She made a wide-circled gesture with her right arm and then flicked her wrist. On the large screen in front of them, the character did the same thing and a giant ball of fire appeared between her hands. She hurled it, like a beach ball, out in front of her.

“Katya, as a healer, will use that same gesture to get a different effect.” Katya was the girl with the braid who kind of reminded me of a red-haired version of Katniss from The Hunger Games. She made the exact same gesture as Mia, and her character’s hands started to glow with pure green energy (I presumed meant to heal). Mia’s character became bathed in that energy. A sentence appeared in the dialogue box at the bottom of the screen: Eloisa has been completely healed!

The group murmured, summarily impressed. Even I was impressed and I wasn’t a gamer. To imagine people being able to communicate their intentions through movement in an online gaming forum was amazing. It held stunning implications for the future of gaming.

Adam held up a set of goggles much like the ones the women were wearing. “While we are watching the action on a two-dimensional surface, eventually, once the prototype equipment is universally implemented, players will see the in-game environment around them as three-dimensional. Players of melee classes—like warriors and mercenaries—will have representations of their weapons to carry and wield as they fight. As with spell casting, certain moves and gestures will equate to special fighting moves for those characters.”

We continued to watch as Eloisa and Persephone—Katya’s character—proceeded to duel each other. Adam explained that these two had been gaming together for over two years, since they’d met in the beta version of the original game. It had never occurred to me that Mia was a gamer.

I watched her as the demo played out. She seemed healthy and happy, swinging her hands and gesticulating while she kicked the crap—virtually—out of her friend. In the end, she ended up winning the duel.

The group clapped. Mia and Katya pulled off their goggles, appearing as if they’d gotten a bit of a workout. The crowd started to either disperse or talk among themselves, but I was too interested in what was happening in front of that video screen. Mia was grinning up at Adam and he smiled back, watching her with a look I could not describe as anything other than sheer adoration. There was this gleam in his dark eyes and he never took them off of her. She said something, cocking an eyebrow and tilting her head cheekily, and he laughed, curling an arm around her waist and whispering in her ear. Whatever his reply had been, it had made her both laugh and blush furiously.

This was like the last time I’d watched them together—at that same party where I’d made the awful remarks. The way they looked at each other was as if no one else in the world existed but the two of them. Like the entire world could pass them by, and as long as they had each other, they would be fine. They would be happy.

My heart pinched in my chest. Someday, I wanted a man to look at me like that. And when I looked at him back, I’d have those same feelings in my heart. My throat tightened.

Cari leaned in conspiratorially and muttered, “Ugh, she makes me sick.”

I straightened, leaning away from her. I knew exactly who she was talking about. On a regular basis, she picked apart Mia’s clothes and looks, though it was ridiculous because it was obvious that Mia was a beautiful woman, even while she’d been ill.

Cari’s mockery had grown since they got engaged. She’d spent hours raging to me about the size of Mia’s engagement ring. “It’s at least three carats; it has to be. Shit, why do the brown-haired mousy girls get all the luck? I want a gazillionaire. I want that gazillionaire,” she’d ranted.

“She looks happy. Healthy,” I replied neutrally, reminding her that, up until a few months ago, Mia had been sick with a life-threatening illness. But she’d pulled through and Adam had stood by her through it all. He appeared to be a top-notch guy and it seemed like she deserved him. Apparently, others didn’t see it that way.

Ingrid was agreeing with every word out of Cari’s mouth, just like the rest of the herd did. Just like I’d often feigned to do. I wondered how many of them really agreed with her or how many of them, like me, were too chicken to speak up and disagree, lest she turn her wrath on one of us.

“What’s so special about her, though? Why would he pick her?” Cari whined.

I fought rolling my eyes and Ingrid leaned in. “She’s not so great. She’s tall and thin and pretty, I guess, but she’s so flat-chested.”

My mouth dropped and I felt ill. The poor woman had survived breast cancer. Who knew what surgeries she’d had to endure, and they were taking pot shots at her figure? Women were so cruel to each other sometimes, and these two were gross. And I was gross for having gone along with them as long as I had.