Surprise Attack

Okay, I’m fully aware of it now.

I have the social grace of an elephant and the consistency of jello. But it’s not like I can just un-storm away from yesterday’s hangout like the world’s most unloved baby. It’s hard to stop thinking about the face she made right before I left. That empty look that sat in her eyes before she realized that I was leaving for the night. For a split second, there was a twisted joy in thinking I’d made her feel the way I did. And then there was nothing but regret. Queasy, vile regret.

But before I can even curse the event horizon of my own inescapable stupidity, my phone dings.

At precisely 7:18 A.M. on a Wednesday, she’d sent me a twitter screenshot of someone wearing a t-shirt with the “all girls born after 1993 can do is eat hot chip and lie” copypasta, accompanied by the question, “Where can I get one of these?”.

I laugh, if anything at the fact that she’s messaging me at all. And I respond, “The same place you found that pair of pink throwing bricks, no doubt.”

She gives me a skull emoji, and I slap down a nerd-face.

The exchange ends with her laugh reacting, and I’m left staring at the floor.

This is so humiliating. Is it all just in my head? I went through all the effort of overthinking and retracing every last one of my steps just for things to wind up perfectly normal again. Perfectly fine to go on as if there’s nothing else going on.

Every block or so on the schoolbus, I take a peek at the message exchange we just had, only for the invisible message timer to wipe it by the time I pull up in front of the school.

“It’s fine,” I say under my breath, as I walk into class. “Just don’t overthink it.”

But she’s sitting right there, halfway through a conversation about that one celebrity wedding. Her face is alight with what I can only describe as an extrovert’s (read: masochist’s) joy for their first morning interaction. I take refuge in my corner seat, comforted by my everyday invisibility.

Sometimes, you just want to keep your social groups separate. I get that. For instance, I think I’d rather choke to death on a sideways mechanical pencil and thrash for air than have to deal with Ricardo if I was hanging with Anne-Marie. And in the same vein, she probably doesn’t like to let “B-dog” anywhere near Teddy and the others, either. So it’s not like I’m the exception.

After fumbling my way through our unit quiz on the Tang dynasty, I grow more certain of it. Yeah, I think I can live with it. Even if I’m just some pal on the down low, I’d still be her friend. And as long as I don’t pull any stupid shit like yesterday, I might even have the privilege to hang out with her for a while longer. See, it’s just that simple. This class feels like it ends quicker than usual, and so do the next few. What was I overthinking for?

But just in case…

When lunch rolls around, the game boards come out.

I’m leading with a pretty standard assortment of Space Marines, starting on the low ground of an uphill ravine. My units are positioned awfully for defense behind the rearmost cover, with few overlapping lines of sight between the lightning snipers in the back and the chainsword troopers up ahead. White Jim, on the other hand, vomited his army of flame-decaled motorist Orks all over the frontmost-possible starting positions. How very classically meta of him. It’s obvious that he’s going for an objective rush before I can properly set up my elite unit.

But my secret strategy isn’t so obvious.

White Jim burns through an entire match’s worth of command points applying a turn-1 speed boost for his entire army. When combined with a downhill charge, his fastest motorcycle riders manage three free surprise attack rolls on my chainswords. And they miss every single one.

Perfect.

“Nice one!” I yell, suddenly enough for White Jim to recoil in his seat.

I can feel a neighboring table in every direction turn its judgemental stares onto me.

“What the hell, man?!” White Jim hisses, “It’s turn 1, and you’re already acting like a dickhead?”

I smirk spend an entire turn retreating every unit into the most annoying defensive positions imaginable. At best now, his units can proceed single file down a defense-boosted corridor of criss-crossed chainswords. And by the twitch in his left eye, I can tell my lame duck defense worked perfectly.

His voice cracks as he tries to look cool and mutter, “So you’re gonna play like a little bitch, huh?”

