Empty Streets Read Online Free PDF Page A

his eyes had grown more pronounced, though, giving him a haunted look. His gaze looked unfocused, disconnected slightly from hers.
    He'd been her only friend for a long, long time. He was thoughtful, quiet and easy to get along with. Her plainness, awkwardness, and angular face all stood in stark contrast to him. But she didn't feel jealous. She loved him.
    "Ez, we never hang out anymore. Come watch TV with me?" She gestured towards the couch. He followed her, letting out a loud yawn before settling into the worn cushions.
    Eri turned the TV up loudly. She turned to Ezra.
    "I want to go outside again." She fought the urge to cover her mouth, swallow back her own words.
    Ezra shook his head, looking nervous. "Eri, seriously, you will graduate soon and then you can go out whenever you want. You can really get in trouble."
    "Yeah, but grown-ups just go to work on the shuttles. I want to go outside to explore."
    "You could get hurt, or sick," Ezra whispered. The urgency of his words reversed his age and in an instant he looked like the child Eri remembered most vividly.
    Eri smiled at him. "Oh, Ez, don't be dramatic. Besides, I feel like I am sick all the time when I'm in here. Outside though…feels real. I feel like if I keep living within the confines of this house and the Sims world, I will die of boredom. Or have a mental breakdown. I hate that everything I see at school isn't real. I feel sick just logging on. But when I went outside…it felt different." Her wide eyes shined, excitement and adrenaline replacing her fear.
    He sighed and smiled a lazy smile. "You must have inherited the crazy genes. You can't get out anyway. You know they're gonna change the code." He yawned again, dismissing her with his indifference.
    "Have you been staying on the Sims at night?" Eri asked quietly.
    Ezra nodded. "Yeah and it's awesome. I've been maxing out my interpersonal hours lately and just got reset yesterday."
    Eri gawked at him. She had never even come close to maxing out her interpersonal hours. "What have you been doing?"
    Ezra looked at her sheepishly under his long eyelashes. "Just hanging out."
    Eri grimaced. This meant one of two things. He had either illegally downloaded software that simulated drug use; it wasn't that hard to download and mostly went unchecked. Or he had started dating.
    Dating in the Sims world was awkward, so Eri avoided it. There was a time when she was fifteen that she had dated for a couple of months, but it had left her feeling mentally exhausted and depressed. Going out with groups was hard to navigate and felt phony to her. Going out with one person meant the obligatory simulated sexual encounter, which she found to be bland and distasteful. She wondered if real sex was as boring. Based on the reaction from the boys she had dated, she was the only one that found simulated sex tedious and dull.
    She and Ezra watched the People's News before a movie came on they had seen before. Her mother clanged dishes in the kitchen.
    "Remember when we saw this the first time and thought we could build a pool in the house, too? And then we realized after we put all the tables upside down that we didn't have any water." Ezra laughed.
    Eri laughed, too. They had been so little at the time. They were constantly trying to build stuff out of the limited furniture they had. Finally, their mother had gotten irritated enough that she had purchased the extra play software that came with the elementary Sims program. They were able to log on and play together in a park or in a pool. They were lucky enough that each of their parents had been only children and each had inherited a Sims machine.
    "We were idiots." Eri smiled. The memories of them playing together in real life were different from the memories she had of them in the Sims machine. The memories from the Sims machines were blurry and shallow, unlike the strong, real memories she had, each vivid with sharp colors and smells and sounds.
    "Ez…do you ever feel