🟨 Part 5: Truth Between Rounds
The score stood at Luis – 6 | Derek – 5.
The game had slowed. Not from hesitation, but reverence. Like neither of them wanted it to end too quickly.
Each round felt like a page turning in an old photo album.
Each shot carried years of dusted-off memories.
Derek leaned back in his chair, his knees stiff but his spirit wide awake. His living room, dim and warm, felt like the past and present had finally shaken hands.
He looked at the framed photo again — two boys with the world in front of them.
How strange, he thought, that a screen of bouncing pixels could carry so much life.
The next round was fast.
Luis came in too hard, maybe overconfident. Derek laid a trap behind a corner and fired.
6–6.
He grinned.
Derek: “Now who’s chasing who?”
Luis: “I slowed down so you’d feel better.”
Derek: “You always did have an excuse ready.”
Luis: “You always needed one.”
Derek paused.
Something about those last words didn’t feel like banter. It felt like something opening — or cracking.
Derek: “You mean back then?”
Luis: “Don’t pretend you forgot. You never did. That’s why we’re here.”
Silence.
The Atari hum buzzed on the screen. Derek could hear the fridge click in the kitchen. Somewhere outside, a neighbor’s wind chime caught a breeze.
He typed slowly.
Derek: “I cheated.”
Luis: “I know.”
Derek: “I was scared. You were leaving, and I didn’t know how to lose and say goodbye in the same day.”
Luis: “You didn’t lose. You just paused the truth.”
Derek blinked.
Luis: “I waited years for this. Not to win. But to hear that. From you.”
The weight lifted, but it didn’t float. It settled. Softly. Finally.
Derek sat in stillness for a while, letting it wash over him.
He realized something then — the reason he’d never played the Atari again after that summer. It wasn’t just age or time or interest.
It was shame. Buried under all the noise of growing up.
And now, in his seventies, with liver spots on his hands and silver in his beard, he was finally letting it go.
He typed:
“I’m sorry.”
Luis replied:
“I forgave you before I ever left.”
Round fourteen.
Luis made a long loop around the map — a classic maneuver Derek hadn’t seen in decades. The tank hugged the edges like a whisper, appearing suddenly in Derek’s blind spot.
Boom. 7–6. Luis.
Derek laughed, rubbed his temples.
“Still got it,” he muttered out loud.
Derek: “That move was banned in my house.”
Luis: “Should’ve moved out earlier.”
Round fifteen.
They both rushed. It was sloppy, chaotic, full of zigzags and near misses.
Both tanks fired simultaneously.
Both exploded.
The emulator glitched for a second, then awarded no points.
Luis: “Draw?”
Derek: “Poetic.”
Claire would’ve loved this, Derek thought. She would’ve brought him cookies mid-game and said something like, “Tell Luis I always knew he was better-looking.”
Derek’s eyes watered.
He whispered to the air:
“You were right, honey. I did tell him. I told him everything.”
Then came the message.
Luis: “Hey. I may need to pause for a bit. Getting dizzy. That happens sometimes.”
Derek: “Of course. Take your time.”
Luis: “I’ll message when I’m good again. Might lie down for a bit.”
The screen dimmed. The game froze. The connection icon blinked.
Player Two has disconnected.
Derek stared at the screen.
The silence roared louder than anything before. Not tragic. Just uncertain. Just life.
He waited. Ten minutes. Then twenty.
He didn’t refresh the page.
Instead, he reached for the photo again. Touched the frame with fingers that trembled now for a different reason.
He typed one last message.
“Whenever you’re ready… I’m here.”
🟨 Part 6: The Message That Didn’t Come
Morning light spilled across the floor like soft regret.
Derek Hanley hadn’t moved from his recliner. He’d dozed off at some point, but the screen was still aglow — still frozen on the last frame of their game.
Player Two has disconnected.
It stared back at him, that message.
Unfinished. Like a song missing its final note.
He rubbed his eyes. His neck ached. His knees popped as he stood.
The room felt too still.
The kind of still that made him remember all the other goodbyes that didn’t come with warning — Claire’s final week, when she smiled like nothing was wrong… then never woke up.
The dog he had as a boy, Max, who simply ran into the cornfield one day and didn’t come back.
His father, who died in a hospital two hours away while Derek sat in traffic with a McDonald’s coffee and too much guilt.
The world didn’t like neat endings.
He brewed a new cup of tea. Hot this time. He didn’t drink it.
Instead, he went to the attic again.
Not for the console — for the memories.
He pulled out a dusty crate marked “D.H. — Old Stuff.” Inside: a cracked baseball glove, a Walkman that no longer worked, a mix-tape labeled “Luis + D. = Summer Kings.”
He held it to his chest.
There was something wild and sad about how life folded in on itself.
Everything returned eventually — if not in reality, then in memory.
Back downstairs, he checked the screen.
No new messages. No online status. Nothing.
He opened the conversation again and typed:
“You okay?”
No reply.
He didn’t expect one. But the question felt like it needed to be asked — like lighting a candle in a dark room even if no one’s there to see it.
The day dragged.
He watered the plants. Fed the neighbor’s cat. Tried to read an old Louis L’Amour novel but kept hearing the beep of a missed message that never arrived.
By 3 p.m., he gave up and called his daughter, Karen.
“Everything okay, Dad?” she asked. Her voice was tight — busy, tired.
“Yeah,” he said. “Just had an old friend reach out. We played a game. Like we used to. Haven’t heard from him since last night.”
“Oh.” Pause. “You want me to look him up? I’m good with that stuff.”
“No,” Derek said gently. “No. I think I just needed to tell someone he existed.”
Karen hesitated. “Okay. Well, I’m glad you reconnected. That’s… that’s nice.”
It wasn’t the word Derek would’ve chosen.
But he understood. The past didn’t always make sense to the young.
That night, he sat in the dark again.
No game this time. Just silence.
And then… a ding.
He jolted.
A message. From @RetroByte1989.
It read:
“This is Maria. I’m Luis’s daughter. I hope it’s okay I’m messaging you.”
Derek’s heart thudded. His hands froze above the keyboard.
He swallowed hard.
“Of course,” he typed. “Is Luis alright?”
It took a minute.
Then came the reply:
“He had a seizure last night. We called an ambulance. He’s in the hospital now. Resting. Stable, but sedated.”
Derek sat down slowly, like the air had thickened.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push him too hard.”
“He told me about you,” Maria replied.
“Said you were a part of him he thought he’d never get back.”
“He wanted that rematch more than anything.”
Derek blinked away tears.
“We didn’t finish,” he wrote.
Maria answered after a long pause.
“He said if anything ever happened mid-game… just tell you this:
‘It was never about the score.’”
Derek laughed. Then cried. Then laughed again.
He turned off the monitor.
Took the photo from the shelf.
And whispered, “It really wasn’t, was it?”
