My Link - A Story

Epic.... Fail.

Ian parked his car in the parking lot of our office building, but didn't get out. "I just got a great idea, wanna hear it?" He look at me seriously. "Sure Whatcha going on in that bread head?" "You know how you have had a hard time talking in front of people?" I nodded wondering where he was going with this. "Well we can set up a YouTube channel for you. I know you will probably say no, but talking to the camera eases you into actually talking to real people. I would hate for you to miss out on convention because of all the people." "That is a great idea, let's do this shit!" I quickly got out his car and headed in the building. We made it to the game room. I turned to Ian. "Could we record a game and upload it?" "Duh. God sometimes I think you are such a blonde." I got down on my knees to look for a game. "Do you have Super Mario World?" "Yeah it's down there on the bottom." I stood up holding the game as if it was a trophy I had won. Ian just gave me an unamused face. He helped me set up a camera and the capture card for the Wii. He was setting up the game to start. "In the famous words of Anthony Padilla, Let's shoot this shit!" He laughed at my attempt to be Smosh relatable. We sat down and got started.

"Hey there people of the internet! Today I am joined with my friend Andrew and we are going to play a game! Super Mario World to be exact. Okay let's do this!" The video continued on like this until Ian's phone started ringing right as we were starting a boss level. "Oh I have to take this, don't start playing without me." He exited the room and I waited for the door to shut to turn to the camera. "Fuck this shit I don't need him. Do-do-do.... Get the fuck outta here BYTCH!" I slowly pushed Mario off the screen and into the lava. "Now let's go do this shit!" I led Luigi through the rest of level beating the boss like an epic hero. "FUCKKKKKKKK YEAH!" Right at that moment Ian came back in, so I decided to end the video. "Thanks for watching, I'll leave all my social Medias in the description, and click on his head to see a secret video. Come on you know you wanna, secrets are funnn. Bye guys!" With that I ended the video and turned to Ian. "I leave for two seconds and you turn into a bad ass?" "Maybe, you didn't even see it!" "Well let's edit it and I'll see just how epic it was." The next few hours were spent on the computer with Ian helping me edit my video and censor all the dirty words. After we were finally done, we left for lunch coming right back and continuing on setting up a channel. Once we started uploading my video to be unlisted, Ian turned to me. "I think this is cool. But what to do for the next 102 minutes?" "How about this..."

Ian pressed his lips against mine gently for a minute before pulling away. I jumped away. "No, No! NO!" No this wasn't happening to me. Oh god I had just screamed in the face of the guy who held Josh's job in his hands! Oh god I can't handle this. I sat in the corner and pulled my legs up to my chest. I tried, I messed up. "Lauren, I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you. Please talk to me." I just sunk my head further into my arms. I am done. "GOD DAMNIT!" I heard Ian slam something down in the next room. I took this as a chance to text Flitz to come get me. 'Help, come get me from HQ, no questions asked please.'

'Be there in two minutes. Do I need to call Joven for you?'

'No. Just come and get me and then we will forget about all this.'

I got up from the floor, collecting all my things into my bag. I looked around the game room to make sure I had everything. 'I'm in the lobby' I was ready to leave, so I headed to the lobby. As I was half way across lobby when I heard Ian calling for me. Hoping he would just give up, I kept walking but he was relentless. His mistake was grabbing my shoulder. I spun around and slapped him leaving him standing there speechless holding his face. Flitz saw it all but didn't utter a word until we got in the car. "What the actual FUCK just happened?" I shrugged not wanting to answer. He started towards 'home' not questioning anything. As soon as we got in front of the house I got out of the car and rushed inside, slamming every door between the front door and my room. I locked my door and just laid on my floor, ignoring the pleas of Wes and Flitz to let them in. They finally stopped after Josh told them that I wasn't going to let them in even if zombies were coming. I rushed over to my desk and pulled out my sketch pad deciding to draw my feelings. When I finally looked up from my book, it was 4 in the morning. I had been drawing for twelve hours straight. I needed food. I walked over to door only to find a sleeping Wes camping in front my door. I kicked him awake. "Oh, sorry, I just decided to stay here in case I heard you have another bad dream..." Ignore the rest of his ramble, and continue to the kitchen to make a sandwich. I did so and just continued back to my room. Wes was standing there all awkwardly. I wanted to sleep. I grabbed my phone, 'Wes will you sleep in my room? Just in case I don't wanna be alone right now' "Sure whatever you want." He went and laid on my bean bag. I mean whatever floats his goats. I put my head to the pillow I fell asleep, but my mind was a million different things. What if Josh lost his job because of me? Did I make Ian mad? What if he starts to treat me different because of what happened? I guess I don't have to worry about that Anthony was the one in charge of contract and the legal stuff. I drifted into a sleep worrying about ruining everything.

I woke up the next morning to Josh asking me if I wanted to go and get breakfast. I got up and started getting dressed. I didn't really want to put on real clothes so I changed out of yesterday's clothes and into the Pikachu onesie that Matt had bought me. If I really think about it, 70% of the stuff in my room, Josh's friends (and I guess now my co-workers) had gotten for me, which I was extremely grateful. I headed to find Josh, who was getting ready to go. We went to the car, and strangely Wes didn't fight with me over the front seat. Josh started talking about something, but I wasn't paying attention. Even though I felt bad about not listening to him, I still got out my headphones and plugged them into my phone and started listening to some Pandora Radio. If only I could listen to the damn music, I kept getting texts, mostly from Ian. I finally got so annoyed I muted his text so it wouldn't make a sound ever. I didn't wanna talk, he needed to just calm his tits. At that moment Josh had pulled into a local diner and we started getting out. I had one headphone in my ear and as we walked through the door my phone chimed a text alert. I was mad until I read who it was from. Mari! 'I'm going to the mall today and was wondering if you wanted to go' I quickly responded with a yes and asking if she could meet us at the diner. "Hey Josh, I'm going shopping with Mari today is that okay?" Wes' jaw dropped and Josh laughed. "Of course, I told you before I don't care what you do, just let me know who you are going with. I bet Mari is excited to have another girl around." I laughed at that. Wes kept giving me strange looks but I ignored it and continued eating my breakfast.

I watched Mari walk in the diner and make her way towards us. "Hey girly! You ready to hit up the mall for some shopping?" "Heck yeah!" Before I got up, Josh grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. He handed me his bank card telling me to be responsible and whispering, "You do realize you are going out in a Pikachu onesie?" to which I laughed. "YOLO Bitches!" And I headed out the door.

When we got into Mari's Mini, I turned to her and sighed. "Mari can I tell you something?" "Yeah you can, what's up?" "And this not get back to ANYONE EVER?" "Yeah that is part of the girl code or some shit. I wouldn't do that to a friend unless it was life threatening. What is going on?" Mari looked at me and pulled out of her parking spot. I took a deep breath and told Mari everything.