Page 27 of Of Literature and Lattes
“Of course, you know that.”
“Not too small?”
“Things are only as small as you make them. Besides, it’s home.”
Lexi turned to order, leaving Alyssa to chew on her comment. She thought back to Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, and how she believed that area and that time to be the antithesis of Winsome and all that occurred here. It was a happening place, moving at Mach speed with the flow of new ideas, innovation, and cutting-edge thinking—politics, progress, and a propulsion that defied gravity. Yet some days she’d never felt so small, isolated, and alone. The fact that she knew the moment her dad hugged her that no one had come nearly so close in at least six months stunned and dismayed her. She couldn’t deny that even before XGC imploded, the loneliness was creeping in. And once XGC did implode, the emptiness grew more pervasive and consuming. She’d lived her last month prepping for interviews, eating the cheapest food she could buy, and only talking to her lawyer when necessary—which was hardly a legitimate human connection when he charged her $250 per hour for their chats.
Seated, Lexi issued a one-word command. “Spill.”
Alyssa sighed and tried to unravel her last six months, and even the two and a half years before that. They took on a new dimension with recent revelations and events. But before she could synthesize her thoughts and create a cohesive trail through the scandal and failed interviews, Lexi shot for the heart of the matter.
“Why wouldn’t you call me back? No text. Facebook. Instagram. You disappeared... I’m your best friend.”
Alyssa snorted, then covered her nose. “Please, with my life, I closed my accounts.”
Lexi’s face told her that wasn’t good enough. She reached across the table and tapped her friend’s hand.
“I’m sorry. I was embarrassed. I still am... a little ashamed too.”
“Ashamed? It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Alyssa slumped in her chair. “Yes. I could’ve. I could have asked more questions. I could have taken more time. I rushed. I raced ahead like I always do.” She waved at Lexi. “You say it all the time. But I wanted it to work, Lex; I needed it all to be real. Nothing here was real, and Tag made XGC feel like it was the most real thing that could ever be.”
“Life here was real, Lys, and it was yours. It just had more dimension than you thought, and you got rolled. Heck, I felt betrayed, and I’m not a member of your family.”
“I love that you callthat‘dimension.’”
Lexi raised a brow, and Alyssa felt herself sink deeper into her chair and concede the point. To Lexi, who’d been through far worse and survived, it was “dimension”—an aspect of life to come to terms with, accept as far as you can, and forgive the pain as you reach the other side. And Alyssa couldn’t fault her. It wasn’t an untried Pollyanna approach; Lexi had lived it—and through trials and circumstances that would have done much more than “roll” Alyssa.
Alyssa nodded aYou winand jumped to her next thought. “You were grafted into the family years ago... Have you ever heard of ‘confirmation bias’?”
Lexi laughed and shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“We work against it running numbers, trying not to let what we want to be real, what would fit our vision of things, affect our interpretation of them—but we do. We let what we want to confirm determine what we choose to see. I needed XGC to be legit, and good, and even successful, because I needed to be those things. I needed to strike out on my own and succeed. But by someone else’s standards. As always, I defined myself by another’s metrics.”
She said “another,” but she knew Lexi understood. There was only ever one “someone.” Her mom.
“And once again, you’ve been in your head too long. Everybody wants that, Alyssa. We want our parents to be proud of us, our peers to respect us, our friends to love us. So stop doing that too... You take something normal and make it sound like you’re the first human to get it wrong.”
Alyssa smiled. Unwittingly she had struck upon another long-time debate. This one began fourteen years ago, starting when Alyssa tried her first beer at seventeen, then got in massive trouble with her mom and grounded for three months. Oddly, her mom hadn’t even been upset about the beer.Do you know how it would look if you’d gotten caught?Do you know what that would say about me? About our family?Alyssa, terrified, barely sipped a drink again until her twenty-first birthday. She also endured four years of Lexi chirping at her to “let yourself off the hook,” “chill,” and “gain a tiny bit of perspective.”
Alyssa shook away the past. “Fine. But nothing about what XGC did was normal, and I was right in the center of it. I can’t let myself off that easy.”
Lexi sat forward. “Try, because it’s over.”
“Not for me.”
Something in her voice cued Lexi, because she sat straight.
“I could still be in trouble. My lawyer says the FBI has gone division by division, and they’ve interviewed everyone in mine but me. They’ve made arrests; he won’t say how many or who, but it’s crickets where I’m concerned. They haven’t reached out at all.”
“That could be a good thing.”
“Or they could be building a case.”
Alyssa felt her breath hitch and knew she needed to change the subject. After “Trust no one,” her lawyer’s next piece of advice was “Never worry until I tell you to.” It was good advice; dwelling on the unknown, the past, and all the questions she couldn’t answer would get her nowhere. But it was hard too because—as Lexi said—she was often too deep in her own head.
Alyssa took in her friend, whose eyes now mirrored the panic she felt in her own, and wondered why she’d gone silent for six months. How had she forgotten how much they’d been through? Her withdrawal had diminished their friendship. Alyssa reached out and squeezed Lexi’s hand. And from Lexi’s smile, she knew nothing more needed to be said.
