Arty

I didn't talk to anyone for two days.

When I came home that night, I was ready to pack up my limited amount of personal belongings and move back into my parents house. I mean, how could I seriously live with someone who would do something like that to me? Especially when Ben knew how much it all meant to me.

But then doubt started to creep in.

Leo didn't even read any of the messages I sent, asking him what had happened, saying Ben was just an overprotective idiot and not to listen to anything he said.

So, what started off as a righteous anger eventually turned into embarrassment as I started to think that maybe Ben was telling the truth, as he'd periodically yelled through my closed bedroom door, and that Leo really did walk out of a date with me for something –or someone– more interesting.

That was a thought that made my stomach hurt. I felt so humiliated, but then I would get angry and find a way to blame Ben again. Because even if Leo had walked out, it was Ben who preached this crap about how I should just be myself. And look how well that turned out.

On the third day, I was forced to have a two second conversation with Ben about Jonah.

"Arty, I need to leave for work. You can go back to ignoring me until the end of time but I need to know if you will still pick up Jonah from school," Ben said, his voice sounding exhausted and defeated from the other side of the door.

I pulled the covers over my head, wishing the world would eat me whole.

"Can you at least, like, give me a sign of life?" Ben asked.

I threw a book from the shelf behind my bed at the door, which caused Ben, who probably had his ear pressed against the door, to take a step back in surprise.

I heard Ben loudly sigh. I imagined him running a stressed hand through his hair, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

"I'll get Jonah," I groaned, "just leave me alone."

And for some reason, it hurt when Ben didn't protest, and just walked away.  He had just given up on me entirely.

The first day, Ben had practically parked himself outside my door, and he had left food and snacks for me that I knew he had to have gone to the store specifically for. By the morning of the second day, it was already a different story.

And the longer I stayed avoiding Ben, the worse it made the idea of inevitably having to talk to him again.

I felt like a wounded animal coming back with my tail between my legs. But before I could face Ben, I had to face the matchmaking app. I had to undo what I had done.

I knew it was what needed to be done, but the idea felt like severing my last line lifeline. At this point, it was clear, I was being ghosted. I still had this sliver of hope that just maybe he would change his mind, but if I fixed the app, if I unmatched it, then that would be it.

Finished, the end.

That felt like an impossible choice to make.

But I had Judy breathing down my neck, looking at the results of every match to make sure that I hadn't messed this matchmaking algorithm up. Which meant it was only a matter of time now before she figured it out.

And while it had all seemed worth it when I was starring off, heart-eyed at the idea of setting-up my summer crush to fall head over heels for me, throwing everything I worked for away for some guy that walked out without as much as a goodbye would just be pure insanity.

I sat on the edge of my bed, laptop balanced precariously on my knees, staring at the code that had once felt like a masterpiece. Now, it looked like the mess it had always been—a glaring tangle of desperation and naivety masquerading as brilliance.

With a shaky breath, I opened the backend data of the app and hovered over the match I'd made. There it was: user #405 and user #239, locked together in a falsehood I'd engineered.

As a computer science major, I believed in numbers and facts, not feelings and chemistry. And the numbers didn't lie. Leo and I weren't a perfect match. We weren't even a good one.

I opened up my GitHub extension and browsed through the version history of the file, finding the point before I decided to change everything.

I pressed my palms against my face, feeling the heat of shame blooming on my cheeks.

I hovered the mouse over the "reset to this commit" button, which would revert all the changes that had paired me and Leo together. The button practically glared back at me, like a big neon sign flashing admit you screwed up.

It wasn't supposed to go like this. I'd built an entire fantasy around the idea of Leo—his easy smile, the way he smelled faintly of cinnamon and espresso, the way he didn't just hand me my coffee but placed it in front of me like it mattered. I thought if I could just tip the scales in my favor, give us the chance we wouldn't have had otherwise, the rest would fall into place.

But it hadn't.

The cursor blinked at me, like it was daring me to grow a spine and just click already.

And yet, I hesitated.

Maybe I was being too rash? Maybe Leo needed space, maybe the double date was too much too fast. Maybe he'd text me tomorrow and I'd regret making this change.

I had to be sure.

But how could I be sure?

I glanced towards my phone, pulling back open the conversation, filled with one-sided messages. Even as I scrolled upwards to before the date, it looked the same. Leo sent maybe one short text for every five that I sent, and he would always take hours – if not full days– to reply.

The truth was right there, I just didn't want to see it.

