Page 67 of Love's a Glitch
“I might be able to make the hot pink work if it weren’t for the messy graphics, and did they use animation from the nineties?”
“Told you it was an emergency. This is what her web designer did and worse, he put it live.”
“He?” While I held the belief that gender was just a social construct and should by no means determine anyone’s tastes, I couldn’t imagine any of the male web designers I knew, from all walks of life, which included a wide variety as sexual preferences—a few of which they’d searched up online, not realizing I was still at my desk—putting this together.
“Check out the presentation tab,” Cat said, and I was glad she pointed, as it was hard to see in the mess of graphics and colors.
Penny bounced in her seat and gave a little clap. “Oh, we absolutelyhaveto watch the presentation.”
I squinted one eye closed, hoping it’d help calm the strobe light effect of the graphics. It did not. “That’ll likely require more drinks.”
“Good thing we’re at a bar.” Cat reached over me to hit the start button, and I sat back, ready to give in to the hot mess of whatever this was about to be.
I shot up in my seat, freezing in the upright position as the picture of me and Luke at the ropes course popped onscreen, along with the title of the presentation. “How I Fucked Up the Best Thing in My Life by Charles Lucas Davis.”
All my blood rushed to my head, causing a high-pitched hum. A screenshot of our first text exchange filled the next screen, and the hollow, hungry spot in the center of my chest that opened up whenever I relived my memories from Luke yawned wider. “What is this?”
“Shhh. Just watch,” Penny said, and I sincerely considered punching her. Had they known this was going to happen the entire time? And what exactly was this?
A mutilated sliver of hope attempted to jab its crooked way into my heart, but I blocked it, demanding it wait a damn minute before it thoroughly destroyed us both.
The words “Here’s every time I thought about you and missed you” scrolled across the bottom of the screen as Luke took us on a tour of Oman via photos he’d taken. There was a pot of coffee, a bed with a brightly colored blanket, a camel with a unicorn horn strapped on its head. Luke on the top of a hill, his features grim rather than showing the victorious smile I’d expected.
I sat frozen in place until the presentation reached the last slide. An embedded video sat in the center, and when Cat maneuvered the mouse over the sideways triangle to play it, I caught her wrist. “Wait,” I said, the riot of emotions raging within me demanding a second or two to process and prepare, as though either of those things were possible at the moment.
Penny draped her arm around my shoulders and rested her head against mine. “All you have to do is watch it.”
“And we’ll be right by your side,” Cat said. I sucked in an inhale, slowly blew it out, and then signaled for Cat to go ahead and play the video.
My heart ticked out of control as the camera zoomed in on Luke. The corners of his blue eyes crinkled as he squinted against the sun and swirl of sand, and it was as painful to look at him as it was a relief to see him.
“Hey, Ellie. I know you might be fighting the urge to turn off this video, but I’m asking you to give me the few minutes I should’ve given you before storming away at that party. First of all, I need to tell you how very sorry I am about that. I got scared and freaked out. It’s not a good excuse, but that’s the truth. It took flying halfway across the world for me to admit the truth…”
Onscreen, Luke scrubbed a hand over his face. “You were right. I asked you to give up too much without offering you anything in return. I thought committing to someone would mean that my days of adventure would be over. But here I am, on one of the biggest adventures of my life, in theory, and I feel so empty that I don’t even want to be around myself. All I see, everywhere I look, is the lack of you. Nothing carries the same thrill anymore. I’ve stared at my phone screen for minutes on end, wishing you’d send me a message and wanting to call, but knowing I didn’t have the right.”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
Penny tightened her hug on me, and when I stretched out my hand for Cat’s, I found hers ready and waiting.
“Creating a website to convey all my regrets was more difficult than I imagined, and I’m sorry it’s such a mess. Unfortunately, hiring the most beautiful, talented, funniest, and smartest web designer in the world to create it would’ve ruined the element of surprise. Also, I was pretty sure you’d tell me off in a far less censored professional way than you’d ever tell off Charles, and the truth is, he deserved it and so do I….”
A tiny laugh escaped, along with another tear or two.
“I just couldn’t give up on us without telling you the most important thing of all. In the middle of the desert, surrounded by race participants and their loved ones, I realized….”
The video glitched out, squiggly lines of color overtaking the screen, Luke’s distorted image frozen behind them.
“Are you serious right now?” My voice came out squeaky and high-pitched, and I shot forward in my seat and tapped on the keyboard and the scroll pad. “Of all the crappy places for the video to mess up and end. What did he realize? What?”
“That he’s so in love with you that he filmed a video and created a slide show before hopping on a plane, where he designed a website that terrified his older seatmate and required the expertise of a teenager three rows over, and then arrived stateside to call up your friends during your girls’ night and beg them to help me pull this off, even though I was afraid they’d follow through with their threats to murder me for hurting you instead.” The deep voice ignited a dangerous amount of hope and heat, and I was afraid to turn and see Luke there, afraid to spin around and discover I’d only imagined his voice.
No way to find out but to take that leap, and that was exactly what my pulse did when I glanced over my shoulder.
The legs of my chair scraped the floor as I scooted away from the table and pushed to my feet. Cat and Penny parted for me like I was Moses and they were the Red Sea, as eager for me as I was to reach the revelation himself.
Luke’s mussed hair, crumpled clothes, and bloodshot eyes led me to believe he’d come directly from the airport.
My heart jarred, ready to flee its cage and present itself to him on a silver platter.
