Masking Reality

Holes. There were many holes in my life. They lingered within my family, within my friends, and even within me. Not to mention my relationships with other people. I began to think that was one of the only reasons why I couldn’t hold down a girlfriend long enough for myself. It was ironic though. I appeared to be much liked and desired by almost every female on the net. If only they knew who I really was. As a person. As someone who isn’t just a tiny man with no arms*. Then we would see, and my logic would be sound. I knew people were like that, and for me, it was just a matter of time.

“Ryan, you should just stop making videos for a while.”

Nate watched me tentatively as he sat in one of the extra chairs next to my monitor. He had pulled his knees up to his chest so that the heels of his feet could rest on the edge of the seat cushion. The kid was so small he could probably be placed in a bookshelf if he really wanted to. But Nate was growing up now, wasn’t he? I could already spark the very few changes in his face and expressions. His appearance had already begun the moldings of a real man. I could nearly cry, happy.

Cry…huh? I tried to snicker at Nate’s suggestion but the uncanny seriousness of his eyes gleamed sharply at mine. I could not laugh, and there was something about his tone that made me second guess at taking his comment for a joke.

“Why do you think that?”

Nate looked around my room evasively, his fingers strumming against his knees thoughtfully as if the tiny man wanted to ponder deeply what his next thoughts would be. But I knew what he was really thinking, and Nate was just too afraid to say it aloud.

“Well, I don’t know!” He sighed, shrugging.

“You’re always so worried about what would happen every time you upload something and you spend hours into the night recording and playing video games. I know it’s your job and all, but you hardly go outside anymore and hang out with your actual friends.”

That last part stung me a bit. I had to be honest with the kid about it. However Nate saw it coming, I could see it in his eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if he would be able to mouth out my next words.

“Scott, Raven, Ken, and just about everybody else are just as real and “actual” as any other friend I’ve made in the past. Just because I met them through Steam or Twitch does not make any difference!”

“How about that Swedish guy? You’re always on Skype with him, but have you ever seen him face to face? Never! It’s never going to happen, Ryan.”

The kid tested me, and it was not before long that my patience grew a temper on him. Since when did Nate know of what I was doing on Skype? Every night? Other than the gist of things, he seemed to be able to call on every detail and habit I preformed.

“PewDiePie had an actual job to commit to,” I defended soundly.

“For all I care he can stay in Italy for as long as he wants. That’s where he lives, after all. It’s not the distance that matters, Nate. It’s what you can do with it, and in this case it’s video gaming. PewDiePie is always trying to find a way to record for the next day that’s why he’s frequently calling me up for a co-op.”

Nathan crossed his glare at me, inspecting my being from the slits of his eyes.

“So it’s just for work..?” He questioned cunningly.

I scowled at my own defeat, remaining silent. I began to wonder when the little guy became so good with speaking for I knew he had caught me in a snare with my own words.

“Then I don’t see how he can actually be a friend when it’s just work.”

Did he just frown at me for my flaw? I felt quite degraded of my standing just then. After pausing for the longest time Nate stood up from his seat and began to head towards my door.

“Ryan, get off the computer and get some fresh air. You’ve been looking pretty down lately.”

Nate was peeking at me from a crack in my door when he said those words before disappearing down the hall. As soon as my usually introverted little brother left the room my thoughts and I were finally left to themselves to reflect on this tiny sense of awareness of my lifestyle. The quietness of my room felt irritating. My pondering could have been the loudest activity at present and that only seemed to make me even more frustrated. I stood up to stretch my legs and as I placed my fists on my thighs, I thought about what needed for me to be done. For Nate to come out with this seriously must have meant that it was an eminent fact at issue. I had to listen to him, to take note and act swiftly.

Just as I thought silently, my door creaked open and again did my little brother’s head pop out from a crack in the frame, staring at me silently from afar. I awaited diligently, my eyes hovering like daggers against his.

“You…you don’t hang out with me anymore. I hardly get to see you nowadays as much.”

My heart immediately sank as I watched my little brother close the door quietly behind him once more with that disheartened face of his. Clutching my chest, as if enduring such suffocation, I fell to my bedside, stunned, and greatly sad. After siting motionlessly, incorporating what I could comprehend from this newly obtained logic, I fretted about, running my fingers through the thick locks of my hair vigorously in stress up until the point where I had begun to roll around in my mattress, kicking my feet silently against the bed. After calming down, I sighed, feeling a vague sense of depression that accumulated at the core of my chest. Nate and I had a pretty tight brother-to-brother relationship didn’t we? I felt foolish enough to become clouded from such an important bond.

I was able to calm myself down, however an unknown dragging sort of burden felt like it was crushing my body. I hazily looked up from my bedside at the calendar I had pinned to my wall. If I squinted my eyes a bit, I could see the month of April, written in bold letters. If I squinted harder, I could even see what day it was. My eyes traveled along the weeks of my calendar until they froze at a particular day, two weeks from today. April 28. For some odd reason, I had it circled in red marker. I couldn’t remember for only two seconds as to what it could mean until it hit me, smacked right in the face. I could have sworn I tasted a glimpse of sheer terror when my heart pulse came to a sudden halt before restarting again. It was a birthday. A birthday for someone special, but it was certainly not Nate’s, or my mother’s, or any other family member I could put a finger on. It was someone I felt profoundly uneasy about. A friend, but also old company. A source of happiness and remorse. It was her birthday, and somehow I felt rather meek at the thought of it approaching.

I backtracked my days. The day that I’d move into my new home was the weekend just before the 28th and my charity stream was just before the weekend I’d move in. I found myself frowning with worry. Maybe it was time to cut back from the videos. I sure had a lot of things going on once and they were all slowly approaching me at a steady speed. Getting up from my bed, I took a long and easy breath before picking up the phone on my side table. Nonchalantly did my fingers dial the number of my sister’s place. I wanted to see how she was doing, wanting to know if everything was alright and if…she…was doing alright, too. The little one, I mean.

I smiled gratefully to hear her usual and upbeat voice through the receiver. It sounded like everything was doing alright and I could allow myself to laugh candidly every now and then throughout the conversation. It wasn’t before long she broke to me the news.

“Ryan, any week now. I can feel it. You’re going to be an uncle soon, can you believe it? I’m going to become a mom.”

That gentle smile did not leave my face as we talked. My older sister, who always quarreled with me in the past but was there to laugh at ourselves in the end. The one I grew up with since the beginning of my birth. She was finally taking one more step into life, and as living always ruled, my steps followed closely behind hers.

“You take care now, alright? Call me if you ever need the support. Mom’s gonna want to know all the details as soon as she finds out, you know. You’re never going to hear the end of it.”

Laughter coming from her end made that grin of mine broaden. And as we said our brief goodbyes and short passing of information, we hung up and I was left again to myself and my thoughts. An urge to share this became prominent. Just briefly did I sign onto tumblr to share the news. The amount of replies I received from my followers were endless and that only contributed to my excitement.. My passion to tell the entire world was at hand. I just couldn’t believe the great news.

I was going to be an uncle

Later that day I had decided to take up my little brother’s words and try to keep myself off the computer for the meanwhile. After posting a notice of temporary break for my subscribers to see, I loitered around our living room, pacing back and forth as I pondered from something to do. Usually I’d be recording, but for once I wasn’t going to, and it wasn’t like as if I had a second option to do incase I could not preform task A. I thought about going to work but the thought of working overtime, despite the extra pay, would do me no sense of entertainment.