Starting A Club And (maybe) A Long-lasting Relationship

2. I decide to start a club for money

2
Playing video games is a detrimental part of my day. Of my life even. My sister says I need to go outside. My mum complains about me being impatient all the time because I just want to go back to playing games on my laptop. My brother complains that I do nothing all day. Maybe I'm lazy but no doubt, video games have done a lot to help me forget that life sucks and distract me from intrusive thoughts. No game no life, literally.

I've thought about ways to earn money to afford my own treatment and was too afriad to ask my own family for some. Knowing them, they'd probably just tell me to suck it up and deal with it. None of them even know I'd gone yesterday. I told them I was headed to the salon so they were extremely confused when I came back with my hair still looking like a nest. Speaking of which, I cut it. Now it's short enough-- about the length of my pinky but I've got large hands so maybe that's not that short. I look like Eleven from Stranger things now but with curly hair instead.

"Viz!" My sister, Cheza, calls which makes me waste a good health portion in-game when I accidentally click the 'heal' option. I press ESC on my keyboard and look up.

"What?"

"We're headed off to basketball practice." 'We' as in her and my cousin, Duni, by the way. "Make sure you take the meat out of the freezer and have it boiling by six."

"Okay, er..." I hit my thigh a little as some form of call-to-action. "Basketball game-- practice?"

"Yeah. Wanna go?"

My brain yells 'absolutely not! are you crazy?!' but my mouth says a simple, "Nope."

Cheza crosses her arms over her chest like some guardian of a locked level in a game. "Why'd you ask then?"

"Just want to know, um..." I do the 'pause for effect' thing. It makes Cheza mad sometimes but it's super helpful to me. The madder she is, the surer I am of her willingness to listen to the rest of the sentence. And I finish it, "Do you get paid?"

Her eyes roll. "Yeah."

"Do all club members get paid?"

"Only the officials..." Her eyes narrow. "Stop the chewing."

I nod and get back to my game. Cheza seems to know that it's my way of telling her 'you may leave now' so she leaves and I pretend to be smiting elves on my computer until I hear the back door close. I'm all alone in the house. Alone with my thoughts. My teeth start gnawing at the inside of my lip again.

'You know very well that you can't start a club. You're awkward and unfunny. No one's going to join let alone give you money. What club are you even going to start? What are you good at that's interesting?'

Then it clicks. There's no mental health club at uni. And there sure as hell won't lack any people who struggle like I do.

'Now, how are you, a friendless introvert, supposed to start a club, ask people to join and manage it long enough to earn money from it over the course of the few months you've still got at uni?'

It's a conundrum having friends. How do you just talk to people and make them interested enough to want to keep talking to you? How do you find things to say? Things that interest you too? Things that are effortless to bring up?

Friendship's probably a scam too, huh?

The loop returns. I think about it. I need friends to start a functioning club. I need a functioning club to earn enough money for sessions with the nice doctor whom I only notice now I don't know the name of. Then, I need meds to effectively help with my mental issues which will probably help me make friends easier. So, to get friends, I need friends?

This is definitely a scam.

I ignore the thought of it and continue smiting elves on my computer. In the game that is. I can't smite people of course. Elves aren't even people. They aren't real anyway. It's already seven heading to eight in the night when I realize I haven't closed the curtains or even put the meat in the pot to boil.

Another loop starts.

Cheza yells at me for not doing what she told me. I get depressed at my own uselessness. I play video games to forget why I'm depressed. I'm hyperfocused on the games and hence don't do what Cheza's told me.