Rising Shards

“Man, I missed you, dude.” Nikki said.

“Oh, yeah?” Kalei said quietly.

Kalei tried not to wince. She tried not to let any sign of anger show on her face, despite the hurt brewing in her wanting to explode out of her. Because Nikki stood across from her with her girlfriend.

Right before she went back to her dorm room for some nap time, Kalei’s stomach grumbled. She decided an early dinner was in order. A chill dinner by herself seemed like a good plan, but shortly after she started eating, she spotted the familiar orange hair of Nikki Maerin, who was with a girl wearing a chrome helmet.

“Oh yeah, this is P.D.,” Nikki said, gesturing to the helmet wearing girl. “We met at Wildfire Hearts, she’s a total badass. She can play bass!”

P.D. nodded at Kalei, and Kalei managed the slightest of nods back.

Now jealous and crushing defeat were in the mix, a melancholy fluffiness seeing a crush she had only just gotten heartbroken by introducing her girlfriend. Nikki was still so cute, and seeing her gave Kalei the fluttery feelings, but she also flashed back to the night Nikki stood her up, forgetting about their plans to see a concert together to be with this girl. How that turned into Kalei raging by herself in the streets, and then getting snatched up by Ovie and 09’s group and ending up in a giant ordeal in the void. She’d barely begun to even process that weekend, and now Nikki was here introducing her new girlfriend.

Kalei had only just started eating too, so she couldn’t just get up and leave now.

“Nice to meet you,” Kalei managed to croak out. Of course, Nikki and P.D. sat down across from her.

She wished some friends were there. The only one close was Marmalade, but she sat by herself a table away, glancing over in confusion a few times at P.D.’s helmet. Zeta would probably freak out if she were present, but with Oka there they could probably help somehow. Lillia would have some kind of big-brained plan to diffuse this without incident. But Marmalade? They’d only just met. She didn’t know the depths of how stupid Nikki made Kalei feel.

“So uh,” Kalei said. “What’s…” I know this sucks, but please don’t say, ‘What’s with the helmet?’ Cuz that would be so bad. “What’s with the helmet?”

Nikki laughed. “Yeah, she gets that a lot.”

Despite the helmet, P.D.’s voice wasn’t very distorted. No features were visible though, so Kalei felt weird as she tried to make some kind of eye contact.

“I have a void related condition,” P.D. said, tapping their helmet. “This keeps me from jumping to a random void node all the time.”

“Plus, it looks sick, doesn’t it?” Nikki asked.

“Heh…y-yeah.” Kalei said.

“Don’t worry though, she can take it off when we gotta kiss,” Nikki grinned, like that

was something Kalei needed to hear.

Marmalade got up and left. She probably wasn’t even aware anything was going on at the neighboring table, but if she did have an inkling, if she could sense the intense awkwardness, Kalei didn‘t blame her one bit for bailing.

Nikki, however, didn’t seem to sense anything was up, casually chatting about nothing. Kalei tried to tune out when Nikki started explaining how she met P.D. and how quickly she fell for her, and their first dates. She bit the inside of her cheek as she nodded, knowing that if this went any longer, she might for real blow up at them. She didn’t want to, but the anger and hurt inside of her was loud. And Nikki just wouldn’t stop talking about her girlfriend. It felt like her mind was slowly getting fuzzier with the pain, it burning through her emotions like a screen getting blurry and filled with static. Her heart pounded, and she started scooting back, not sure what she’d do if she rose to her feet.

Kalei’s phone buzzed, interrupting her motion. Why is Marmalade calling me?

“Sorry…one sec…” Kalei said before answering the call. “Hello?”

“This, uh, this is your mother speaking,” Marmalade said, doing a voice like she was a maid from like two hundred years ago.

“Hey…Ma…” Kalei said.

“I…need you to return to…somewhere.” Marmalade said. “Would that be…tenable?”

“Yeah Ma, I can be there in a sec.” Kalei said. “Sorry, I gotta go.”

“No worries, dude,” Nikki said. “Catch up soon?”

“Yeah.” Kalei said. It was awkward packing up her food, but she felt the fuzziness leave her as she went to her room, where Marmalade waited for her, sitting in the little gaming nook.

“That was pretty slick, Marms,” Kalei said. “How did you…?”

“Heh…I could tell that wasn’t a great time,” Marmalade said. “I hope I wasn’t overstepping any boundaries there.”

“Hell no, you just saved my ass,” Kalei said. “That was…yeah, Nikki. I had a big…or have. Nah, had

a big crush on her. Eh...in the process of getting from have to had. But then she started dating space girl or whatever. You were there for that whole weekend where I got void-napped.”

“Oh, that Nikki,” Marmalade said. “Do you…wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.” Kalei said.

“Wanna play a game or something?” Marmalade asked. “My folks brought over the old eGame, so we can check out TFIVN if you want, sometime.”

“I dunno, I wanna be in a better mood if I watch your game,” Kalei said. “Like you hyped it up, so I want my full attention on it. Sorry.”

“No, you’re fine,” Marmalade said.

Kalei got in bed and dinked around on her phone, which helped cool her down. Until she saw a reminder text for something she forgot she agreed to.

“Ah, damn,” Kalei said.

“What’s up?” Marmalade asked, pausing her game to walk over and lean on the bunk bed.

“I made plans with Risa for tomorrow,” Kalei said. “This sucks, my head is killing me.”

“Can you tell her that?” Marmalade asked. “Say you’re not feeling well? Then just take tomorrow as a you day?”

“I would, but I already cancelled on her like three times already,” Kalei said. “I gotta show up to one of these.”

“Dang…” Marmalade said.

“But if it does go bad,” Kalei said. “Would you mind doing that phone trick again? And pretending to be my mom or something?”

“Sure, yeah,” Marmalade said. “Did I sound like your mom?”

“Not in the slightest.” Kalei said. “But Risa won’t be able to hear your voice, so…” She waved her arms. “But that’s only if I text the signal, I’ll send you like a fart emoji or something. If I don’t send anything, don’t call. I should really try to make it through one hangout with Risa.”

“Got it.” Marmalade said.

“I owe you big time for today,” Kalei said. “I’ll definitely watch you play through that whole game. And no bummer distractions too.”

Marmalade nodded. “Sounds good. But no worries if you’re not up to it.”

“No, I really want to,” Kalei said. “I could really use that. Just not now. If that makes sense.”

“I think I get it. I think you’ll really like this one!” Marmalade turned away, as if she wanted to hide how wide her grin was at that.

“I think I will too.” Kalei said.