The adventures of Azet Starlight officially began with me taking a really long time to finish figuring out how to move around while also not making the camera zoom way into my character’s butt. Sihis was multipyer online, I hoped that others couldn’t see this practically up buttcrack camera shot.

  Once I finally figured that out, I had to make my way to a stable. Apparently, the items I needed for Kalei were all able to be found before I left the starting region, a big farm area. It made me think of Raina Starlight’s Farm Adventure, which I made a mental o search for on the system to see if I could py that afterwards.

  Suddenly I was reminded of a time when I was iary school where I was out pying in the snow at recess. One of the helper teachers came over to me and asked if I wao ruin someone’s day. But in like, a fun cool way. Then he gave me a bag of sand to spread out on the ice. It took me a few days to realize I’d been bamboozled there, but at least I protected some kids from slipping on the ice, I guess.

  I couldn’t think of an ice equivalent for the game, because as I was remembering that some girls walked by. One made eye tact with me and turned away quickly.

  “Crap, she saw me,” one said.

  “That’s her, isn’t it?” the other said. “The ohat Ovie fought?”

  I had really been trying not to think about Ovie that m. As the two girls tio whisper a, I tried really hard to just focus on the game, colleg a bunch of random materials that would somehow make gold armor. Even with such a muask, doing it in a fantasy world made me long for an adventure like that. I’d take a trip to a fantasy world even if it was just colleg b items. Even going to that stupid naked guy ivention would have beeer than being stuck at school all alone.

  After finishing my colleg mission, I felt a bit of etion for helping out, then a lot of emptiness. I finished my whole weekend pn in a m. And now I didn’t have anything or ao talk to.

  In my mopey wandering, I ended up at my club room, but it was empty. Even Latte’s coffee maker was gone. Was everyone I knew on vacation this weekend? Anroup of girls walked by, whispering while looking my way.

  I went bay sad thinking fountain, which was empty pared to the day before.

  Was I a bad person? I didn’t knht? I didn’t know who Ovie was until I met her at Rising Shards.

  But I could have done more, couldn’t I?

  Maybe all the times Jeans was gone, I could have asked where she was instead of just assuming she was busy.

  It’d be easier if Oka didn’t have her camp. I k was a selfish thought, but I felt so lonely without her there. Or anyone. I felt too overwhelmed about it all, a wave of emotional exhaustion hit me suddenly.

  “Hey, Zeta, gd I caught you, Ms. Letoh said she was going to give a pretest for that css she subbed for...” Dr. Diast asked. I tried to look away from her as she approached, but she caught a tear streaking down my face. “Oh, g…”

  I sniffed, hating when aiced I was g, especially people with authority like teachers. It just made me feel immensely worse.

  “Did it go that badly?” Diast asked. “I know Letoh have a real mean streak when she’s pying poker, but in css…if she was mean, I get to the bottom of it and make sure—"

  “It’s not that,” I said. I didn’t even remember the pretest Diast was talking about. “It’s…something else.”

  “Do you o talk to someone about it?” Diast asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I don’t wanna go to the nurse’s office though.”

  “Uandable,” Diast said. “You wanna e into my office?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Diast led me to her office, and somehow did a good job shielding me from ahat would be looking my way as we moved to a more poputed area. I would have felt even worse if all eyes were on the g girl being led away by a teacher.

  “I don’t have a great sele of drinks right now, there are a lot of Volleyball Muscles in here which I don’t think would help.” Diast said as she searched through her mini fridge.

  “ I just have a water?”

  “You got it.” Diast said.

  Diast got me a cold water bottle and a box of tissues. I could only manage a sip right then, but it did help.

  “I’m just gonna be correg some papers, but you hang out here as long as you want.” Diast said.

  “OK,” I said.

  I sat and cried for a while, itently blowing my nose when I got too snotty. I cried like I did when I was all alone, which was incredibly rare when someone else was around.

  “Hey, Dr. Diast?” I asked.

  “What’s up?”

  “Am I a bad person if the person I was dating was actually cheating on their real partner with me, only I didn’t know it that whole time?”

  Dr. Diast leaned ba her chair.

  “That is an incredibly loaded question,” Dr. Diast said. “Did that…that didn’t happen to you, did it?”

  I waited a sed too long to answer and Diast stopped w on her corres.

  “Ah geez,” Diast said, rubbing her hair. She thought for a long while. It reminded me of Stel’s rea to Jeans. Their about it made the g floodgates open a bit more, but it alsht fort that they reacted with such . “That’s…a lot for a sixteen-year-old. I’m really sorry.”

  I blew my nose again.

  “Like, I know deep down the person I was dating was the root of it,” I said. “That Jeans is really responsible. But she made me think it was always my fault, and I haven’t unlearhat yet. So this whole news of the ‘she was cheating on her partner all along with me’ thing is hitting really hard. I keep having dreams about it, I’m not sleeping good.”