But, well. They'd never said anything before. (She'd never been this self-conscious about it before, was the difference - maker.) Sure, it was probably all in her head, but that didn't mean anything when technically everything was in her head. That was how social perceptions worked! Knowing how those things worked didn't make her any better at circumventing them, or doing anything besides being hopelessly aware of them to the level that she couldn't stop being actively aware, but it should have. A lot of things should - have - would - have. Today, though, she couldn't get past it and walk out the door -- and she didn't really need snacks. The grocery runs were perfunctory in the first place. It was time to play video games alone in her room like the single loser she was.
It took longer to set things up in the way she liked them, wriggling around in her chair to get comfortable, but if she was going to be a single gay loser today she could damn well choose to play games where she wasn't. That was probably the point of video games, right? Escapism. If she didn't have the patience or capability to play escapism about being underground in the past, she could be in outer space in the past, and play as a girl a little like her but better. If the love was real. (Sunny didn't fake all of it. Just some. She needed to be nice, and nice girls liked everyone.)
"I've never learned to be on my guard!
There's no need to be when I can tell what other people are thinking,
and nothing can touch me."
There's no need to be when I can tell what other people are thinking,
and nothing can touch me."
Video games are all about escapism, Sunny has always thought, so that makes it easier for her when she can play a character written as something she's always wanted to be. All-loving. Untouchable. All-loved, wanted, the future not set in stone, never standing alone --
It doesn't need to be anything dramatic, does it? It can just be this. Something beautiful, something overwhelming, something infinitely other than what she is and where she is; reading other people's stories and other people's myths, when she didn't have the desire or the care to create one of her own. But there's never going to be anything more beautiful than someone else's creation and someone else's world, when it's one where these pains and aches and troubles don't exist, just for once. It'll be okay, for a few hours. She'll be free. She's grateful for some things -- but she does have to come back, slowly, slowly. Sunny'll make it okay. She's tried to make it better over and over, and maybe one day it'll get there.
