Non-Playable Character

I never was a player,

but I realized a long time ago that I was more of an NPC in the game.

There was a time my relationship had ended and I went back for the wrong

reason.

More specifically, because I was chasing my Xbox, but that's not how you

console a woman.

Nor is telling her a fantasy of how you'll be with her forever, making that

Dreamcast a spell on her reality.

When I was a teen, the biggest calamity in my personality was when I had

the mentality that I could use my Joystick on a girl to controller.

I wasn't afraid of the endings in Dear John letters because I knew how to

write a P.S. too, and still keep it moving afterwards.

So I pressed her passion buttons knowing she was ↓ for me, → or wrong,

even when I ← her alone to pick ↑ the pieces.

But looking back, I see the glitch in my design,

I played through our relationship like save files I never meant to keep then

hit reset when the screen got too real.

I wasn't a co-op partner, just a solo campaigner, treating her love like side

quests I could abandon at will.

She handed me her heart like a cartridge, but I never blew the dust off

before I pushed it in.

Every "I love you" was just a cheat code I memorized, a scripted line I

spammed without really meaning it, all just to plug into her slot.

I think this affected her a lot...

Because as the years went by and I watched her express herself on

stripper poles, inhale cocaine, and liplock with shot glasses, I knew that

from the start I was the reason her story mode ran on autopilot.

By the time I learned that hearts don’t restart, that love isn’t just a game

you can mode to your advantage, she had already logged out...

disconnected for good.

And there I was, staring at the gameover screen of a person I left frozen,

waiting for a response from another man that never came, looking for the

same unstable connection that I gave.

Mission failed.

Or accomplished.

Whatever it is NPC’s in the game of love do. They move off of ignorance, or

what's picked up from their environment, not knowledge or true emotions.

Never understanding that love doesn’t have unlimited continues. You

destroy a heart, you just destroy a heart.

That's why I know I never was a player...

I realized a long time ago that I was more of an NPC in the game.

Thinking I had control when I was just background noise in a story I never

truly invested in.

Just played it until I was done with that system.