Page 14 of Paradigm

Arlowe’s phone dinged then, and Sarai stopped talking immediately, likely because she’d recognized the sound. Arlowe pulled her phone out and opened her email.

“Is it her?” Enya asked.

Arlowe read the message to herself and said, “Oh, my God…”

“What?” Violet asked.

“Arlowe, I didn’t mention this before…” she began to read out loud. “And maybe I shouldn’t now, but I’m not exactly staying up late tonight. I’m actually out at dinner right now, about to get my food, and then I’ll go home to my new apartment because I moved. I don’t live in Holland anymore. I live in the US. More specifically, I live here. Well, I live in the same town as your company’s main office. I guess I assumed that you probably lived here, too. Maybe you work remotely from somewhere else, but I don’t know.”

“What?” Enya asked.

“She lives here?” Sarai questioned as well and then stole Arlowe’s phone from her hand to read further. “If you live here, I’m here, too, and I can look you up on social media, or I can text you, but we could also maybe meet up if you want.” Sarai looked up at her before she looked back down, finished reading the rest of the email, and handed Arlowe her phone back. “She wants to meet you for coffee.”

“I know. I read it to myself before you took my phone, Sarai.” Arlowe looked back down at the device, not trusting her own eyes, despite what she’d just said to Sarai, that Eline was here and that she wanted to meet. “God, she’s here…”

“That’s not a coincidence,” Violet said. “It can’t be.”

“What do I do?” Arlowe asked.

“You should meet her. I’ve always been on team Arlowe and Eline,” Sarai told her.

“Me too,” Enya added. “In fact, I think we should have a good, old-fashioned house vote.”

Arlowe chuckled and replied, “We can’t have a house vote on whether or not I meet Eline for coffee.”

“Yes, we can,” Sarai stated. “Unanimous. And you can lobby votes, remember?”

“We haven’t had one of those in a while,” Violet noted before she took Arlowe’s beer.

“I guess that’s a community beer now,” Arlowe said and shook her head at her friends.

“I vote yes,” Violet shared and took a drink.

“I vote yes, too,” Enya said, raising her hand.

“Me too,” Sarai said, doing the same. “Arlowe, it has to be unanimous if it’s an important vote like this one, not just what movie we’re going to watch.”

Arlowe took a deep breath and said, “I vote yes.”

“Yeah?” Enya asked, sounding excited.

“Am I crazy? I haven’t seen her since–” She stopped. “What if it’s still there between us, but she’s with someone else? I don’t know that I could recover from that.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Violet said with a soft smile. “At least, you’ll know. And, honestly, Arlowe, if that’s all you get from this little meetup, that’s still pretty important. You could finally move on. For real.”

Arlowe nodded and asked, “What do I type?”

“Well, you didn’t listen to us the first time, so why ask us again?” Sarai teased.

Arlowe looked at her seriously and said, “Please, help.”

Sarai softened and said, “All you have to do now is tell her that you’re in. Pick the coffee place we go to so that it’s on your home turf and exchange numbers so that you can text each other.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Keep it simple. You can say anything else you need to say when you see her.”

“Right. Okay. That makes sense.”