Suzanne kept her attention directed at the rebellious teen, her hand quickly jotting down words in the notebook as they spoke, “Are you sure about that? I think getting everything you’d ever want would be problematic all in its own.”
“Oh yeah? Care to explain?”
“Think of it like this: whenever you want something, you just have to ask out loud and it’ll appear right in front of you. Just ask, and poof, you have it.”
“I wish I could do that. Sounds like a dream.”
“Let’s imagine you can. What would be the first thing you’d wish for?”
“Easy. Video games.”
Suzanne’s pen came to a sudden halt, her eyes widened in surprise at Alexandria’s quick answer,” Video games? Why those?”
“Without a doubt. I’ve been playing them ever since I was four years old, that’s when I got my first handheld game. There’s always new games coming out every few months, and I just gotta play them all.” A bright shimmering appeared in the corner of Alexandria’s hazel eyes and an uncontrollable smile formed on her thin lips as she spoke. She went on and on, barely stopping to catch her breath, talking about which game franchise was her favorite and how many hours she’s collected. Genuine happiness was present on her rosy cheeks.
Suzanne couldn’t help but chuckle at how passionately the teenager spoke about video games. Even though they were only ten years apart, Suzanne didn’t fully understand certain terms in the one-sided conversation, but she enjoyed how quickly Alexandria opened up.
In the middle of a rant about the hardest video game bosses Alexandria picked up on the bursts of laughter from across the table, “What’s so funny?”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing. Nothing bad, that is.”
She couldn’t pinpoint why, but Alexandria felt a weight of embarrassment building up in her chest. All she did was talk about video games. How could that make her embarrassed? In order to prevent herself from feeling any worse she stopped talking and kept her mouth shut for a moment before trying to return to the question at hand, “A-Anyways, if perfect happiness existed, I’d wish for every video game I’d ever want.”
Suzanne’s hand started writing again, “Good. I’m glad you have an answer. But don’t you see the problems in that, having every game you want?”
“What problems?”
“Normally, video games take a lot of time to complete, don’t they? Sometimes, it could take a month to finish one from start to end. With so many games that comes out in a single year, you possibly couldn’t finish all of them before another year of new games come out.”
“That doesn’t bother me too much, I’m usually not doing anything anyways. I have time to spend all day playing. Then again, I would have the time if I wasn’t stuck in here.”
“What about high school? Don’t you want to graduate with your friends?”
“Graduation was two months ago. And as for friends, I didn’t really care to have too many. The people at school were just other people preparing for the real world like I was. I just wanted to graduate and get out.”
“I’m sure you had at least one friend at school. With the way to speak about games, I bet a few people were able to easily click with you.”
There was a long pause between the two of them. Neither one of them spoke a word, more on Alexandria’s part. Not because she couldn’t answer, but because she didn’t want to answer. She looked at Suzanne, taking note at her professional appearance. Part of her just couldn’t muster up the urge to willingly tell somebody some of her most private secrets. Her smile quickly faded and the shimmering in her eyes vanished, “Next question.”
Luka's Notebooks 