This has got to be the worst day of my life.

In fact it may be the worst day of anyone's life ever.

In the morning I broke things off with my girlfriend which honestly wasn’t too bad.

Sure most people would think that’s a bad thing but honestly I was more dating her out of a sense of obligation than anything else.

I mean don’t get me wrong she’s a cool person and I enjoy hanging out with her — I mean she’s been a close friend of mine for years — but when she asked me out I only really said yes because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

So I broke up with her and that was fine, but obviously she didn’t take it the same way.

Apparently she got it in her head that me “not feeling it” meant I must be gay, and she made sure to tell that to everyone willing to listen.

Now I don’t really have a problem with people thinking I’m gay — in fact for all I know I might just be — but when you live in Salt Lake City people don’t just whisper behind your back about that type of stuff.

And so that meant that by the time lunch rolled around I was enemy number one at my high school.

Now I’m a pretty outspoken guy and I have a pretty sizable group of friends — or had I suppose — but when Mormons think you’re gay there’s nothing that can keep them on your side.

So suffice it to say that by the time I was driving home I had experienced more bullying than I had even seen prior to today, and the scratches on the sides of my truck and my flat tires can attest to that.

In fact the only reason I’m driving home despite the state my car is in is because I was worried another half dozen pieces of gum would find their way into my hair over the course of my time on the bus. Oh and I’m in the middle of a very annoying conversation with my parents.

“I’m telling you mom these are just dumb rumors Emma spread because I broke up with her.”

“Well why did you break up with her in the first place!? Are you already dating some perverted man? If you need our help to protect you from that predator just tell us ok.”

“Mom, I’m telling you that’s not the case, it's just Emma being vindictive.”

And it was at this moment that my dad decided to pipe in with some none too helpful commentary. “You don’t need to worry son, whoever’s doing this to you won’t get away with it. I won’t allow you to end up like your sister.”

Ah there it is. The whole reason for all this BS in the first place. Ever since my brother came out as trans my parents have started to think that there’s a secret cabal in this city brainwashing children or some crap. Because it’s impossible that Ethan is just a trans man because that would mean he’s going to hell or something.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“You don’t need to worry so much. I’m not like Hannah.” At that I have to try my hardest not to cringe at using Ethan’s deadname. Maybe it makes me a bad person but I do not have the courage to stand up to my parents about treating my brother fairly. Not the same way he does at least.

“You never know what those people could do to trick you Chris. I mean you know how amazing Hannah was before they got to her.” 

‘Amazing’ in this context of course meaning ‘mormon’ but I digress. “Mom, please, can we just talk about this when I get home, it’s hard to control this truck with flat tires.”

“You know we’re just worried about you sweety, the world is a scary place with all these queers buying their way into office.”

Despite my desire to point out that her worry for me doesn’t seem to extend to me being bullied or driving around with flat tires all I could respond with is “I know Mom, I’ll see you at home, love you.”

“We love you too sweetie, drive safely”

As they hung up I could only snort at their insincerity. ‘Drive safely’? Mom, I'm driving with four flat tires. The whole reason I called you was to ask for a ride back home, for fuck’s sake.

Luckily my phone call with my parents in my school's parking lot took long enough that there was pretty much no traffic and I was able to drive home while staying well under the speed limit.

Unluckily when I got home the conversation picked right back up, even while I was cutting the gum out of my hair. Turns out they aren’t just gonna move on after fifteen minutes; I should have figured.

It was only after we ate dinner and I had the excuse to go and take a shower that I was finally able to escape their constant and repetitive nagging.

I made sure to crank the shower up to maximum heat and stay in there for as long as possible.

I’ve always liked showers. Especially the scalding hot kind. The noise of the downpour of water allows me to drown out the rest of the world and just live in my own little bubble. An effect that is only enhanced when I turn off all the bathroom lights like I have today. Unfortunately the water eventually went cold and I was forced to get out.

However, as I grabbed my towel and started to dry off, the room lit up as the screen of my phone turned on.

Turns out Ethan had just sent me a text.

“hey would you be down to build me a table and chairs for my island? just got a new room for my house”

Now, Ethan was not actually asking me to build him a table and chairs IRL. This was for a game called Islands, the first — and currently only — full dive VR game on the market.

If I had to describe the game, it’s basically Roblox for adults. Each person gets their own personal island to start with on which they can build anything they want and they can pay to get more on which they can set up different games or cities or whatever they want. They can charge real world money for entrance or charge for certain items and they’ll get 90% of the profits from what they sell.

In the year and a half since the game’s release it has quickly skyrocketed to becoming the most popular game in the world due partially to the plethora of options I mentioned before and mostly because the headset you use to run it is 200 bucks and has higher specs than the best gaming pc on the market. So you can create your dream setup in Islands and use that to play whatever you want.

When it first came out Ethan immediately started playing and got hooked. Which is why despite how much our parents hate the game he snuck me a headset so I could play every night.

During that time I had actually ended up learning woodworking and started my own business in order to hopefully pay for college without needing to rely on my parents.

Unfortunately business has been rather slow, or I suppose more like non-existent.

The only people who order stuff from me are Ethan and his friends and considering the discount I’m giving them it’s honestly impressive that I’ve managed to save up a hundred bucks.

That said I don’t know how willing I am to drag out the length of the day with Islands’ 6x time dilation, so I just respond with a “sorry I’m not really feeling up to it today”

Immediately I got a response — he must really want those chairs — “shit did something happen?”

Of course he asks. Honestly I really want to just brush it off but Ethan has been nothing but good to me and he’s only asking because he’s concerned, so I should just tell him.

“I broke up with Emma and she decided that that meant that I’m gay and she made sure to tell everyone so the entire city thinks the same including our parents”

“shit that sucks

tell you what get on Islands and I’ll show you how I take my mind off the world’s bullshit”

“I don’t know if I’m up for that right now”

“come on man trust me itll help”

Well I guess I might as well give it a shot. My plan was just to go to sleep as soon as possible but that’ll hardly help, so I just send him an “alright” back and quickly dry off, get dressed, and head to my room.

Hopefully this’ll actually help.