Video Games

by YuQiao Shao

She’s only just canceled her plans for the weekend with friends when he says he can’t go. To be fair to him, it is her fault. She should’ve canceled them last night when she asked him last-minute if he wanted to go on a date tomorrow.

Though he didn’t say yes when she asked, he hadn’t said no either.

She was sure he’d agree, at the time. Nothing fancy, just to the beach. She’d make his favorite pasta ravioli and bring that raspberry cheesecake from the fancy bakery that just opened down the street. They’d go for a little stroll on the boardwalk, maybe have a little soak in the salty waves, get sand between their toes and watch the sun turn from bright red to moist pink to black just like they did before.

But she just got home from work, and now he said he can’t go.

“Why?” she asks.

“Just can’t.”

They’re in the living room. He’s got the PC that she got him for his twenty-eighth birthday (and, seventh anniversary!) booted up, fingers tapping away racing carts around mushrooms in some game she can’t comprehend. She’s got her hair nicely curled, hoping he notices. She’s dressed in her nice work suit, the curves hugging her silhouette and maybe something a little more. He’s on the couch in his stained t-shirt, playing video games, probably for a practice round before he meets his friends.

“Sorry,” he says.

She waits for a guilty, pleading, puppy-eyed look. For a lukewarm joke. For him to change the subject.

He doesn’t even look up.

She says that she understands. What else can she say? All the good news of the day dies on her tongue: her promotion, her sister’s upcoming bachelorette party, even the sale they had on eggs at the grocery store. Her heeled feet walk her to the linoleum tiles of the kitchen and she puts the groceries in the refrigerator. Halfway through the pile and between the leeks and singular jacket potato, she kicks them off, and the black clumps smash against the side of the trash with a clang.

He drops the console. Thunk, thunk, thunk. He curses.

Good, she thinks, then admonishes herself for thinking that.

“What do you want for dinner?” she calls into the void.

“Anything’s good.”

“Anything?”

“Uh-huh.”

And then, he’s back into the void while she stares down at her fresh manicure.

She wants him to have something nice for dinner. She knows he probably only had cold pizza for lunch. That’s what her mother always said about her father and now she’s never found herself relating to her mother more. Perhaps they’ll see each other at her sister’s party and perhaps they’ll talk for the first time in more than five years. Perhaps her mother will see how good she has it now and maybe then her mother will approve, finally, of how she’s been living.

Then again, maybe not, and perhaps that’s just the way that it is.

Asparagus? No, he hates it. Baked potatoes? Too starchy, bad for his health. Something hearty and with vegetables—broccoli. Hearty, hearty, hearty…broccoli cheddar soup. Yes, that’s always a favorite.

“Would you care for some soup?” she calls.

No answer.

“Honey?”

“I heard you.”

“Is soup okay?”

“It’s fine.”

She grabs the cheddar and the broccoli and the salt and pepper and chicken broth. She grabs bell pepper and potato, then puts the bell pepper back. She grabs the shredded carrots leftover from the omelet this morning and milk and onion and garlic and paprika to taste. She puts the paprika back because he doesn’t like things spicy—-

He shuffles by. Slowly.

In a few seconds, he’s gone past her. He’s wearing his favorite sweater, the one with the Kansas City Chiefs on it. He’s got his shoes on and a bag packed. When did he pack it? How did he pack it? Does he have clean socks?

“Where are you going?”

“See you,” he says, already leaving.

Something drops to the floor—maybe the cheddar, maybe the carrots. She doesn’t know and she couldn’t care less.

She tucks a perfectly coiffed brown lock behind her ear and the prong holding the small diamond on her wedding ring rips out a strand of hair. She sets it on the counter next to the single framed photo in the kitchen: a smiling woman in white and a grinning man in black and white…

Only then, does she start to think.

About the Author

YuQiao Shao is Chinese-American fiction writer based in California who has won a Scholastic National Gold Medal.