**Amanda--Streets of Seattle**

While watching the little bird bounce around on the branch, Amanda felt her coat pocket vibrate, followed by a notification sound.

PING

She pulled her Android from her pocket and flipped open the phone case. Her heart fluttered when she saw the amber light flashing. "Wattpad!"

Clicking on the Wattpad app, Amanda waited patiently for the notification screen to appear. When it finally popped up, a serendipitous image caused a brutal shock that nearly triggered a premature heart attack.

Amanda inhaled, forgetting to exhale her previous breath--her lungs on the verge of exploding. "He liked it," she whispered.

Fanning her face with her hand, Amanda hopped around the sidewalk impersonating the bird in the tree. A wave of pure bliss washed over her entire being. It was as though her Starbuck's cup had been filled with acid instead of mocha--a tingling sensation burned the lining of her stomach. Poisoned? Love potion'ed? It was hard to tell. The heavenly nervousness she felt was too intense to decipher.

Exhaling for the first time in what seemed like minutes, Amanda stared at the notification on her phone adorned with Ian's face. "He's married," she reminded herself. "Or something. This can't be as amazing as you think it is." She paused and shook her head. "It's never as amazing as you think it is. Ever."

Amanda's hands shook. She wiped their clamminess on her coat. But--like--are you completely positive he's with someone, she wondered?

Her heartbeat accelerated back to maximum speed--positive thinking taking over the pole position in her mind. I mean--he could be single, she rationalized from within. You don't know for sure. You don't know anything for sure. All possibilities are technically still on the table. He could be single.

Looking up at the bird in the tree, she said, "Is this serendipity?"

Amanda's mental radio waves turned back to the Michael Buble song she'd mumbled earlier. Although, this time she was in the mood to sing. "[song] I might have to wait. I'll never give up. I guess it's half timing and the other half's luck."

Launching itself off the branch, the bird took flight. With a giggle, Amanda skipped down the sidewalk--eyes still on her new feathered friend. "[song] Wherever you are, whenever it's right, you'll come out of nowhere and into my life."

Catching a street light pole with her outstretched hand, Amanda spun herself around like a child at play. "[song] And I know that we can be so amazing. And baby, your love is gonna change me. And now I can see every possibility."

The bird landed on a no parking sign and tweeted, waiting for Amanda to catch up. Tossing her Starbuck's cup in a trash can, she bit her bottom lip--desperately trying to hold back a blazing grin. Galloping towards the bird with her fingers spread wide and arms in the air, she sang. "[song] And somehow I know it'll all turn up. And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out. And I promise you, kid, I'll give you so much more than I get. I just haven't met you yet."

Amanda stopped, as did the song in her head. She thought, What should I wear if we meet--in real life? Will we be in Toronto? Or Seattle? Somewhere else? Putting her hands up to her mouth, Amanda caught a breath created from a snicker. "I can't believe he liked my letter, Birdie!"

The bird tweeted again and launched itself back into the air as though impatient with Amanda's thought detour. Catching the bird in her line of sight, Amanda called, "Wait! I'm coming!"

The song restarted in her mind as she skipped and twirled down the sidewalk. "[song] And I know that we can be so amazing. And being in your life is gonna change me. And now I can see every single possibility."

Amanda stopped at a street corner and waited for the crosswalk light to change. As the song's tempo slowed down, her eyes followed the bird, gliding in slow motion between skyscrapers and over cars stopped at the red light. "[song] And someday I know it'll all turn up. And I'll work to work it out. Promise you, kid, I'll give more than I get. Than I get, than I get, than I--."

Amanda watched in horror as the bird slammed into a building on the other side of the busy street and fell to the ground--a few loose feathers trailing behind it.

PING

She gasped.

PING

"Please be okay," she whispered, bouncing impatiently in place waiting for the pedestrian light to change--praying hands folded in front of her face. "Oh, Birdie! Please!"

PING

PING

**Ian--Wattpad Headquarters**

Ian whipped around in his swivel chair to face his coworkers. "How do I erase a notification?"

Halting mid-discussion with Mouth about the deleted story, Sloth turned his attention towards Ian. "What are you talking about?"

Impatience taking over as the clock ticked away time he didn't have, Ian yelled, "Just tell me how to make a notification disappear!"