I maintain my smirk. It’s the most important element of my strategy, after all. His face get progressively redder and redder as he’s forced to peel back layer after layer of defense. After a handful of good dice, he finally breaks the morale of my chainswords.

“Oh, what happened to your cheesy defense strat, noob?”

I stop myself from cackling maniacally. After all, there’s a reason why I saved my orders. With a timely crit boost, my snipers clean house on cavalry.

White Jim growls like an asthmatic tiger. “You’re so goddamn lucky, you know that!”

“Didn’t your mom teach you any manners, dude?” Brown Jim snaps back. “Here, lemme help you out.”

I can see the steam starting to creep out of WJ’s ears. “I was gonna win turn 1!” You saw it. It’s the damn RNG!”

I glance around, and by this point, there’s more people giving us dirty looks than usual. But it’s not enough.

“Can you go already?” I ask. “I don’t wanna play if it’s gonna be easy and boring.”

“I’ll show you easy!” they bark, in unison.

Somehow, despite the chaos, the Jims manage to mount a remarkable recovery and decimate my front row.

Terrifyingly in time, they goad, “How’s that? Bet your mom could play better than you- just like she did last night!”

It’s time.

“You know, my mom said something funny about that!” I announce, with the full force of my 10-pushup-max chest. “She said she couldn’t even feel it, imagine that!” I slide my pinky fingertip through the circle of an ok gesture for emphasis.

The two Jims let out a frankly inhuman squeal, and the pungent cafeteria air fills with enough pressurized gamer rage to make a diamond out of a can of mountain dew.

That’s it. Louder. Louder, you apes! The plan’s just a hunch. But I know she’s sitting there on the other side of the cafeteria. All I have to do now is get loud enough. Loud enough to reach her. If I can do that, maybe she’ll noti-

“Your grenadiers can intercept his left flank.”

The soft voice came from behind.

“Good point,” I mumble, without looking away from the board.

It’s probably just an auditory hallucination from the sleep deprivation—nothing I can afford to get distracted over, now. The left flank crumbles beneath the might of excellent strategic timing and mediocre rolls. But neither Jim is watching me roll their army, and I feel a bit hurt. Instead, they’re staring past me, looking as stiff as if they’d just voided their bowls. I turn, and feel my gut drop in turn. Because there’s a girl leaning over my shoulder.

And she’s ridiculously beautiful.

A smile in mauve. Soft hazel eyes that look wise beyond their years. She twiddles a strand of wavy brown hair as she scans the board, and points to a gap in the Jims’ position with a dark finger tipped in sea-green. Her posture is relaxed, and yet confident. And as she leans over me, she’s close enough that the side of her jacket blouse drips onto my shoulder.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice the personification of butterflies and sunshine, “Good counterplay.”

I nod stiffly. The Jims take an extra half a minute to snap out of it, before scrambling to formulate a passable defense. I have no idea what magic storybook this beneficent sorceress materialized from, but there’s no way I’m gonna look like an idiot in front of her, either. I send in my cavalry.

“Smart,” she remarks, her face still hovering right next to mine. “If you close the gap on the right, they shouldn’t be able to get terrain bonus.”

The Jims balk at her. Their initial wave of backfooted shock gives way to the primordial force of gamer entitlement.

“No fair,” They argue, “Why’s she helping you?”

“It’s about the principle,” The girl replies. “If you two can do it, why can’t we?”

All the work I did to rile up the Jims has been rendered useless by this strange girl’s surprise attack. My plan failed. I can still feel half the cafeteria watching us now, though for an entirely different reason. And yet, I can’t seem to get that upset.

The Jims rally their last motorcyclists around their right flank, closing in on the grenadier units that are trying to seal my frontline. My units hold through the turn, if barely. The girl reaches over and moves heavies in to relieve them. The Jims seethe, as if they hadn’t calculated for such an obvious strat. And admittedly, neither had I.

She’s good.

