Page 45 of Debugging Love

“So there’s a catch.”

I finish off my slice of pizza and clear my plate from the table, and then crouch in front of my webcam. “Not really.”

“Danni, what’s the catch?”

“Are we painting tonight?”

Willa, my near twin except for her blonde hair, fans her fingers and scowls at her fingernails. “Definitely. I am not using those press-ons again. The glue ate my cuticles.”

She shuffles away from her computer to grab her fingernail polish and manicure supplies. I grab a few shades from my bathroom–a bright pink, dusty rose, and blue–and return to the dining table. A minute later, Willa rejoins me. She explains her cuticle restoration protocol. I ask her which color I should use. We both agree on blue. Blue for boldness. Just what I need as the project lead of a high-visibility IT project. Boldness, fearlessness, decisiveness.

We start prepping our nails for polish.

“What’s the catch?” Willa asks.

“There’s this guy.”

Willa flops her head back and groans. She knows my love-hate relationship with male programmers. I’ve never met a female coder with an attitude. Let’s just leave it at that. Most of the men I’ve worked with have been great. It’s just the small few that have ground my gears into metal shavings.

“Please tell me it’s not Zane 2.0,” Willa says.

“Absolutely not. There are no feelings between me and this guy.”

Even despite Zane’s mansplaining, his defilement of my code, his know-it-all attitude, I fell for him. I fell for him before he opened his mouth. Just laid my eyes on his otherworldly gorgeousness and I was hooked. When our eyes first connected, I thought, “It’s him.”

That’s it. Two words. It’s. Him.

I don’t hear voices, but the words seemed to come from the outside, like God was giving me a big hefty clue that Zane was my guy. He was the one I was meant to be with, to marry.Never mind his cheating past, his white lies, his bankruptcy proceedings. Dumb right? If it weren’t for Zane’s flattery and manipulative apologies, I might have heard God warning me that he was, in fact,notthe one.

“The skies didn’t part and angels didn’t sing when you locked eyes?” Willa asks.

“Ha ha.”

“Bad joke. Sorry.”

“No. I did not hear any ethereal voices when we met. But I did get a taste of his coding style and it has Zane written all over it.”

Willa groans again and then quickly composes herself. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’ve had practice. I know how to rein these types in now.”

“But you’re not excited about your project because of it.”

I lay a strip of blue nail polish on my thumbnail, and another beside it, careful to stay in the lines. “I guess not. But I’m also in mourning. Drew gets to take over my R&D project.”

“Oh no,” Willa squeals. “Your baby!”

She gets me.

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll take one for the team.”

“And for a raise.”

“Mostly that.”

“Except…” Willa stops painting her base coat and looks up wistfully. “A promotion means you won’t be coming home any time soon.”

I haven’t had the heart to tell Willa that I have no plans of returning home, not permanently. Now that I have a taste of living near the ocean, I can’t imagine giving it up. Secretly, I hope she’ll move down here. With both Mom and Dad gone, and no close relatives in Indiana, I’m not sure what’s keeping her up there. Moving was just what my soul needed. Putting distancebetween me and my hometown has allowed me to step out of the past into a new future. I want the same for Willa.

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