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Most of the time, avoiding Etho was easy. Most of the time it was harder to find him than to miss him: he would show up occasionally to prank people or get involved in other shenanigans, and then retreat either to his distant base or some other unknown location and not be seen for a week or more.
So it was very unfortunate that the one time Cleo wanted to avoid him, he suddenly seemed to be everywhere. They blamed Beef. Etho got obsessed with things, especially with games, everyone knew that. And while Decked Out had made him run around in a dungeon over and over again on his own, TCG was a multi-player game, and so Etho regularly appeared at the arenas and at the shop, where Cleo inevitably sometimes ran into him.
To be fair to Etho, he tried very hard to pretend that nothing had changed and that things weren’t awkward at all, or at least not any more awkward than usual. And maybe to him they weren’t, Cleo couldn’t know for sure. She hadn’t asked him yet if he too had somehow acquired memories of an entire life they’d never lived during Grian’s latest death game. She was not going to walk up to him and ask “just checking, do you remember when we got divorced? Worse, do you remember when we got married? Because I do. I even remember the dress I wore. I remember that Tango was your best man and he was very touched that you asked him and Impulse pretended not to be disappointed it wasn’t him. Remember when you started spending more time with them and Skizz instead of with me and our boys until I was basically a single mother and had to raise them on my own? Remember how we used to fight about whose responsibility it was to make sure they didn’t get into trouble, which was impossible because it was Scar and Bdubs? Remember how we tried to pretend everything was fine for their sake until things finally fell apart completely? Remember-“
Cleo cut that line of thoughts off, for what felt like the dozenth time in the past few weeks. She knew it would lead nowhere. It was extremely frustrating how difficult it was not to feel angry about things that had never happened, things that had been made up by a game that had a vested interest in creating conflict among its players. She was working on it, but it was a work in progress.
They remembered all the previous games, of course. Things were always a little awkward afterwards, there were some hurt feelings here and there, but they were all aware that it had been a game. They’d all agreed, every time, to the temporary amnesia that made it possible for new alliances and enmities to form. It didn’t work perfectly every time, but it definitely led to more variety.
Never before had the game given her false memories. During the game itself Cleo hadn’t even noticed that she suddenly had a life story where before she’d had no idea how she’d landed here, it had all seemed completely normal. She’d talked about it with some of the others afterwards and they’d confirmed that they too had gotten fake memories, though not everyone to the same degree. Grian, for example, had barely gotten any, and even he couldn’t explain what had happened. Bdubs and Scar had some memories of their teenage years, but nothing before that. They’d both jokingly complained about how often she’d sent them to their rooms, she’d threatened to do it again if they acted out, and just like that they’d been fine. They hadn’t compared memories in enough detail to know if they’d been of an identical fake life.
And of course Cleo couldn’t ask Etho about that. He’d run away immediately if she really asked him “did you also get fake memories about our fantastic sex life, or was that just me?”
If she got him into a situation where he couldn’t just run away, he’d probably smile awkwardly behind his mask and say something along the lines of “I got memories about our sex life, at least,” or “thank you Cleo, I’m flattered,” and then she’d have to resist the urge to get into another fight with him. It would be easy, thanks to her many memories of getting into fights with him.
It was annoying. She and Etho had never been very close, but she liked to think they were friends. Only it turned out it was hard to think of someone as your friend when you remembered them being your lover, your husband, the father of your children, and finally your ex who you had a very complicated relationship with.
When she’d mentioned it to Joe, he’d gone off on a tangent of how people’s memories of the same objective events could still lead to completely different subjective perspectives. He’d been right, but that didn’t help with her current situation.
“How do you do it?” she finally asked Bdubs one day. They’d happened to meet in the shopping district and chatted for a while, and as usual Bdubs had eventually mentioned Etho in the conversation. “Do you still call him dad?”
Bdubs blinked. “Sometimes. When I want to make fun of him. Usually I don’t, that’d be weird.”
“Did you ever talk about it?”
Bdubs shrugged. He tilted his head and looked at her closely, and Cleo was reminded once again that he could be a lot more perceptive than he let on. “Once, that was enough. Did you?”
“No,” Cleo admitted.
“You probably should,” Bdubs advised.
“I know,” Cleo sighed. “It’s going to be so awkward.”
“Oh yeah,” Bdubs agreed. “Do you have memories of your entire marriage and divorce? That must be so awkward.”
“Not helping, Bdubs!”
“Sorry, sorry!”
But she knew he was right, and she knew that putting it off only made it worse. So the next time Beef asked Etho for a game of TCG in the public chat Cleo flew to the arena and arrived right after Etho did.
“Cleo?” Etho asked, clearly surprised to see her there.
“Hi Cleo!” Beef greeted her, much more warmly, and walked over to her from the other side of the arena.
“Carry on,” she gestured, “I’m just here to watch.”
“Right,” Etho said skeptically. He’d probably noticed that she’d been avoiding him him, even though she’d tried being subtle about it.
“I heard you two were divorced,” Beef said, crossing his arms and looking between them curiously.
“Did you have to bring that up?” Etho complained, and he sounded almost embarrassed. He opened his shulker chest and seemed very focused on his deck.
“Just telling you what I heard!”
“We were,” Cleo said. One of her snakes was getting agitated and she ran a soothing finger along its scales until it settled down.
“Yeah? How did that go?” Beef asked.
“We got divorced, how do you think that went,” Cleo asked in return.
“She kept trying to kill me,” Etho added, finally looking up from his shulker again.
“That’s because we were in a death game!”
“Oh yeah? Are you saying you wouldn’t have tried to kill me otherwise?”
“After we got divorced? Probably not. Well, maybe on Hermitcraft, but that’s different. And you would have deserved it.”
“After that divorce, I probably would have deserved it. On Hermitcraft,” Etho added quickly. “But it wasn’t real, so there’s no reason for you to kill me now.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not like I could,” Cleo said, barely thinking about it.
“You might. I’m washed up, remember?” Etho grinned at her, clearly inviting her in on the joke.
“I didn’t say that! You said that! And everyone blames me!” Cleo exclaimed.
“I know,” Etho said, laughing.
“It’s hilarious,” Beef agreed. “You know, I can see why the game thought you two were divorced.”
“Hey!” Cleo protested instinctively.
“Hey,” Etho protested as well.
Beef raised his hands. “I can see why the game thought you were an old married couple, better?”
“Not really,” Etho said, and Cleo shook her head.
Beef sighed. “Fine. In that case, from what I’ve heard, I blame Bdubs.”
“That makes sense. When in doubt, blame Bdubs,” Cleo agreed. “Or Scar,” she added, after a second’s thought.
Etho laughed. “It could be worse. It could be both of them together.”
“It could!”
They were grinning at each other, and suddenly Cleo knew for certain that they would be okay. They hadn’t really talked about anything and some awkwardness would definitely linger for a while, but they were used to dealing with awkwardnesss. It was a small price to pay for spending time with a friend. And maybe one day, when some more time had passed, they could talk about their imaginary marriage and parenthood and divorce and laugh about it.
“You playing, Etho?” Beef asked. “Cleo, will you be our game master?”
“Okay,” she agreed.
“Do you want to play a round afterwards?” Etho asked. If not for the many years they had never actually spent together Cleo wouldn’t have caught the trace of hesitance, maybe even nervousness in his voice.
“I’d love to,” Cleo said honestly, and they smiled.