It’s late spring now, long past the final snow. Michigan is warming up. Soon school will let out. Weekends, Eli goes to play with his new friends, who have parents more lenient than me. Good people who just want their kids to have playdates again. He drinks juice boxes and eats Cheetos and fights the latest war. Then he bicycles home for dinner and I pretend everything’s normal—that he’s simply a kid coming home from a playdate, where they did nothing more horrible than play video games and drink too much soda—hoping he’s telling me the truth when he says they aren’t playing Combat Mode.

Eli’s anger at me lasted for almost a month after he’d found out I’d played Combat. I explained to him that I’d made a mistake, that I’d killed people, that the game was evil. “It’s not evil, you’re just a sloppy gamer,” Eli said, and I lost it on him. Some small part of me watched as I yelled, aware that it wasn’t an enemy I was destroying but my relationship with my son.

At night I lie awake. I think about Brogan back at the beginning of the game, trolling users for a new buddy. I think about Sergeant Franks in the parking lot, warning me about what awaits after you’re done killing. Mostly though, I think about that moment before I pulled the trigger. In my mind, I rewrite history. I ease off the triangle button, lower my weapon, log off forever. The boys live.

Some nights there’s no sleep, and my son finds me at the breakfast table, red-eyed and hollow. He lets me hug him good morning, seems to understand that I need it more than him, that somehow his father isn’t the same person anymore. “It’s just a stupid game,” he says as he hugs me, and I put my arms around him, hold him close for as long as I can before he tells me it’s enough, that it’s time to let him go.

TRUE LOVE TESTIMONIALS

CLÖE

Empty? I wouldn’t say it’s empty. I guess there’re guys on make-an-av sites creating shells to have sex with, and that’s kinda empty. They’re afraid to even text girls in real life; like they actually freeze up anytime a woman talks to them because they’re only used to hump-avs. Which is pretty sad. But, in general, it’s like life. You can have empty sex or meaningful sex. It’s kinda based on who you’re hooking up with and why you’re there.