet feel so heavy I actually look down to make sure I’m not wearing Dan’s boots. This is

tough because giving the pass back this way means we probably won’t have any more contact other than the occasional awkward run-

in at school. For a second, I look back at his house, wishing he’d come back, but that would just make this harder.

I open the car door, drop the pass on the seat, and leave.