It was late in the afternoon when James went home. The game console quietly hummed and the controllers lay on the ground where we had left them. I stared out the front door’s window and into our empty driveway. Our parents weren’t back yet. There was something so freeing about their absence. I flopped back onto the couch and downed the contents of a mostly empty soda can. James was a great friend, of course, but his energy level after a full day of school far surpassed my own. I was exhausted.  

           But the quietness of the evening began to creep up on me, and all the thoughts and feelings I tried to ignore began to grow stronger. I propped my feet up on one of the towering stacks of unfinished homework and booted up another game. The pixelated screen flickered to life. Player one’s little red character blinked onto the screen. As I fiddled around with the settings I became aware of another presence in the room.

           “Can I play?” my little brother asked.

“Gah!” I exclaimed, dropping the remote, “when did you get home?”

“Dad picked me up early.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m sick.”

“Oh. You’ve been here the whole time? No one told me.”

           A flash of sorrow crossed over his young face, “Yeah. I was just….sleeping. Anyway, I’m bored. Can I play with you?”

           “Uh— yeah, sure,” I replied, grateful for another distraction. I scooted over so he could sit.

           He grabbed his remote and a little blue character joined mine on the screen. I selected multiplayer PVP and we waited for the game to load.

           “You really need to get your work done,” he frowned at my piled up textbooks and papers.

           “Later,” I sighed. I hadn’t been able to focus on any of that recently.

           “FIGHT!” the game commanded. 

           We spent the next several minutes enthralled in a battle simulator. My brother, despite his age, had always been impressively good at this game, always dodging my attacks and hitting me when I least expected it, but that was not the case today. Red dodged one attack, backflipped over Blue’s head, and shot him down. The match was practically over before it began.

           “RED WINS!” the game announced.

           My brother sighed and sank into the couch.

           “Aw, you’ll get me next time. You're just a little off ‘cause you're sick,” I tried to reassure him.

He said nothing.

I pressed restart and the game threw us back into a match.

           And yet again I dominated. I dodged his little blue laser beams in a spectacular show of dramatic (and rather unrealistic) backflips and dashes and landed the final blow before he could even get one hit on me. 

           “RED WINS! WIN STREAK: 1!” The screen displayed fireworks and confetti.

           My brother wanted to adjust his settings for the next round. I got up and began to turn on the lights in the house. It was getting dark outside. I found myself at the front door again, looking out onto our still empty driveway. I wished the thought of their return didn’t fill me with so much dread. 

“Must be a busy night,” I noted, “I think they’d usually be home by now.”

My brother shifted in his seat and shrugged. 

           I fell back onto the couch and waited for him to finish adjusting his character. Then: Click. We were back in a match.

           He went right, I went left, then both compensating for our mistakes at the same time, we slammed into each other and began to brawl. Either he was doing better or I was doing worse because this time we tied in the first two rounds.

“Hey, there you go!” I cheered him on.

           He smiled a little, but I could tell his mind was preoccupied with something else.

“ROUND THREE!”

           Again we were pretty evenly matched; just as he shot me with his lazers I managed to punch him with a critical hit, whoever made the next move would win. I was about to make the final blow, my sword drawn and lasers ready when—

“Why didn’t anyone tell me about mom and dad?”

           My sweaty hands slipped on the controller but I managed to make red dodge just in time. “What do you mean?” I asked, though I knew full well what he meant. A myriad of emotions and thoughts I’d been ignoring for months began to close in on me.

“I heard you talking with James.” Blue came at me with his scythe.

           “You shouldn’t eavesdrop!” I snapped at him. Red barely managed to roll out of the way.

           “You weren’t telling the truth, right?” His round sky colored eyes filled with sadness. “They aren’t actually going to split up, right?”

           I let my guard down for a moment, and blue made the final move. He cut red clean through.

“BLUE WINS!” 

           The screen went black as it loaded. I stared at our small figures reflected in the darkness and took a deep breath. “Yeah, they are.” I hated admitting it. Saying it out loud made it feel like it was real, and I did not want it to be real.

           He set down his remote. “Why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

           I wished I had an answer. “Look, we don't have to talk about this right now. Let’s just enjoy our game. Mom and dad will be back soon and you can…talk to them about it. They’ll probably explain better.” I pressed start again.

           He picked his remote back up. “They won’t want to talk about it either.”

           I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to handle this. I just kept dodging and rolling and flipping and dashing out of the way of blue’s attacks.  Yet he kept coming and I couldn’t keep up.

“BLUE WINS! WIN STREAK: 1!”

“I don’t know what to do,” he murmured sadly.

We sat quietly for a moment.

           “Me neither,” I admitted, “and I doubt mom and dad do either.” I shrugged. “We’re all just trying to figure this out I guess. But we’re in it together.”

           He shrugged but sat up a little straighter, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“I’m kinda tired of PVP mode, how about Co-op?”