“Come on Todd!” Mason said insistently from across the room as his fingers worked the keyboard like an instrument. “Let’s see that epic DPS you’re always talking about”

“I’m trying!” I shouted back. “This thing has mad adds!”

We were deep in a Dark Pantheon raid, fighting the final boss. I was running low on health potions and the boss’s adds were shielding it from any physical attacks. The only thing I could get through its shields were weak frostbolt attacks but that just wasn’t cutting it.

“Target the adds then!” Mason said. “They’re weak to fire.”

“I’m not specced for fire,” I said regretfully. “I’m a frost mage.”

“Didn’t you read the notes I sent you?” He asked as he continued to pound the keyboard. “You could have respecced for fire before you came in here!”

“You’re just now bringing this up?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been chucking ice this entire time and you haven’t noticed?”

“Not my job to notice, dude,” He said. “Just hit the adds!”

“I’m trying to hit the adds, they have an interrupt ability”

Mason pressed ‘CTRL’ on his keyboard to activate the voice chat.

“Hey John,” He said, speaking to the other DPS player, a ranger. “Can you hit Todd’s target to distract it? It’s interrupting.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” I heard John’s voice from the other end of the connection. He then added: "Fucking pussy."

"The hell did he just say?" I demanded as I growled and pounded my keyboard, spitting out abilities as quickly as possible while my mana bar depleted like my self esteem on a blind date.

"He said you're a great guy and he's really happy to have the opportunity to play with that."

"No, I said he's a pussy," John's voice crackled through the speakers again.

"He also says you have the best DPS of anyone he's ever played with."

It took about three hours but we finally stood over the body of the final boss, divided the loot and teleported out of the dungeon. I sighed in relief. Yeah it was exciting but I couldn’t stop thinking about GAT; I wanted to be there. I wanted to be Audrey. I couldn’t be Audrey right now. I checked my phone, desperately looking for a text from Aleah, or Tiffany, or Isabella, but they were silent right now. I thought about texting one of them but honestly, why would they want to hear from me?

I leaned back in the chair and thought about driving back into Pantheon for a little bit but was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“You wanna get that?” Mason asked as he concentrated on his screen. Yeah, why not.

I stood up and made my way to the door, careful to avoid Mason’s side of the room. I didn’t want to cut my bare foot on a soda can or something. I reached the threshold and stepped over the tape line that we’d set at the front. The agreement was that nothing could be set over that line that would obstruct the door. You know like burger wrappers, soda cans, whatever. If I’d left Mason unchecked he would have had us entombed in here with a mountain of crap from his gaming binges. Some days I really wished we could have afforded one of the bigger dorms.
I rubbed my eyes and pulled the door open.

“Chastity!” I said happily. My girlfriend stood in the doorway grinning at me. We embraced in a tight hug, and the first thing I noticed was the material of her jacket. God, I wanted to wear that. Maybe when she set it down – no, wait, that was a bad idea.

“Hey you,” She said as she broke the embrace. “How was your break?”

“It was um…it was good,” I decided I probably shouldn’t fill her in on all of the specifics.”

“How was yours?”

“Hey! You two!” Mason shouted from the other side of the dorm. “In or out, don’t stand there with the door open. I’m a nocturnal creature!”
He held his hands up like claws and hissed, putting emphasis on ‘nocturnal creature’.

“Right, sorry,” I said as I ushered Chastity outside. I really didn’t want to bring her into our filthy dorm. We stepped outside onto the long balcony overlooking the campus. As I looked down into the parking lot I could see two joggers running by dressed in GAT gear. They weren’t that far from their house but it was definitely a weird route to travel; probably watching me.

“Well you know,” She said. “We went up to my parent’s cabin, hung out in nature, all that good stuff. It was boring without you. Really boring. How did your job interview go?”

I hadn’t been able to join her on summer vacation because of that stupid job interview at the Woodcrest Globe. I hadn’t even gotten the job. Not surprising; I hadn’t even started school yet but I could have at least worked in the mail room. I shook my head.

“Didn’t get it,” I said sadly. She nodded.

“I’m sorry hun, but hey, that means more time for us to spend together, and you still have your scholarship so it’ll be fine, right?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Definitely.”

She smiled and touched my cheek. I smiled back and hugged her again. For some reason I kept noticing that her lipstick was smudged.
“So what do you want to do?” She asked. “I was thinking Chinese?’

“Chinese sounds amazing,” I said. Lots of starch in Chinese food. It would burn off fast.

As I looked into her eyes I realized two things. The first was how much I loved her. Honestly I had since the first time I’d laid eyes on her and was too nervous to even walk within five feet of her, let alone ask her out on a date. The second thing was that all of this was in danger of ending. What would happen if she found out I was trans. No, more like what would happen when she found out. I could have stopped it all, maybe. I could just stop going to the GAT house, I could ignore their texts. They would probably even leave me alone; they were too busy to pursue me, I think. Would I be happy if I did that, though? Time was working against me, and it wouldn’t be long before I had to make a choice. Literally her, or my sanity. Unless of course she was somehow okay with it all. Was our love really strong enough to survive that?

“Well let’s go,” She smiled as she led me toward the stairs. Life was good, at least for now.