Page 192 of Heart So Hollow

My stomach drops and all sound fades except for the blood rushing through my ears and my heart hammering in my chest, “No,” I whisper, my eyes darting over the screen as my fingers fly across the mousepad, clicking, opening, scanning, “no, no, no…”

I barely feel the cushion next to me sink down. Bowen’s holding his watch in one hand, staring down at it while pressing buttons with the other. He’s wholly oblivious to my silent panic. My lungs feel like they’re in a vise and I’m getting nauseous. This isn’t happening.

This can’t be happening.

“Bowen,” I finally find my voice, “something’s wrong.”

He looks up, glancing at my laptop and then back at me, “What?”

“It’s gone,” my voice trembles, “the book is gone.”

“What do you mean, it’s gone?” he scoffs with a smile.

I thrust my hand toward the screen in frustration, “I’m looking in the folder and it’s not there! And there’s not a copy saved in the cloud,” my voice rises the faster my heart races, “I always back it up for this reason!”

“Did you look…” Bowen glances over my shoulder, “maybe it’s…” his voice trails off as the realization sets in.

In a last-ditch effort, I navigate to the recycling bin. I scroll through the list to the end, searching for the file, hoping that I inexplicably deleted it in a moment of pure insanity and it would be sitting there, safe from permanent destruction.

But it’s not.

I click and click, typing the file name into the computer search bar over and over, waiting for it to scan the entire machine.

“What is happening?” I shout at my computer screen.

An instant later, I feel my eyes well with hot tears and my palms fly to my cheeks. Sucking in deep breaths, my muscles start to shake as I drag my fingers up and down my temples.

“Hold on, hold on,” Bowen murmurs, taking the laptop from me, “what’s the file name?”

“Mountaintop, Mountaintop!” I gasp, my mind racing.

He clicks around, trying to find what I can’t. But even he isn’t going to be able to find it. This time, he isn’t going to be able to fix this. After a couple minutes of searching, I turn to him, so worked up, I’m ready to launch off the sofa into space.

“You can’t find it, can you?” I don’t wait for him to respond, “What the fuck happened to it? It can’t have just disappeared!” I shriek.

Bowen sets the laptop down on the coffee table, “I don’t know,” he shakes his head, staring at the screen, “I don’t know.”

I collapse back into the cushions, silent, my eyes darting across the carpet, “What do I do?” I squeak, deflated and utterly defeated.

It’s not real. There has to be something I’m missing. Files don’t just disappear and vaporize into the ether. All of my other files look intact. Even if someone is as terrible with technology as I am, individual files don’t just disappear by themselves.

“What do I do? I don’t have anything to send her, my whole book is gone!” I cry, letting my face falls into my hands.

Bowen pulls me toward him and I turn my head, burying my face in his shoulder as he wraps his arms around me. Tears and snot leak out of every hole in my face, soaking into Bowen’s grey t-shirt.

“Hey,” he speaks softly into my ear, “it’s going to be OK.”

I sit up and sniffle as much snot as I can out of my nose and into my throat. I’m trying to compose myself, but to no avail.

“How is it going to be OK?” I drag my fingers across the undersides of my eyes and lean over my laptop in another feeble attempt to locate my missing file.

Maybe if I keep clicking around, my book will miraculously appear again.

“Just write it again,” Bowen shrugs, “you have time now.”

I freeze and knit my brow in confusion, “What?”

“Didn’t you give your notice?” he asks.

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