“I’m going to be right in there with you, man, right by your side. Remember what Joseph coached us on—no admission of guilt. We express our heartfelt condolences at their terrible loss and the horrific tragedy, yadda yadda.”
I shook my head, tapping my foot. “This sucks shit. It really does. I go in there and it’s like admitting I’m guilty of being a virtual crack dealer.”
“No, man. It’s like…they have a point and we have a point. We both occupy our own moral high ground. It’s like with the paintball war against the Bliz. They kicked our asses at King of the Hill. We wiped the floor with them at Capture the Flag. In the end, we had to declare a draw.”
I squinted at him. “You’re comparing this to a paintball scenario?”
“Why not? It’s as good a comparison as any. If we aren’t willing to declare the draw and concede, then this drags out for years and years and ends up doing everyone involved more harm.”
I thought about that for a minute, rubbing my jaw. It seemed to make sense, though I would have preferred it hadn’t.
Minutes later, we were shown into a conference room where three people sat. The couple I recognized instantly from news footage as Tom Olmquist’s parents. The third person, a woman in her early forties, was introduced to us as the mother of Tom’s girlfriend, Evy. There was a somber, heavy atmosphere. They were still in mourning, of course, the loss of their loved ones still so recent.
I could feel their accusing stares weighing me down, so I tried not to look at them as I read my canned “cover your ass” statement that had been written and revised by my lawyer and the counsel for the insurance company. I set the card aside when I was done and laced my hands on the table in front of me.
“Allow me to add my very…personal condolences to you at this time. I know it must be very difficult.”
Tom’s father, Mr. Olmquist, spoke up first. He’d scowled at me the entire time I’d read my statement and now, given the fist closing on the table in front of him, I could see that he was armed for bear. “Honestly, what would you know about how difficult it is? You’re a kid yourself. You’re not—what? Four or five years older than Tom. You’ve sat in front of a computer programming games your whole life. What would you know of grief—of this kind of loss? Of the horror of watching someone you love dwindle into a shadow of himself as he withdraws from the real world?”
I swallowed as something gripped me, a feeling I couldn’t quite describe—nerves, anger, frustration. I was being judged by this man who knew nothing of me, nothing of what I’d been through. Jordan placed his hand on my elbow, having read my body language.
I relaxed my jaw. “Sir, I’m sorry that you feel that way. I’m honestly sorry for your loss—”
“But you’re not sorry for the millions you’ve made while doling out an addictive and destructive game to kids just as young as you are—and younger. A game that ruins lives before they’ve even started. You ride around in your limo, using your fancy gadgets. You have no conscience about the havoc you wreak on other people’s lives. It’s all about the almighty dollar for you.”
I sat back, feeling like he’d just pummeled me. I relaxed my hands, which had knotted into fists. We held a long, heated stare. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to succumb to my own anger. “With respect, Mr. Olmquist, I may be young. I may only be six years older than your son, but I do know something about addiction and abuse. And I know what it means to suffer when someone close to you is addicted. My mother is an alcoholic. Because of that, I rarely touch hard liquor myself, afraid that I might develop the same problem…”
He said nothing, fortunately, just continued to watch me with eyes like stone. The woman beside him, Tom’s mother, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. I stared at my laced hands. “But she’s not the person who taught me the raw pain and powerlessness of loving an addict.” My voice tightened with emotion and Jordan shifted at my side. Maybe he was trying to get my attention, to shut me up. But something inside me told me that it was time to let go of this secret now. Because keeping it so close, so deep inside me was only harming me and shutting everyone else out.
I cleared my throat and swallowed. “I have—had an older sister. She was seven years older than me and because of our home life, she was like a mom to me. She started using drugs when she was thirteen.”
Evy’s mother gave a sharp intake of breath. I plowed on. “By the time she was fifteen, she ran away, leaving me behind, and she was on the streets, a slave to her addiction. So in reply to you, Mr. Olmquist, I do know what that’s like. Exactly what that’s like. And I’m sorry you’ve had to experience it. I’m sorry you had to watch your son get sick. Because I know…” I paused, waited, cleared my throat. Why was this so easy and yet so difficult at the same time? I was talking about things I never talked about. Not even to those people closest to me in the world. Jordan, for example, was hearing this for the very first time. He had no fucking idea I’d ever had a sibling. He sat at my side, absolutely still. I didn’t dare look at him for fear of the pity I might read in his eyes.