Arena Mode Read Online Free PDF Page A

when I was playing a video game or reading a comic book on a Saturday morning; “When I was your age, I was thinking about work, not sitting around like a lazy asshole. I would wake up and ask my parents what I could do to help around the house, or I’d get a whipping. What the hell have you accomplished today?”
    I think one of the reasons I rejected the business world was out of fear – the fear of becoming even remotely similar to the abusive sociopath who was Martin A. Moxon. He valued money and status above everything else, sacrificing friendships, his marriage, and the relationship with his children in pursuit of it. The irony was that, when he passed away, his bank account was empty. He’d gambled all of his savings – and then some – on a volatile stock market, and died in bankruptcy. The plaque that adorned the wall of his home office read, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” At the end of his life, my father had even failed to win at his own perverse game.
    Frustrated with our family, my sister Elizabeth emigrated to Canada after marrying a systems analyst from Nova Scotia. She hasn’t returned to the United States since, and I didn’t blame her. The further she could get away from the rest of the Moxon family, the better. She’d send me an obligatory E-card every Christmas, with an updated picture of herself, Gary and the kids, but aside from that, we didn’t have much communication. And we certainly didn’t have the type of relationship where she would offer to sell her house and worldly possessions to put a down-payment on my experimental surgery. Not that I’d ever dare to ask.
    That left only my mother, who walked out on Elizabeth and I the year after dad died. She went to live with my aunt Loretta at her condo in Las Vegas, spending every waking hour at the casinos – one hand on a slot machine, the other on a glass of scotch. She apparently ran out of cash because the last I heard she’d disappeared with her sister’s car and a handful of her jewelry. She never left a note, and no one has heard from her since.
    “Thanks for the options, doc.” I shook Dinneen’s hand as he held open the door. Before I could make my way to the waiting room, he handed me a bottle of pills. He explained they’d reduce the headaches and nausea that would soon become a regular occurrence in my life, and offered a few words of warning: a description of the more advanced symptoms. With a tumor that size, pressing on so many different areas of my brain, there was no telling what kind of effect it could have. Among other things, I could expect to experience strange smells, a loss of vision, and even vivid hallucinations leading to my final days. I needed to take the pills four times a day, or risk the process accelerating.
    I nodded and thanked him again, pocketing the small plastic bottle.
    “I’m sorry,” Doctor Dinneen mumbled, offering a stilted pat on the shoulder. As a young doctor, I had the feeling he was relatively inexperienced when it came to delivering bad news. “Sometimes in life we just get dealt a bad hand. It’s ... it’s just terrible luck.”
    I smiled for the first time since I heard the prognosis. “Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”
     
     
    I shuffled down the long hallway towards a set of double doors. When I swung them open, Peyton and Gavin were waiting for me, slumped into an uncomfortable-looking couch, looking as defeated as I felt. I shouted their names, and they sprung to their feet. Peyton raced ahead of her brother, throwing her arms around my neck. As we embraced, I looked over her shoulder to see Gavin smiling, fighting back tears as he sighed with relief. At first sight they must have been comforted by the fact that, aside from a nasty bump on my forehead, I seemed otherwise unharmed.
    For the first time, the situation felt real. Initially hearing my diagnosis was shocking, but I was resigned to the fact that I had no control over the outcome.
    Seeing my