Page 1 of Paradigm

CHAPTER 1

Dear Arlowe,

I know we made this decision together. I know that logically, it makes sense, and we are both women of logic. I also know that I love you, and love is an emotion I’ve never felt for another woman; not in the way I feel it for you. I didn’t plan for you to come into my life, make me fall in love with you, and then leave me here while you go back home. I know that you didn’t plan for it, either. Still, I’m left with this feeling in my stomach that won’t go away. It’s like I’m starving but can’t eat. I’m empty inside, and that’s not how I felt before I met you. I felt full, happy, and excited about my new life chapter – graduating, getting a job in the city, meeting someone, falling in love, settling down with them, and continuing my career – but there you were.

My happiness grew with you in my life, and for a moment, I felt like I could have everything I’ve ever wanted and sooner than I’d thought, but then, it became obvious that I would lose you. Five months; we’ve had five beautiful months together, and soon, you’ll be gone. I have felt my happiness begin to slip away when we started talking about what would happen after you left, and I could see it in your face that, even though you could solve some of the most difficult problems in your code, you couldn’t solve the problem of distance for us. I know why. I understand. I also don’t, so I feel empty, and I miss you. You’re not even gone yet, and I miss you. I have a key to your dorm room. I can still see you today as I write this letter I might never send. I could let myself in and tell you that I love you; that I don’t want you to leave without us trying to figure out how to do this once you’re gone. I could kiss you, make love with you, and even help you pack with the knowledge that we’re going to be okay.

I won’t. I’m scared to do any of that because if I try and you still say no, I’m not sure how I’d recover. I don’t know how I can feel even emptier than I do now, and that scares me. Life without you scares me, too. How did you do it? Make me fall in love with you at first sight, make me continue to fall in love with you day after day, and now, make me worry that I’ll never love another like I’ve loved you, my sweet Arlowe?

There’s a part of me that wishes we’d never met. I wouldn’t be in this much pain had you not come to Amsterdam. The other part of me knows that it’s better to have loved you than not at all. And, Arlowe, I loved you. I love you. I love you so much; I can’t breathe as I write this letter, and I know the moment your flight takes off, I might not be able to breathe ever again. I shouldn’t have asked what time it was. I shouldn’t have even known what day you’re leaving because it’s all too much. Being with you has been all too much. It is in the worst way, but also in the best. I understand why, but I can’t stop the pain. I understand why, but I’ll never stop wondering what if. I understand why, and I know I’ll move on one day, but I’ll never stop loving you.

You’ll always be my first love; the first love that I thought would miraculously be my forever love. And I understand, but I am still devastated. So, I won’t show up to your dorm for another horribly painful goodbye. I won’t be at the airport to hug and kiss you goodbye as we tell ourselves yet again that this has to happen because it wouldn’t work if we tried. I’ll be lying in my bed, staring at the clock, knowing what time your flight leaves, and crying because I already miss you, and you’re not even gone yet.

I know we said we weren’t sure if we should keep in touch or not and that we were going to need space at first. I might change my mind later, and if I do, I’ll let you know, but for now, I don’t want us to keep in touch if we can’t be together. I don’t think I can be your friend, Arlowe. I need to be the woman you love and the woman who loves you, and that means that I don’t think you should reach out. I’ll know when your flight lands. I’ll make sure you’re safely home. But after that, I think I need to move on. Clean slate, you called it once. I need that. I hope you can understand.

I love you,

Eline

Arlowe folded up the letter once again and tucked it away into her pocket. She wasn’t sure how much longer that paper would hold up. Yes, she’d scanned the letter long ago, so she’d always have it digitally, but she still usually pulled it out, unfolded it, and reread Eline’s delicate handwriting. Often, she’d bring the pages to her nose and breathe them in. Even after all these years – twelve of them now that it had been since she’d seen her, since Eline had written those words – and she could swear that she could still smell her now-faint cucumber melon perfume. She’d been with her once as Eline had been buying the small, cheap bottle that was more body spray than perfume from a grocery store just outside of Amsterdam. Arlowe had then come back and smartly bought one for herself to take home with her, and she still had it. She’d considered spraying the pages with it once the scent had started to fade, but they were already so fragile that she didn’t want to damage them more.

