13 Years Old

I enjoyed the rest of the summer as best as I could. On the first Planet Cyber session after being back from vacation, I met up with John Jo. They had the new Warcraft 3 expansion available to play, and the two of us tried it out.

I had a sleepover with Charlie and Elijah, and they introduced me to their friend Julian Ritz-Barr. Julian went to Topanga Elementary with us, though he was two grades lower, so I never knew him beforehand. I thought he was very cool, but a bit stupid. We competed with each other at Planet Cyber. I continued to see him with Charlie and Elijah a few more times after that.

Coincidentally, Julian’s parents were friends with Rob Lemelson, and I didn’t know this at the time. A few years down the line, I would cross paths with Julian again at one of the Lemelson’s parties, where I would spitefully envy him for being so confident with everyone.

When the summer ended, I cried a little. It was such a great summer. I went on a vacation, I saw lots of friends, played lots of games, and enjoyed life to its fullest. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that this was the last good summer in my life, but I still cried... as I always do after a joyful experience comes to an end.

Eighth Grade began on a very mellow note. For the first couple of months, I continued on with the life I’ve been living, and things seemed ok. The main people I hung out with at school were Alfred Graham, Gavin Dowd, and Brice Miller. Alfred was just getting good at skateboarding, and he was starting to become popular with the skateboarders. He once brought his skateboard to school and landed a kickflip,
the move I was never able to master in the past. I was secretly jealous, even though I insisted to everyone that I was no longer interested in skateboarding.

I started to take more notice of the kids in lower grades, specifically the Seventh Graders. There was one who came in from Topanga Elementary, the older brother of one of Georgia’s friends. His name was Neil Davis. I observed the popular kids of Seventh Grade... In a way they visually mimicked the popular kids of my own grade. They were all the same, though the Seventh Graders seemed a lot meaner. I noticed that Neil Davis was starting to be friends with them, even with the pretty girls. I would gradually develop a great envy towards him. Another one was Lucky Radley, the black kid I played with in father’s neighborhood. He transferred to Pinecrest during that very year, and he immediately became popular with the pretty girls of his grade. I hated him for it.

Things were getting more intense every year we grew older, and I didn’t want to grow up. I wanted to live the life I was comfortable with. I wanted to live in a world of fairness, and I tried not to accept that it would soon come to an end.

The games I enjoyed playing at Planet Cyber were too powerful to run on my mother’s computer, so Planet Cyber was the only place I could play them. That was until I asked my father to buy me Warcraft 3 to install on his powerful laptop. I got the Frozen Throne expansion to go with it, and once it was installed I was able to play it on his laptop whenever he allowed me to. I thought it was really cool to actually play an online game from my own home. Father’s house became a lot more fun after this, though I hated it when Soumaya set limits on my playtime.

When father invited the Bubenheims over, Alex sometimes brought his friends Gary and Antje Twinn. They had a son named Vincent, who was the same age as my sister and a good friend of Lukas. Vincent was a kind-hearted and sweet little boy who was a bit overweight. I showed him Warcraft 3 on my father’s computer. He was very interested in the game, and he would watch me for hours. He really looked up to me. We got along well.

One day, I was looking up things on the internet about Warcraft 3. That is when I found out about a new, revolutionary Warcraft game coming out, called World of Warcraft. I didn’t think much of it at the time, ignorant of the effect it would have on me in my later life.

Gradually, my friendship with John Jo, Charlie, and Elijah started to wane. They no longer came over as a group anymore. Our usual Friday sleepovers stopped happening, as they got more busy with other things. John Jo and Charlie slowly started to get bored of Planet Cyber, which caused them to lose their interest in coming over every week. I continued to see them individually; sometimes I would see Charlie and Elijah together, sometimes just Elijah, and sometimes just John Jo.

Due to them coming over less often, I began to walk to Planet Cyber alone. I never did this before, because my friends came over so much and we would go together. I would usually play Diablo 2 or Warcraft 3 there. For a time, I did this as a routine without getting bored. Sometimes I would meet John Jo there and we would have intense Warcraft 3 competitions with each other.