The game exercised his body for him, keeping him in perfect shape, so he was much thinner than when he had bought most of his clothes thanks to the excessive amounts of time he had been spending in the pod. He hadn’t been fat before, but he hadn’t been sculpted like a marble statue back then either, and he felt a little awkward as he threw on a pair of pants and an Oxford shirt that passed the smell test since the outfit was way too loose on him. Maybe I can just text her that lunch is too much, he thought, considering his options for complete evasion. I mean, I am hungry, and she . . . His inner monologue trailed off as he thought back to the phone call.

She had sounded a little desperate, and she had mentioned that her dad had cut her off emotionally too in some of the earlier messages that he had actually listened to. He knew that her mother already disliked her for not “doing as well as Yu Hua,” so he imagined she didn’t get much comfort from that quarter either. Since he had been completely ignoring her, she was likely alone with nobody to blame but herself. The thought actually made him feel a bit guilty as he paced back and forth through the empty apartment. They had been close before the accident, and he knew he was one of the few friends she had.

Fine, fine, it’s one lunch, Lucas thought, caving and deciding not to send out the cancellation text. He had already put on clothes, and he needed to eat anyway since he often opted for the machine not to inject him with nutrients. The only remaining issue now was that he didn’t know how to host someone in his apartment. The crappy wooden chairs had been picked up at discount from a megastore along with the small round table. The three items had been bundled together and advertised as a “college starter pack” and weren’t even made from real wood. No matter how realistic the veneer was, he knew that the bits of furniture were particle board based on just how light they were.

He glanced down at the phone again to check the time and heard an awkward bump against his door. “Lucas, you’re gonna have to help me with this,” a voice called out. Then, without pause, it continued. “I can’t knock or press the doorbell because my hands are full, but I got us everything we need for lunch. I wasn’t sure what to bring, so I just panicked and bought it all, but now I can’t carry it, and you live up so many flights of stairs. What’s wrong with— Oh, hey! There you are. Take this bag.”