The Bad Boy Computer Programmer At Wattpad

PING (Part 2)

**Amanda--Streets of Seattle**

Amanda clicked the notification icon with her index finger and scrolled through the messages. None of the growing notifications were from Ian--just strangers.

"How did these people find me?"

PING

PING

Amanda clicked on a couple names to see if she could make sense of the sudden influx of likes. "They're from headquarters," she whispered. After examining a few more profiles, she added, "Wattpad staff. All of them."

PING

Slumping her back against the building Birdie head slammed into earlier, Amanda exhaled. "Wattpad likes my story, not Ian. This isn't an Ian likes me thing--it's an Ian works at Wattpad thing."

PING

PING

PING

Her pole position thoughts slipped to the back of the field taking over last place. Amanda's heart raced--again. Not because she was blissfully bouncing on cloud nine. Her heart raced and her chest ached because she was painfully disappointed.

She scrolled through the notifications until she got to the one displaying Ian's face. But--he liked my story first, she argued internally. That has to mean something. Right?

PING

Her shoulders drooped in defeat as she tilted her head backwards till it touched the wall. Closing the Wattpad app, Amanda opened up a solitaire app instead and continued her trek back to work.

PING

PING

She assimilated with the crowd of people around her. Head downward. Eyes glued to the phone. Finger swiping across the screen. When real life failed, a virtual life was always there to take its place.

Amanda organized the tiny digital playing cards on her phone into piles. Red 2 on black 3. Black 10 on red jack. Move black 3 to red 4. Black 7 to red 8. Draw. Red 6. Red 6 to black 7. Draw. Black 5. Black 5 to red 6. Red 4 to black 5.

PING

Counting. Sequencing. Number patterns. Simple logic was where Amanda's mind defaulted when her thoughts got too overwhelmed. It anchored her to reality and pulled her thinking back inside the borders of perceivable possibility. Simple logic kept dreams safely locked inside small cages. As seen with Birdie, flying too erratically outside one's own limits was dangerous. That's why Amanda retreated to her virtual cage of solitaire when her hopes exceeded reality's truthfulness.

Caged birds don't sing.

**Ian--Wattpad Headquarters**

Still rubbing the area around his belly button, Sloth said, "I sent a message to everyone on staff. I told them we're testing something and I needed them to like Yoda's story so we could finish the test."

"You didn't," Ian whispered, slumping against Sloth's desk.

"Well," Sloth began, "now your name is lost in a heap of notifications. It was the best I could do besides deleting the story entirely."

Ian ran his hands through his hair, his fingers gripping the back of his skull. "This isn't okay."

"Stop doing that," Sloth warned. "You'll be bald by the end of the week if you keep pulling on your hair. And it's making me uncomfortable."

Mouth gazed at Delta on the other side of the building, playfully swishing her ostrich feather pen around as she talked. "She wants me--she wants me to talk to her."

Sloth tilted his head towards his love-struck friend and curled his upper lip. "Only if you have gossip." In a stern tone for emphasis, he added, "Which you don't."

Rising out of his chair, Sloth walked over to Ian and leaned against the desk, their shoulders touching. "We'll fix this."

"How?" Ian asked.

"I have no fucking idea," Sloth replied.

All three men stared in silence at Delta's pen fluttering around as she talked with her hands the other side of headquarters.

"Funtario?" Sloth asked.

"Yes," Ian whispered.

Mouth turned towards Sloth and Ian with his lips shaped like an O. "Oooo!" Throwing his hands straight up in the air, he shouted, "Poutine!"