Run, Girl (If You Can)

Aiden sighed a bit ruefully after leaving his boss's office. Aaron was one lucky dog. He got to have the woman he loved by his side all the time and he already had two beautiful children with her.

It seemed like all he had done the past few years was wait. Then again, his friend had been forced to wait for his love too. Keeley hadn't wanted anything to do with him for years. Honestly, Aiden didn't think they would ever get married and yet here they were, blissfully in love so everyone around them felt single whether they actually were or not.

He was happy for Aaron; he really was, especially after seeing the lengthy struggle he had to go through to get what he wanted in the end. But seeing him and Keeley together reminded him how far away Nova was.

It hadn't been like that at first. When they first met in a Final Fantasy XI server when he was sixteen the last thing he expected was to actually fall in love. Aiden had seen Nova's character— a pink-haired Mithra codenamed Supernova like an exploding star—and had been impressed by her battle skills so he asked her to join his party.

He hadn't been playing the game for long at the time. Though he had been an avid gamer since he was a kid, he didn't discover multiplayer games until he was in high school. World of Warcraft had been his first MMORPG but after a while he wanted to branch out and try something else.

One of his friends at school had recommended Final Fantasy XI so here he was. Despite playing for a month he had never managed to find a party that didn't fall apart after a few side quests. Looking at Supernova's stats, he had a feeling she was experiencing the same problem.

Aiden shot her a message. 'Your skills are impressive. Want to team up?'

Immediately she wanted to barter. 'What's in it for me, fire boy?' Aiden's screen name was QFlame rather than Anomaly because his account was traceable and he didn't want his hacker handle exposed. She was teasing him from the get go.

He had a few items that were more beneficial to her job as a Warrior than his as a Red Mage. Offering them to her in exchange for her help wasn't a hard decision.

At first he thought their party would fall apart like all of the others but as time went on, other players would come and go but Supernova remained. After a few months Aiden proposed they get married in game so they could share items and boost each other's XP points.

She agreed easily enough but after their wedding she wanted to know more about him in real life. Normally they focused their chats on things relevant to the game so he was a bit surprised.

'Tell me ten things about yourself that are real' Supernova requested. 'You can start with your name'

Aiden wasn't sure which information would be most relevant so he started with the basics. 'My name is Aiden and I'm sixteen years old. I live in one of the most famous cities in the world. My parents are divorced and I have a little sister named Sophie.'

He was only halfway through the number of facts she had requested and he was already running out of ideas. He needed to get more creative.

'I'm really good with computers. I actually have a part-time job working remotely for this weird rich guy because of it. He already offered me a real job after I graduate from high school so I don't have to go to college. I like animals but can't have pets because my mom is allergic. Oh, and I'm American. What about you?'

Supernova took several minutes to respond. 'I'm Nova. I live in Sweden with my parents, grandparents, and siblings. I'm the middle child out of three. I speak Swedish, English, and a little bit of Finnish. I'm fourteen and I want to be a graphic designer when I get older.

'I want a dog but my grandparents are allergic too. My favorite thing to do other than play video games is draw. I have a secret weakness for kötbullar; I think you would call them meatballs. And I am unusually short for my family. Everyone else is taller than me'

Aiden had been floored to hear that she was from Sweden. With how well she spoke (or should he say typed) English he would have thought she was American. They ended up talking a lot more about their lives as they played after that.

Once they completed the main storyline and countless side quests in Final Fantasy XI they decided to take a break from it but wanted to remain a team. They became friends on Facebook and ended up joining a bunch of different MMORPGs together. Whenever there was an option to get married, they did it.

He tried to convince himself it was all for convenience. Aiden had a lot of online friends—he hadn't even met his boss in person and they had been working together for a few years at this point—so he didn't realize he felt anything different for Nova.

But there was one thing he did become aware of. The girl he had been crushing on from afar since he was in 8th grade asked him to help her with homework (he wasn't sure why since his grades were mediocre at best) and he turned her down because he had promised to meet up with Nova in-game during that time.

Aiden felt a bit funny about it afterwards once he realized the implications of what he had done. Why would he turn Jessica down? She was here; he could actually see her and touch her. The most he had ever seen of Nova was pictures she posted on Facebook.

It bothered him for days until he realized that maybe, just maybe, he might have switched who he liked without even noticing. Nova crept up on him until he felt a noticeable difference on the days they didn't talk.

But she was halfway across the world. They would probably never even meet. It would be better to squash those feelings down.

Aiden figured the best way to do that would be to go offline for a while. He ended up taking a break from all of the MMORPGs he was a part of and focused on old school single player games for a few weeks. He needed to get her out of his head.