Over the next few turns, it grows clear. The way she sets up the lines of fire. The initiative with which she takes command. The fluid symbiosis as she adapts to my playstyle. She’s probably spent more hours pouring over the rule books than me and the two Jims combined. And yet-

“Your name,” I say, without taking my eyes off our units.

“Raisa. And you, general?”

And she’s into the RP?

I almost choke on my spit, sputtering, “Ack-Ogden.”

“A cog, then?”

“Please. A cog then is my father. Call me Ogden.”

She snickers through her nose. “That’s a good one. Very Bond-like."

"What can I say, I know my bondage."

Against all odds, Raisa lets out a laugh. Simultaneously the most dainty and charming thing I've ever heard, it’s nothing like Anne-Marie's full-throated cackles. Worst of all, it sounds genuine.

The Jims stare me down with icy daggers before retaking their move. This time, they rush their elite unit up to face ours, and the rolling begins for a battle between two titans. We spend the next three turns circling our armies to support the brutal melee, and both sides are soon whittled down to roughly half a dozen units each amid the peaks and crags of the bloodied ravine. As green lightning pours down from the putrid heavens, our elite units somehow remain standing, still locked in their fierce duel. It grows clear.

Whoever wins the next roll takes home the crown.

The plastic polyhedron comes tumbling out onto the table. I'll admit it. No matter what happens, I haven't had this much fun at lunch in forever. Raisa's clenched fist weighs upon my shoulder, and I can infer by her entranced expression that she feels the same.

The die rolls around on its rim for a second, balancing between the best and worst possible outcome. And it comes up a crit.

The Jims cheer. They hoot and holler, saying something that I think is meant to goad me, but I can barely hear it because-

"That was so much fun!" Raisa exclaims. "I don't think I've ever played in person before."

“You use one of those web-sims then, right?"

She nods. "Playing over a zoom call is nothing like the real thing though."

"Nothing over a zoom call is like the real thing."

Raisa laughs. "Mood. I hated online classes."

"Yeah, you'd have to be some kind of freaky alien to enjoy those,” I say, knowing full well that I was that exact type of extraterrestrial oddity.

"I have friends like that," she says, "But I know for a fact that they're from Alpha Centauri."

"Space cadets?" I ask.

She corkscrews a pointer finger around her temple. "We’re talking event horizon."

"Next you're going to say they enjoyed keeping their cameras on."

She stares me dead in the eyes with a blank expression. "They think it’s nice to see their classmates."

I mime a vomiting motion.

Raisa raises her palms. "Right?!"

We laugh. But there's one thing that still bothers me.

"Speaking of classmates, how come it's the first time we're talking? You new in town?"

"No, no," she replies, shying away into her shoulders. "I've been here the whole time. Sorta- just watching you guys play from a distance."

"Watching, huh…"

All the embarrassing, edgy shit I've said over the last half a school year flies at me like a swarm of bats with knives attached to them. Just who the hell is this girl, and how can she even stomach talking to me?

"Yeah," she replies, not skipping a beat with an unbroken smile. "You guys were always having so much fun. But it's so hard to just walk up and say hi, you know?"

"I know the feeling… You'd have to be a psychopath to enjoy that kind of social pressure."

She pauses for a second, giving me that deadpan look from before. And then she starts laughing.

"Got you there for a second, didn't I?" She says.

I feel compelled to nod, especially considering the fact that I briefly felt my soul leave my body there.

I didn't notice it at first, but her body language had gotten a whole lot stiffer since her arrival. In fact, the level of smooth confidence her face first carried seemed to have dissolved like butter into toast. Hands crossed over the elbows, feet pointing inwards. It's almost like- She's nervous. I'm no mind reader, but even that much is obvious.

"Don't worry," I say, "You can play another one with us if you like."

Her eyes regain some of the luster they had before. And yet they start to quiver.

"It's not that…" Raisa mumbles, rubbing her elbow.

I blink, and Raisa's expression goes from shaken to confident. She takes a deep breath, looks me straight in the eyes, and asks:

"I know this is kind of sudden, but would you like to go out with me?"