She’d never been sure how she should take that letter back then, and she’d spent a dozen or so years trying to figure that out. She knew Eline well enough to know that there was anger in that letter. Yes, the letter was full of pain, hurt, and frustration, but there was also anger in there. They’d talked about ending things and had agreed, but it had been Arlowe who’d suggested it first, and she’d known that Eline had been upset that she couldn’t find a way to make it make sense to her – them being together long-term when they lived on different continents and would just be beginning their lives out of college in a few short months.

Arlowe had done a lot of soul-searching since, and she had recognized it later. She’d been too scared to let the relationship go on because the longer they stayed together, the more it would’ve hurt when Eline inevitably called her one night to tell her that she couldn’t do it anymore. They’d both thought that it would be better to end it sooner rather than later.

There was also love in that letter. Arlowe knew that, too, and she’d been carrying it with her in one pocket or another pretty much all the time unless she was going someplace where it might get damaged or destroyed. Today, she had it tucked in safely inside her interior blazer pocket, and she’d pulled it out while sitting behind her desk at the office. She supposed she’d just reread it because she usually did when there were major changes going on in her life, and there had been more than enough of those over the past several weeks.

First, their new app version had just launched, and they had another version coming soon, but it had been their biggest and most important launch in over a year. They’d put all their focus on making the software the best it could be for education because there had been new partnerships with colleges and school districts, and they all wanted the students to be able to learn the available languages as quickly as possible and as many of them as possible as well. Arlowe now had six full-time engineers underneath her, but it was still hard to keep up with everything, so they had some contractors on top of that, and that meant she had more people to manage in addition to doing the actual coding that she still did a lot of herself.

Then, there was the fact that about a month ago, Sarai and Gabi had moved out of the house. They had lived there, the four of them – Arlowe, Violet, Sarai, and Enya – for over ten years before Violet had reconnected with Stella, but then, a year after that, Violet had moved out and in with Stella, and Gabi had moved in. Not long after Gabi had arrived, she and Sarai had gotten together, and now, they, too, had a place of their own about ten minutes from the house and the office. Arlowe and the rest of her friends had helped them move in and decorate right before Sarai had met Gabi’s mother, Gabi’s only living parent, and things seemed to be going well, but all of that meant that it was now only her and Enya remaining in the house they used to all share.

They’d handled it well enough so far. Enya had taken Sarai’s old bedroom and made her now-old bedroom an at-home office for herself, and Arlowe had already been living in Violet’s old room, so she’d taken Gabi’s old room, which had been her room first, and had turned it into her at-home office. Neither of them wanted another roommate, and they could afford to share the rent between just the two of them now, so while the garage still had some old work stuff in it, it no longer operated as the company’s main office. They had a whole floor of an office building for over a year now, and that was where Arlowe was when she tucked the letter back into her interior pocket and decided that she needed to focus on work.

“Arlowe, hey. We’ve got another one,” Mitchell, one of her engineers, said when he walked into her office and took a bite of what looked like a frozen burrito.

“Which one?” she asked.

“Another bug report.”

“No, I meant the burrito. Which kind did you get from the kitchen?”

“Oh.” Mitchell looked at it. “The regular one. I don’t know. I just grabbed it.”

“Is it still frozen?”

“I like it that way,” he shared with a shrug.

“You’re weird, dude.” She chuckled. “And we got a bug report?”

“Yeah, another one from that same user.”

“EngineE?”

“Yeah, that’s them,” he replied and took another bite of the still at least somewhat frozen burrito.

“What is it now?”

“They’re saying the game has an issue on level seventeen, where it glitches every time they’re answering a multiple-choice question. It prevents them from going to the next question.”