We Could Be Heroes

Seventeen-year-old Rex (Reginald) Heinz is confused. Born with a name that feels foreign, thrown into his recently-divorced parents drama, and hopelessly detached from his school social scene, Rex feels stranded in a life that feels...off. The only thing that doesn't make Rex feel like an outsider is EverLore, a MMORPG game that invites users to create their own characters and make friends through missions and online social events.

Rex has played EverLore for five years, but a year ago a new player, Morin16, joined the game and quickly rose to the ranks. Rex's character and Milo16 cross paths on an adventure to plunder the Goblin Castles. And then, quickly, they become more than quest companions. Over the course of a year, partnership develops into romance. There's only one problem. Rex's character is a girl, Amara Damaris. And Milo16, with his profile picture as an attractive blue-eyed boy, thinks he's talking to a cute blonde from Provo, Utah.

But Morin16 has his own secrets to hide. The blue-eyed profile picture he has used for the past year on EverLore was pulled from Google, and his real appearance could not look any more different. Coined the "Chubster" at school, Morin16 AKA Henry Chip, is the certified uncool fat kid at Tompkins Highschool. But in his after school gaming events, in the EverLore league developed in his small town, he is nothing less than a celebrity. Henry knows he is wrong for deceiving Amara, but would she give him a chance if she knew how he really looked?

Their lies are pushed to the breaking point when the two players are invited to speak at the EverLore Convention in New York City, where they are offered a chance to win a scholarship to game design school. Confessing the truth would mean a shot at leaving their small towns and the heaviness that comes with it. But it might also meaning losing each other, a quest that neither player is ready to begin.