BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

Mark waited for Stephanie to explain what she meant, but she had gone suddenly quiet. Her eyes glistened as he waited, unable to take his eyes away from her. He wanted to push her, to force her to explain, but he didn’t think that would work.

‘It’s not supposed to be a real thing,’ Stephanie said, almost at a whisper, without conviction. ‘It’s just a stupid thing that got passed around school one year.’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s this story. Started online. Someone finds out some kind of secret you have and makes you play some kind of game. It erases the bad thing you’ve done and makes it all forgotten. You just had to do certain tasks first. Like levels in a video game. We scared each other with it, that sort of thing. It wasn’t like anyone actually did anything with the secrets.’

‘Emily talks about it differently though, as if it’s really happening to her. As if she was being made to play it,’ Mark replied, leaving the words he almost said safely unspoken.

Or she did.

‘I never thought it was a real thing people did. No one did, not really. We all knew it was just something that had been made up. Some stupid, online bullshit that didn’t really mean anything.’

‘Why would she think it was real though?’

Stephanie shrugged in response, but Mark could see there was something she wasn’t saying either. He decided to try a different tack.

‘Where did it start?’

‘I don’t know. It was one of those things, you know, that just gets passed around school and that. A group of us talked about it in school and that was it. There’s a whole bunch of people who talk about it online though. Emily must have heard about it. That’s all.’

‘Why would she be interested in it? Do you think she would have believed in it?’

‘I… I don’t know. Maybe, if she’d done something even worse than we know about, someone could have made her play The Game or something. But it’s not a real thing. It’s just a story. No one actually makes anyone do anything like this.’

Mark leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and stroked his forehead with his fingers. Wondered how the hell he’d ended up in a mess such as this. ‘Is it possible someone used this thing to get back at her? Made her think if she played this game, she could make up for something?’

‘We spoke about it. Once.’

‘What did she say?’

‘I can’t really remember. It was a while ago.’

This time, Mark didn’t hide his disappointment in her answer. He gave her a look to tell her so. ‘Come on, you know that’s not true as much as I do. You spoke to Emily about this game…’

‘The Game.’