This, you think, must be the best day ever.
You know it’s relatively early to make this kind of statement. You’re four, and while that seems awfully old to you, every grown-up you’ve ever spoken to tells you it’s not.
Still. You think you’ve found it. The whole reason you exist.
It’s a Saturday morning, and your parents have taken you to the local arcade. You have always liked it here, though you rarely win anything. Most of the time, you stand back with your mother and let your father win games for you, his muscles rippling as he rolls weighted balls into slots to make his racehorse move along the track.
Today, however, there’s a new horse game.
It’s a multiplayer game, rows of seats before a screen. At each spot is a terminal with a screen and two buttons. This game, you learn, allows you to create and race your own horses.
You beg your parents to let you play, and though your father prefers the games that require skill—he was on his high school’s basketball team and never lets you forget it—he swipes his card and sits beside you. Your mother joins you on your other side.
The next eight minutes of your life—and, you’ll realize later, the longest eight minutes of your parents’—are spent breeding your horse. You marvel at each sire and dam, scrolling through horses until you find two with kind eyes.
You sit back, entranced, as the horses fall in love. When the mare stands, revealing a foal, you let out a tiny gasp.
It’s a girl, the text reads. What’s her name?
Again, you pause. You think you hear your father sigh, but that might just be the nicker of the horse. You look at the names of the foal’s sire, Gray Galloper, then the dam, Silver Speeder, and decide to break tradition.
Just Keep Goeing, the screen reads. Is this name correct?
Your thumb has just skimmed the pearly surface of the green GIDDYAP button when your mother steps forward. She corrects you kindly, patiently, but your face still burns. There’s an older girl a few seats away, and you’re sure she overheard. She thinks you’re an idiot. Now she’ll never be your friend.
You return to the naming screen, hitting the red button labeled WHOA. After fixing your spelling, you press the green button. This button, you learn, also functions as the whip.
You refuse to whip your horse and therefore lose every race. Your parents urge you to press the button, but you never, ever do.
After watching you lose six races in a row, your parents stretch and tell you it’s time for lunch. Before you leave, the game prints out a card for you to keep. If you slip it in the reader, you can pick up where you left off. Just Keep Going will be waiting until you’re ready to come back.
You never do, though. You never come back.
A month after the best day of your life, your father loses his job. Soon afterward, your grandmother falls ill. You, still a child, can’t understand why this means you can’t return to the arcade. When you ask, your mother tells you to just be quiet. Please.
She apologizes later. Comes to your room. Gives you a hug.
“That was wrong,” she tells you.
Yet you feel like you are wrong.
You stop mentioning the arcade. It feels like a distant dream. The most popular girl in school announces she’s having her birthday party there and makes sure you know you’re not invited.
Your best friend says she won’t go, out of loyalty to you. You tell her not to decline on your behalf. You wouldn’t have enjoyed yourself anyhow.
That, at least, is true. You never would have had fun at the arcade at someone else’s party. You don’t want to play the fishing game or the airplane game or the one where you whack all the poor little moles. You only want the horse, only want Just Keep Going.
Twenty-four years pass. You turn twenty-eight. Your ten-year high-school reunion is next month. You have no plans of going. You will not awaken the ghosts, will not visit your old haunts, will not mingle with the memories of friends you lost, buildings you hid in, girls you thought you would become.
You have white hair now. At least one. You pulled it out the other day and have been on high alert ever since. You have a job, but you hate it. You’ve been stuck at the same pay grade for two years. You’re almost thirty, living with your parents, falling further and further behind the peers who surpassed you long ago. Every day for the past year, you’ve woken up disappointed to find you’ve made it through the night.
Today, you have been tasked with cleaning out your room. It’s because of the upcoming move, you know, to a smaller, newer apartment, but a part of you feels like you’re a little girl again, kicking your socks under your bed and hoping your mother won’t find them.
You yank a drawer open. Feel around. Make a face. After cleaning out the inside, you find something wedged between the slats. Holding in a sneeze, you pull out a card. When you turn it over, your breath catches in your throat.
You study it, your old card, a picture of your horse printed at the bottom. You know it’s your imagination, but you swear she looks just a little grayer now.
You trace her face. Her name. Her rank. She did not win any races.
Yet to you, that wasn’t shameful. To you, that was okay. As long as you were with her, she was always in first place.
You place a thumb below her name. The white background of the text looks like a big speech bubble.
Just Keep Going, your horse tells you.
So that’s exactly what you do.
