For The Win (Gamer Girls, #6) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,5
room drowned out the game sounds, and that made it even harder. She couldn't tell when he reloaded. She couldn't hear him trigger a med pack, and she was too focused on moving to care about those subtle animations.
So she aimed better. A year of competing with the best players in the sport helped. A nightly habit of playing first person shooters with her friends made it feel natural. Jigging from side to side, tapping at the buttons on the controller furiously, Rhaven proved that she knew exactly what she was doing. The larger hit boxes made it easy. Even when her crosshairs were just off the body, hits still registered, and this guy was dying fast. Unfortunately, she wasn't going to come out of this unscathed.
Huffing in annoyance, she lifted her aim and let bullets fly. Some missed, but most hit right in the enemy's head, and his character dropped like a rock. In her mind, she knew she'd taken out all eight, so that meant she only had one last objective. Rhaven steered her character over beside the control point and then tossed the controller back to Kevin.
"There you go," she told him. "Proof I'm the geek you think I am." And then she turned to head for her room.
"Dude," one of the guys said, dragging the word out. "That was amazing! How'd you learn to do that?"
"PC games," she called back as she reached her door.
Then she stepped inside her room, locking her brother and his friends out. Through the thin walls of the mobile, she could still hear the guys laughing about how easily she'd cleared the map. It actually felt kinda good. Not that it was something overly impressive or anything - not compared to the people she normally gamed with - but the respect was nice.
It was also a little depressing. Her pride and joy was a stupid video game. She'd started playing as a young boy to impress her brother's friends. She'd been in middle school and the high school boys were just too cute. Back then, she'd wanted them to know she'd existed. The problem was that she hadn't. Not as Rhaven, at any rate. She'd played as Sh4d0wB4n3 back then. A stupid name that she'd thought made her look cooler. It hadn't, but she still used it when she didn't want to tell people her real name.
But the boys hadn't noticed her. Back then, she'd been Tyler's annoying little brother. His friends had been focused on the girls who actually looked like girls. Her friends hadn't wanted to hear about what the older guys were doing. They had no idea that her obsession hadn't been because they were cool, but rather because she'd thought they were cute.
And for so long, she'd assumed she was just gay. Not that such things were tolerated in Prescord either, but it had been a sensible answer. Losing herself in video games as a kid was an easy escape. It gave her a safe place where she could be cool and kick ass. Her online friends only cared about her stats, not what she looked like - yet every year it got just a little harder.
Turning on the computer as she passed, Rhaven headed for the dresser to change. Her jeans were ok, but she had no interest in wearing the stupid shirt from work all night. Instead, she found an oversized tee that would hide everything under it. Then, she made a point of turning away from the mirror to get dressed.
The scars on her arm stood out when she pushed it through a sleeve. Yeah, her dad knew about that. He'd been the one to rush her to the hospital the first time. Granted, that incident had been enough to convince Planned Parenthood to give her a prescription for hormones last winter. Life-saving medication, they'd called it, and they were right. The box cutter hadn't worked. The hunting knife had been worse. She didn't have access to the kinds of pills that could put an end to things, so she'd lost herself in games - until last year. Then she'd finally found herself.
She chuckled at that, making her way across the tiny room to her computer chair, when her pocket began to buzz. A glance at the clock showed that Kate shouldn't be off work yet. Still, Rhaven grabbed her phone and swiped without looking. Tucking the phone against her shoulder, she claimed her chair while she answered.