The Edge of My Chair: Five Things I Noticed From the Edge of My Chair

I sat on the edge of my chair the whole time with my hands tucked into my sleeves. That's a thing I do. Kael's seen me do it for twenty years and has never once mentioned it, which is the kindest thing about him — he notices everything and names almost none of it.

I was Elyra tonight. A mage. Slight, storm-gray eyes, a cloak that sparked. Fire and lightning and ice, all of it tied to a buried past, which — I described her that way and then caught Kael's eye across the table, and we both knew exactly which buried past I was borrowing from, and neither of us said anything. That's how it works with us. It always has.

Here's what I noticed. I notice things from the edge of the chair.

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1. Theo went all the way in, and it was beautiful

He did the voice. The big one — sworn to protect, but his eyes hide a broken vow — the grandfather-Liam-Neeson voice Marcus mocked him over for a month, six years ago. It came back the second his armor rendered.

And nobody mocked him this time. I watched Marcus open his mouth and close it. Because you could feel it — Theo wasn't doing a bit, he was gone, all the way into being seven feet of silver and light, and there's something about watching a careful man stop being careful that makes the whole room go quiet and let him. He's the one who checks the exits. Tonight he got to be the one who swings the sword. I'm glad I was on the edge of my chair to see it.

2. Marcus got his dagger flip

He's been insufferable about that flip for three weeks. Asked Kael to code it, got told no, brought coffee until Kael caved — the whole campaign. Tonight Varkis stood still and the dagger spun on its own and Marcus lit up like it was Christmas.

Here's what I noticed that Marcus didn't: Kael watched him light up. Just for a second, from under the hood, Kael watched Marcus get exactly the dumb little gift he'd engineered and enjoyed it. That's the entire friendship in one frame. Marcus performs not-caring; Kael performs not-giving; and underneath both performances they'd each walk through fire for the other. I see it because I'm quiet enough to look.

3. Angela's shoulders dropped

When her staff rendered — the crystal one, the healer's staff — her shoulders came down a quarter inch. I was watching, because I'm always watching, and I saw it.

I don't think anyone else caught it. I don't think Angela meant to do it. But the staff did something to her the moment it appeared, some private relief, and I'd bet my character sheet that Kael built something into it that only she can feel. He does that. He hides gifts in the code and then acts surprised when people get emotional. He'd deny it. I'm writing it down anyway, in the place where he can't argue with me.

4. The wonder of just being all here

This is the one I keep coming back to, and it isn't clever, it's just true.

All five of us. One place. At the same time. We don't get that anymore — life pulls people apart by inches until you're a group chat and a couple of birthdays a year. But tonight Theo was a war god and Angela was bossing everyone and Marcus tripped and stabbed his own teammate and Kael did his narrator voice to a camera that doesn't exist, and I sat on the edge of my chair with my hands in my sleeves and thought: this is everyone I have. And they're all in the same room. And it's a room my brother built so we'd have a reason to come back.

I didn't say that out loud. I tucked it into my sleeve with my hands.

5. I apologized to the dice

When it was my turn to roll, I said sorry. To the dice. Out loud. Marcus said you don't have to apologize to dice, Lena, and I said I wasn't, which wasn't quite true.

I apologize to things when I'm scared, and I wasn't scared exactly, just — full. Overfull. It's a tic from a long time ago, from a house that wasn't a home, and it comes back when my body remembers being small. Kael knows where it comes from. He always catches it, and he never, ever names it, and that not-naming is the specific shape of how he's loved me since I was a kid who handed him a pencil and didn't have to say anything for a month.

He caught it tonight. I felt him catch it. He didn't say a word. That's my brother. That's the whole thing about him.

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So — I want to go back

That's all. I want to go back into the room where everyone I love is in armor and the world is bright and my brother is in the corner pretending he isn't watching all of us with his whole heart.

I'll play the mage. Brains and boom, I said, and Kael's world gave me an ember in my open hand on the first night, and I held it and didn't get burned. There's a version of that I could make into a metaphor but I'm too happy to bother. I held fire and it didn't hurt me. Some nights that's enough.

When's the next one. I'll be on the edge of my chair.

Start where we started — at the table, before the first roll, with my brother counting us down into a world he made so we'd all come home.

This is the world of Overlayed Echoes — a near-future LitRPG about found family, the masks we wear for the people we love, and the weight of being the one who holds the story together. Progression fantasy with a beating heart and a knife behind its back.