One Day At A Time - Revised Edition

Wiping sweat off her forehead, Ava pulls an arrow from her quiver, firing it and watching it hit the dragon's wing.

The raging beast roars, exhaling fire and burning Ava's skin.

She stumbles backwards, but she is persistent.

Pulling another arrow from her quiver, she aims for the dragon's chest.
At first she misses, instead hitting the dragon's stomach.

But she fires off another arrow.

The arrow goes through the air, striking the dragon's heart right in the center.
The dragon moans in agony, falling to the ground with a loud thump...

"Yes!" Ava cheers, hitting the "pause" button and quickly saving the game.

"Fuck yeah!" Lucas exclaims, leaning forward in Ava's desk chair with an excited grin on his face.
"Finally!" Rose groans dramatically.
"Holy shit- you did it!" Lilly says, leaning over to joyfully side-hug her.

"Can you shut the hell up?" Ava's younger sister, Anne, abruptly yells from outside the door, breaking the excitement momentarily.
"I'm telling mom you cussed!" Her brother, Andy, butts in.

Everyone can hear Andy sprint off down the hallway.
They can also hear Anne chasing after him with the fast pitter-patter and squeaking of their shoes against the floor.

Ava's younger siblings are twins, ten years old.

Though, Anne was born four minutes before Andy, which she uses as an excuse to get away with anything.
"I'm older than you, so it's okay if I cuss!" is what she says.

Thanks to her friends at school, Anne has been learning a whole new world of curse words, which has been both hilarious and extremely annoying to everyone around her. (Her mom is following behind her often, "That excuse does not hold up. Ava doesn't have the potty-mouth that you do and she's old enough to drive!")

With the interruption ceased for now, Ava refocuses on the paused game menu, feeling prideful.

She resumes the game, smiling with a joyful flick of her fingers and wringing her hands, because she knows what comes next.
The dragon's soul is absorbed, it's twisting, radiant colors going into her character's body.

Rose looks at their phone sometime later, and begrudgingly says,
"I gotta go now, guys."
"Oh, come on, why?" Lucas groans, looking over at them.
"Dinner is in ten minutes and I can't be late." They answer, standing up from the edge of Ava's bed. "I'll see you all later."

Ava pauses the briefly resumed game and gets up off the floor after everyone else says their goodbyes.

When she first met Rose back in seventh grade, the two of them had come up with a handshake for the fun of it, a handshake that they would end up doing every time they'd say, "Bye" to each other.

It was routine, and if Ava likes one thing, it's something reliable such as the running routine maintained for years between friends.

So, the two of them do their thing and as they do it, Lucas glances briefly at Lilly, who is watching Ava intently. (Which is also routine, never quite able to take her eyes off her.)

He smiles to himself.
Lilly has always had a certain look in her eyes when she looks at Ava, a look of love. Pure, sickeningly sweet love.

Lilly has told both Lucas and Rose why she looks at Ava the way she does.
It was the sappiest of explanations, an explanation that earned her many drawn out, dramatic, "Aww's" from her friends.

After Rose leaves, Ava sits back down on the floor next to Lilly and resumes the game, scrolling through her objectives to see what quest she could do next.

She pushes her glasses back up her nose, picks a random, miscellaneous bandit-killing quest, and goes on efficiently slashing and stabbing the characters on her screen.

Having a special interest in Skyrim for a little over five years straight has surely paid off. She's bumped her difficulty up significantly, enjoying a challenge and the triumphs it comes with.

Some odd twenty minutes later, Lucas gets a text from his mom.
"Damnit-" He sighs, begrudgingly, too. "I'll see y'all later, my mom needs me home."

He goes out the door after more goodbyes, but he turns around for a second and winks at Lilly with a grin.
He knows that she'll look back at Ava with her eyes practically in the shape of hearts.

Poking fun at her for it is one of his favorite pastimes; Lilly knows what the wink is for, it's the same wink he always does at her expense.

"Yes!" Ava cheers again, quickly re-focused. The bandit tower on the screen is cleared out.
Ava is smiling proudly again, looking at Lilly with a gleam in her eye.

And, as much as she hates to admit it, Lucas is right.
She looks back at Ava with big, prideful hearts in her eyes.