to throw it out, that I was going to be done with the bikers. In one night, I'd had more excitement than I'd had in over a decade.
It could get me through another decade easily.
I didn't need that kind of crap in my daily life.
Walking over to the fridge, I pulled out the cream, then took the note out from under the magnet, taking a second to notice how unexpectedly neat his print was before tucking it inside my menu drawer, telling myself I was only keeping it in case I wanted to text Ayanna to thank her for not letting me die in the pool.
With that, I took my coffee into my spare room/game room/office /whatever you wanted to call it.
I remembered once making fun of a guy I'd been seeing for liking video games, back before my hands had ever even touched a controller. I'd made some comment about how it looked like all he did was walk around in the game, that it would do him more good if he just, y'know, took a walk himself.
Games had come a long way since back then, it was true. There were all sorts of ones to play. But, somehow, I found myself playing the first game I'd ever tried, originally doing so simply because it was a game version of the book series I'd been obsessed with. And it was one of the ones with all the walking. It was interrupted by short bursts of action, but was overall, more of a game about your own personal mission for your character than epic battles.
There were flashier games. But those flashy games also came with a lot of flashing on the screen that I knew from experience didn't agree with my misfiring brain.
I'd only ever had a seizure once while filming playing my game. And that had nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with the fact that I had lived in a shitty area of town, and the cops were constantly around, and on that particular night, they'd camped out directly across from my window, their red and blue lights flashing.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor with my leg turned at an unnatural angle from being stuck under my chair, and my brand-new headphones crushed from the impact of landing on the side of my head.
It was one of the many reasons I had decided to get out of that area.
There was no controlling the lights, the noise, the stress that could so easily cause an epileptic fit. Even though I was taking my oil, and was trying to control them as much as possible.
And it helped. It did.
Sure, the prescription meds worked better. But they made me slow and tired; they gave me headaches that refused to go away. I'd been forced on them at twelve, and needed to take them until I could make a decision for myself to get off of them.
And I did.
But there were—even on the meds—break-through episodes. The key was trying to avoid the triggers that brought them on.
I could do that with things like moving out of the city, getting away from all the cop cruisers, fire trucks, and ambulances, from the traffic and headlights. I could get away from the noise, from the sheer amount of stimuli that came with living near so many other people.
I couldn't control, though, the unexpected visual triggers. Or the hormonal ones that could make a completely random seizure sneak up on me just because I was close to or on my period.
It wasn't like it had been when I was younger, when I seemed to be having seizures every week or two. I could go months now. Especially when I was careful.
Which was what I was going to be from now on.
Careful.
Not just about avoiding music videos with epilepsy warnings, but about who I associated with.
I mean, I had enough issues without adding on an association with criminals.
So I sat my ass down in my gaming chair. I reached for my headphones. I announced that I was going to go live while I played.
I didn't do live videos often since it was impossible to monitor the creeps, but sometimes I needed real-time connections with other human beings, even if I had never—and would never—meet them face-to-face.
"I know, I'm a wreck tonight, guys," I told the people trickling into the chat. "I had a seizure and nearly drowned in a pool. Everything is cool now. I just