For as long as I can remember I've always loved those old retro shooters that your friends would never think about playing. My dad had a family computer in the living room and I used to play his old copies of Doom II and Quake. Something about these older shooters seemed correct, like the newer ones at the time had something missing with them. I used to be that one kid in middle school who would flex that I knew a lot more about games than everyone else, as playing these older games gave me a false sense of superiority. Embarrassingly I remember a moment in sixth grade when these two kids on the playground were arguing if the new Call of Duty at the time (World at War) was better than the previous installment (Modern Warfare). I told them Quake was better and that you have to play the old stuff to fully appreciate the new. They told me to fuck off. It was an appropriate reaction looking back, nobody wants to interact with the weird "born in the wrong generation" dork. At least, that's what I would've said before I met Julia two years later.

In November 2010, I saw her sitting alone at lunch with a half eaten sandwich. playing on her Nintendo DS. She was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen; long black hair that went down to her arms, bangs that look like she cut them herself in the mirror, and circular rimmed glasses that look like the lenses were forged straight from god's template of a perfect circle. After looking at this goddess for the first time my introverted self did something I've never done before: I attempted to directly talk to someone I didn't know. I hadn't done it before, hell I can definitely say I haven't done it since, but this sense of pseudo-confidence I obtained when I saw this girl superseded all other emotions I had. When I walked up right next to her she raised her head, and Aphrodite herself was staring at me wondering what I was doing near her space. I panicked, and stuttered out a "h...h..heywhatareyouplaying" to which a gentle voice responded "The new Pokemon game that released a few months ago, its pretty good so far!" Her quiet sound and mannerisms made my heart melt with infatuation, the audio of Pokemon Black fading in the background as I focused on her and only her. We talked for a few minutes, gradually warming up and ball-parking the interests we had between us. Eventually my nerdy self asked if she's played any old PC shooters, in which she responded with a "You mean like Doom? I loved those, played them all the time on my brother's computer." That was the day I fell in love for the first and only time.

We became good friends. Every moment I was with her felt blissful. I imagined a perfect future of us; going to college together, raising a family, sitting on the porch watching our grandkids play near the big birch tree that watched us grow old together. I wanted to be with her, to claim the title of "Julia's boyfriend", her one and only. But that wave of confidence that hit me in November never came. There was only a permanent low tide. What was wrong? Why couldn't I just ask her out? This fear paralyzed me, a terminal disease that couldn't be diagnosed or cured no matter how many doctors tried their hardest. In February 2012, our freshman year of high school, she gave me an old CD-R with the words "Putt-Putt Joins the Parade" written on the top with black permanent marker, a smear mark just below the word parade. "It's my favorite game of all time," she said. "Sure the gameplay isn't anything special, but my four year old self loved it. Play it this weekend, let me know what you think about it." I took the game home with me and put it on my desk, with the objective to play it once I was done with all my other extra-curriculars and homework. Saturday went by fast. Sunday even faster. Monday morning I looked at the unopened CD-R sitting in its slim jewel case and cursed to myself. God. Fucking. Dammit. When algebra rolled around and I saw Julia walk in my stomach dropped. I had to lie, I had to say I played it. If I didn't she would get up and leave. I can't tell her I was busy last weekend, what if she didn't believe me? So I lied. I told her I loved it, really enjoyed the character of Putt-Putt, the ending was amazing, other fake garbage that makes my stomach churn looking back. She smiled, with a look in her eyes that could make a thousand kings kneel. "What color did you paint your car?" I thought for a moment, trying to bullshit another answer, eventually coming up with "I painted it white like my mom's sedan, it looked super cool". She paused, with a slight frown. "Oh, I stuck with purple."

I knew it immediately, she knew I didn't play it. How could I? How could have I done this to her? Why did I do this? She will never forgive me. I couldn't talk to her, she definitely hates me, she hates nobody more. I spiraled. Why would I want her to interact with a liar? She's too good for me. I'm nothing. She didn't need dead weight to tie her down. After that moment I tried to hide my embarrassment the best I could. I started eating alone at lunch, taking longer routes to classes, going to algebra late just to avoid talking to her. This is right. She will leave me alone and finally become happy. I wanted that for her, I loved her. The abandonment plan worked and slowly but surely, she became distant, becoming colder and colder towards me. By my sophomore year I realized she wasn't in any of my classes anymore. She was finally free of the filth that plagued her life. She was finally happy. At the start of junior year she moved, one of her friends saying it was because of her mom's sudden death. It was then that I realized my mistake: she wasn't being distant, it was me. I was becoming colder, not her. I was selfish. I was wrong. I imagined a false reality and executed a shitty plan all in the name of her happiness. I wanted to tell her my condolences. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her the truth, that I feigned playing the game just to impress. All of this happened over a fucking video game. She knew I was busy. She would've understood. I fucked up. I miss her. I just wanted to see that birch tree with her.

Once high school was over I went across the country towards Boston to get a bachelors in mechanical engineering, eventually landing a job in Delaware once I finished college. I met Megan there, she was one of the desk managers up front while I was in the shop in the back. Three years later we were married, and two more years had passed by the time Tobias was born. When Tobias just turned two and my wife was six months pregnant, we moved to the suburbs and found a nice little two story house. I didn't notice it until I started moving boxes in, but our backyard had a big tree thirty yards away from the patio door. Red oak. After moving all the boxes inside I found one in the basement labeled "Stuff" with "Garbage" crossed out right above it. Inside was a worn out jacket and a dusty little jewel case, including a CD with "Putt-Putt Joins the Parade" written on it. After staring at it for a minute I decided to finally open the game Julia wanted me to play for so long. I put it in the disc drive of my ancient PC and a folder opened up with two files listed, puttputtjoinstheparade.exe and README.txt. I opened the text file not expecting anything because why do you need a README for a child's educational game, let alone fucking Putt-Putt. Written in the file was an ASCII heart, and a message below reading "I like you a lot, Nathan :)".

With the only source of light coming from my monitor, I sat alone in the dark. I sat in silence for five minutes re-reading that message. Then I felt a drop of water hit my cheek. Then two. Five. I started crying. I hadn't cried since grandma's death during my freshman year of college. I was there for at least an hour, quietly sobbing in front of that text file. In desperation I booted up the game, thinking maybe finally playing this game will absolve me of my sins, thinking that the past thirteen years of being unhappy with what I was would disappear and I would be with her again. She will forgive me for being cold and distant. She will forgive me for lying about playing the game. Her presence will comfort me. She will smile at me again. We will get our storybook ending together. Everything will be okay. And so I played, clicking the screen, mowing lawns, and obtaining coins so I could get myself ready for the big race. After twenty-five minutes of playing, I drove into a garage in which you could change the color of your car. It was at that moment I realized,

you can't paint the car white.

3/10