"Bro!" Sloth replied, extending a palm in Ian's direction as a signal to calm down. "Chill! I need a status report. What's the problem?"

Ian pointed over his shoulder with his thumb at the monitor. "I accidentally liked it."

Mouth snapped out of his Zo-funk and pointed to Amanda's story on Ian's screen. "You liked Yoda?" Sloth and Mouth looked at each other and laughed.

"This isn't funny!" Ian crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at Sloth. The direct hit to the forehead put an immediate end to his laughter. "There must be a way to erase it!"

"Dude!" Sloth exclaimed. "She's probably seen it already. I don't own a neuralyzer. I can't erase her memory."

Mouth whispered, "I've always wanted one of those. Put on a pair of Ray Bans and--."

Ian crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at Mouth. Another direct hit to the forehead. "What the hell?" Mouth whined. "Do you pitch for the fucking Blue Jays now?"

"This is serious," Ian said. "No time for jokes."

Sloth tapped his temple with his index finger as one side of his mouth curved up into a smirk. "I have an idea."

"What?" Ian asked as he watched Sloth's fingers madly dance across the keyboard.

Slamming the enter key, Sloth said, "Done. Taken care of."

"You erased it?" Ian waited for a response but didn't get one.

Instead, Sloth turned to Mouth. "Check your messages."

Mouth clicked his keyboard a few times, paused for a moment to read something on the screen, then slammed his mouse with far more dramatics than necessary. "Done!"

"What's done?" Ian asked, glancing back and forth between his two coworkers. "What just happened?"

**Amanda--Streets of Seattle**

The moment the pedestrian signal turned, Amanda ran into the street--dodging a herd of people coming towards her on the crosswalk. Nearly tripping on the curb as she hopped up on the sidewalk, she sprinted towards the feathered daredevil. "Birdie!"

PING

PING

"Please be alive. Please be alive," she whispered, slowing down to a walk as she approached her winged friend.

PING

Birdie rocked its head from side to side, then rolled onto its feet. It sat frozen like a statue, eyes glued on Amanda.

Taking the tiniest steps to not frighten Birdie as she got nearer, Amanda whispered, "Are you okay?"

PING

PING

PING

Birdie shook its tail feathers, then launched itself into the air--missing a utility truck by mere inches.

"Fuck!" Amanda shouted, covering her eyes. It seemed Birdie was still a bit disoriented.

PING

Amanda peeked through her fingers. When she saw Birdie safely perched in a nearby tree, her hands fell down over her heart. "Oh--thank God!"

PING

PING

PING

PING

PING

Placing her hand over her coat pocket, Amanda felt her phone's vibrations. She pulled the Android out and flopped open the protective casing.

The amber light flashed.

"I wonder if he wrote something," she whispered, swiping her finger across the screen as she bounced excitedly in place.

PING

PING

"23? 25?" Amanda's finger hovered over the notification icon as the number inside the red circle continued to increase. "Did my story go viral or something?"

**Ian--Wattpad Headquarters**

Moving his attention back and forth between Sloth and Mouth, Ian waited for an explanation. "What did you do?"

Sloth shrugged. "I fixed it."

"You deleted the notification?" Ian asked.

"Not exactly," Sloth replied.

Delta stared at her phone with wide eyes and an open mouth as she walked through headquarters. She stopped in front of Team Goonies' work area. Looking up at Mouth, she asked, "Who is it? Do you know which engineer she has a crush on?"

Mouth lifted his shoulders up to his ears--his voice a few octaves higher. "Nope."

Putting her hand up to her lips as though trying to hold in a secret, Delta said, "Please tell me if you find out. I'm a sucker for these things. My heart melts for this stuff."

Still touching his shoulders to his ears, Mouth said, "You're the first on my list--to tell."

Delta nodded and flashed the guys a grin before turning to leave.

Ian slowly turned his focus to Sloth. "What did you do?"

"I couldn't delete the notification," Sloth explained. He stared at his keyboard, becoming strangely quiet. "Maybe I didn't think this through. I feel bad now."

"Bad?" Ian asked. "What just happened?"

Sloth hesitated to respond, his fingers massaging the area around his belly button. "I gaslighted Yoda."

**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!"

https://youtu.be/0uet26UBrto