Hayden's POV

"You have two outgoing messages."

Beep!

"Hey Hayden, it's Krystal. Just checking in about plans for winter break. Holiday travel gets real crazy so I gotta order plane tickets, well, now. Call me or text me back if it's still on or not."

Beep!

"Hi again... I hope I'm not like one of those crazy girlfriends in the movies that leaves like fifty messages in the same hour. Only this is my second message in a month. I haven't heard from you in a while and I'm starting to worry. Call me or text me about something... I miss you."

I inhaled, and pressed the 'Call Back' option.

Ring, ring...

"Hello?"

"Hey Krystal," I said, hiding my anxiety.

"Hayden!" she practically yelled. "You're alive!"

I nervously laughed. "Yep, I'm alive and well."

There was a pause. "You're hiding something. Either that, or there's something you're too nervous to tell me."

It wasn't worth lying about. "Wow... you're good. Uh... so..."

I scratched my neck and fidgeted anxiously. "My mom... she nearly died a few months ago."

"She WHAT?!" Krystal's voice was filled with shock and concern. "What happened? Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine now," I responded quietly.

"That's good," she said. "It probably was hard on you... are you okay?"

"I'm fine now," I lied.

"That's great," she replied sincerely. "It really is. But why haven't you told me about it? I could've helped you through."

"I..." I was at a loss for words. I didn't know how to address the fact that I purposely avoided her for many reasons.

"Did you... not want to tell me?" she asked after a moment of silence.

I didn't say anything.

"How come you didn't want to tell me?" I could start to hear hints of an upset tone in her voice, getting a sinking feeling inside of me.

My mouth was sewed shut. I couldn't find the right words for it.

"Well say something," she said, starting to sound irritated. "Say something or I hang up."

"I didn't want to worry you, or upset you," I blurted out. "I just wanted you to be happy, that's all."

"Yeah, because that plan definitely worked out," she said sarcastically. I flinched from the sudden venom in her voice. "You didn't contact me for about three months. Yes, I was sooooooo happy. No! I wasn't! I spent many hours of my day worrying about you, because you're Hayden and a war is going on right now. Is there anything else that happened? Because I'd be more than happy to know."

Eyes wide and heart pounding hard, I whispered, "I stayed up every night watching my mom sleep."

There was a pause. Then, "Hayden... you could've died. You could've died! You could've just collapsed one day and have lost everything! You're not fine now at all, you lied to me! Are you still doing it?"

"No..." I looked down at my right hand, which was shaking.

"Are you still doing it?" Krystal asked again, unconvinced.

"I said I'm not doing it anymore! Why don't you believe me?!" I found myself yelling.

"How can I? You'll just lie to me again, won't you? I'm just trying to help you!"

I grit my teeth. "I don't need your help! I'm fine!"

"Stop lying! You're not fine, you do need help!  I can help you, your mom can help you, a professional can help you..."

"A professional can not and will not help me!" I screamed. "He doesn't get my issues, in fact he'll think I'm psychotic if I try!"

"What about me? Huh? I get your issues! Or at least I thought I did until you shut me out of your life for three months!"

"You know, I thought you would've been a little more supportive of my issues," I snarled. "But apparently not!"

"Excuse me?" She sounded appalled. "I have been nothing BUT supportive! What did you want me to say, 'I totally support the fact you're DECAYING YOUR BODY AND COULD POSSIBLY DIE!?' No! I care about you! Maybe too much, because you don't seem to care enough!"

Her words lingered in the air as a tense silence commenced. I noticed my heavy but quick breathing, my burning face, and how hard I was clutching my phone. But more than ever, I noticed the alien urge to punch a hole through a wall.

"I feel sorry that I have to be the one to tell you the true things you don't want to hear," Krystal said with a hollow yet subtle angry tone. "But I care."

After what seemed like an eternity of my fuming silence, she left me with, "You've changed".

I stared down at my phone with trembling vision. Blood pounded in my ears. Without thinking, I chucked it across my room. It collided with the wall with a hard slam, and hit the ground with a thud.

The door flew open. My mom, expression filled with concern, looked at my shattered phone, and looked back at me. I must've appeared frightening, because she shut the door quickly after one glance.

I turned and gazed at my reflection, and saw a different person glare back at me with wild hazel eyes and a red face.

I laid down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. My breathing slowed down, and my thought process cleared up. All of the events that just happened and what I did and said dawned on me. I had yelled at Krystal for caring about me. By not contacting her for three months, I caused her more pain than I caused myself. I wondered what was going through her head during that time. She probably thought of things that I would never dream of doing. She was even nice to me when I called her after not speaking to her in a while... I was the one who wasn't...

I felt like the worst boyfriend ever. If not the worst of the worst, I could most likely qualify for the top ten.

My biggest question was this: What the heck happened to me? One minute I was quietly trying to avoid confrontation, the next I was full-out screaming at her and saying some harsh phrases. I had never witnessed myself become so angry. I wondered what came over me...

I sat up once I had cooled down, and slid off the bed. I slowly approached my phone which was face down on the ground. I destroyed my case. It didn't offer the best protection, but I usually was very gentle towards it, so I didn't see the problem in having it. Turning my phone over, I mentally gasped. The screen was wrecked. It was shattered to the point of some of the glass chipping off. How hard did I throw my phone against the wall? And how did I get that immense strength? I hadn't done much with archery since I gave my laptop away, so my arms had to be pretty out of shape and weak.

I turned it on. The screen popped to life as it usually did. Although shattered, it was still usable. I let out a sigh of relief.

I heard a buzz, and looked back down at my phone. It was a text from Steve.

Steve: Hayden... what did you do now

Did Krystal tell on me? I pursed my lips and texted him back.

Me: What do you mean?

Steve: You know what you did

Me: Stop being all mysterious and clarify

Steve: You were mean to Krystal.

Me: Did she tell on me?

Steve: Yes she did.

Me: Oh

Steve: Why did you yell at her? I've never heard you yell in my life, so something's wrong

Me: I don't know what came over me, I really don't. One minute I was timidly trying to avoid confrontation and the next I was yelling at her

Steve: It seems you need help with a lot of things right now

Me: so I've been told

Steve: Are you going to get any?

Me: I don't know

Me: I guess I'll get help from you guys but not any professional help

Steve: That's a start, considering that you resisted any form of help on the phone

Me: I just don't like how everyone in my life is treating me like an injured puppy. Very patronizing, very demeaning. I hate that. There's nothing wrong with me

Steve: That's an exaggeration. You're grouping everyone together when you only mean a few people. I'm not patronizing, am I?

Me: You can be. Now stay out of this, it's my issue, I'm going to solve it

Steve: Your self-sufficiency tactic isn't working out real well.

My hands twitched angrily to type a venomous retort, but I stopped myself.

Steve: You can only help yourself when you get out of that denial stage you're stuck in. You need help from the ones you love. No doubt about that.

Steve: Why didn't you tell Krystal? You do love her, right?

I was mortified by that sentence.

Me: Of course I still love her! I just didn't want her to worry about me. I thought I could handle it myself

Steve: You know that never works out, right?

Me: well

Steve: Just apologize

Me: Okay. But why did Krystal talk to you about this?

Steve: Because she knew I could talk some sense into you before you did something stupid.

Me: You're too late on that one. I shattered my phone.

Steve: Looks like you'll be paying for your own phone bill now.

Me: Crap.

Me: Before you leave, I have to ask... how's everyone doing in Minecraft?

Steve: They're doing all right. Ashton and Paige miss you. They say it's quiet around there, and I would have to agree.

Me: That's saying a lot, considering that I don't talk that much.

Steve: You should apologize to her now. Any delay would make her angrier.

Me: Good idea

And I exited out of messages and dialed her number again. I nervously clicked the call button.

Ring...

I could imagine her fuming, and then hearing her phone go off.

Ring...

She's walking over to check who it is.

Ring...

I imagined her seeing that it was me who was calling her, and glaring at the phone with distaste.

Krystal's outgoing voice message went off.

"Hey, it's Krystal! I obviously wasn't there to pick up the phone, as you could tell. Leave a message..." I hung up and sighed.

I sat on the bed, staring at my phone blankly. I dialed again, and hesitantly held it up to my ear.

This time, she picked it up after two rings.

There was a moment of silence, as both of us were struggling for words. I finally spoke.

"I'm sorry," I began, breaking the silence. "I did stupid things. Very stupid. I was deliriously fixated on the fantasy that I was jeopardizing my life to save my mom.  I didn't think of you, and I didn't think of myself. She's just the only blood related family I have left, and the fact that she almost died scared the hell out of me. And also... I didn't mean to yell at you either. I have no idea what came over me. I don't remember the last time I got so outwardly angry. Talk about stupid things... after you hung up, I threw my phone at the wall and shattered it."

I stopped talking, and there was silence. I was starting to get the impression that she hung up on me, when I heard a faint noise. There were gasps and snorts... was she crying? The sounds grew in volume and I realized that she wasn't crying. She was laughing.

"Sorry," She laughed, "but you shattered your phone? On purpose? Who is this?"

I let out a chuckle, relieved.

"Remember that one time?" she asked, attempting to calm down. "Our last week in Sweden, when you dropped your phone, and you dived to the ground to save it and did?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I freaked out. I knew that my mom would've been so pissed and I would've been even more."

"How about now?"

"She popped in after that incident," I explained and flushed. "'Pissed' isn't the right word to describe how she looked. She looked very frightened. I would've been too, if I walked in and saw my son looking like a crazed lunatic with a shattered phone on the ground."

I couldn't help but smiling and feeling relief as I heard her giggle.

"You know, that was our first fight," Krystal pointed out. "Or am I forgetting something?"

I thought back to when we first met to now. No conflict. "No, you're completely right. It is."

"Do you think we handled it well?"

"That depends. Do you accept my apology?"

"I do," she replied. "Thanks for being honest."

"I owed it to you, didn't I?" I said. "It was the least I could do for treating you like that."

"But next time, if you're not going to talk to me for a few months," she requested, "at least tell me before you start."

"Noted, but I'll try to prevent that from happening again. So how about those tickets?"

The day Krystal was coming in was the day after winter break started, a couple weeks from now. December 22nd. A date that had once seemed so far away was now so close. My mood significantly improved because of this. Of course, nobody really noticed except for my mom, since I didn't really talk to anyone at school. But it made her happy.

So I was delighted when Steve decided to pay me a visit one afternoon, but the feeling seemed to not be mutual, based on his facial expression.

"Hayden, something horrible happened," he began with urgency in his voice, shutting the door to my room. "The Robloxians... they made a move. A few of them got onto my server and started destroying buildings in the city."

"Was anyone hurt?" I inquired immediately.

"A few died, but respawned," he responded. "But it could've been a lot worse. We fought them off and they luckily surrendered. We closed off the way they got there as soon as we could. But they knew I was somewhere in the server, Hayden, they were coming for me. We forced that information out of them."

"Why would they want you so badly?" I asked, even though the answer was obvious.

"So they could kill me," Steve said bluntly. "I think I know now, the reason why everyone wants me dead so badly. I can't believe I've taken so long to figure this out. Once I die, Minecraft doesn't belong to anyone. When I die, my killer will rule Minecraft."