With a quick breath in, before I could think on it more, I hit the button. I committed the changes, and there it was. Done.

There was no undoing it now.

And yet, instead of relief, all I felt was hollow.

A soft ding filled the room, and I found myself desperately grabbing my phone, hoping it was Leo getting the notification that I wasn't his match and wondering what happened. Or at least a lame explanation as to why he left our date.

My stomach dropped with disappointment when I saw a message from Talia, who noticed that I was online and was asking if I wanted to play Fortnite.

I felt like such an idiot for even having hope. But I supposed that was the whole definition of hope, a desire that defies logic.

My phone binged again.

Stop being a loser and just launch the damn game, the message from Talia read.

I sighed, feeling defeated. I knew I had to face her eventually, and I could use the distraction from my thoughts.

As soon as Talia got the notification from Steam that I was launching the game, she called me. This was our usual ritual, Fortnite and a phone call. I'd never been a dedicated enough gamer to get a whole gamer setup with the headphones.

"Look who's alive," Talia teased through the phone.

I rolled my eyes but couldn't keep the smile from tugging at my lips. "Even existential crises have to end eventually," I retorted.

"I thought you were going to miss this season entirely," Talia said, as I was met with the game loading screen.

"Was planning on it," I admitted, pressing a few buttons to skip the intro. "But I just couldn't resist getting my ass kicked by a bunch of 12-year-olds for an hour."

"No getting our asses kicked today," Talia said, "Momma needs a new skin."

"That is a crazy comment out of context," I replied with a laugh.

Talia chuckled, clearly enjoying the banter. "Yeah, well, the context is that I've been grinding all week alone trying to get enough V-Bucks because my teammate decided to fall off the map."

"A week? I only fell off the map three days ago," I corrected.

"Yeah, well, thought I could do it without you but turns out I need you or something," Talia joked, sarcastically.

I snorted, shaking my head. "Oh, really? You need me? This is a first."

We entered into the game lobby and waited for it to fill up with enough players, but it was the middle of a weekday when most of our usual opponents would be in middle school, so it was filling up very slowly.

"While we are stuck here and you can't get away from me," Talia started, which already had my stomach dropping uncomfortably, "Why the hell would you set me up on a date with someone who is in love with you?"

"Ben?"

"Who else?"

I snorted in response. "Ben's not in love with me, he's my best friend."

"Your best friend, who also happens to be in love with you," Talia countered.

"I promise you that you are reading it wrong," I said.

"Arty, the man barely even looked at me while I was speaking because he was so focussed on you."

"I asked him to be, I wanted him to talk me up," I explained. Talia scoffed in response.

"You didn't need to ask him to talk you up, he was practically on the edge of his seat for any opportunity to talk about you," Talia said.

"It's not like that," I said. I let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through my hair.

"Arty, come on," she interrupted, her voice full of disbelief. "You're blind if you think Ben isn't in love with you."

I felt my face begin to heat up uncomfortably and my stomach twisted at the idea of telling this story to another person. But I knew Talia, and I knew if I didn't give her hard, concrete evidence, then she would never let this go.

"I know for a fact he isn't," I started, "because I made a drunken move on him years ago and he rejected me, hard."

I was met with silence on the other end of the line, which only added to my embarrassment. It wasn't enough to be rejected by Leo this week, we also had to dig up ancient history with Ben.

After a moment of silence, Talia chimed in, "Surely you're not just going to say that and not give me a play-by-play. Also, land on Tilted Towers." I followed her lead, landing as close as I could get my character to hers.

"I can't believe I'm telling you this," I muttered, my face feeling fiery. "It was years ago. I don't know if Ben even still remembers. I hope he doesn't remember."

"The anticipation is killing me," Talia said, excitedly. "Also, watch behind you."

"Thanks," I said, shooting someone before continuing to follow Talia. "Anyways, we were both way too drunk and I practically just threw myself at him. Admitted I'd had a crush on him for most of high school. Talia, it was bad."

"Couldn't have been that bad if you live in his house," Talia joked, opening a chest in the game.

"No, it was really bad. I tried to kiss him and he pushed me off and then we just never talked about it."

"Ouch, okay, that doesn't sound great," Talia finally agreed.

I let out a frustrated sigh, trying to keep my focus as I built a ramp to get a better angle on a sniper. "Yeah, no kidding."

Talia's voice softened, but I could hear her clicking away as she looted the area, "Well, maybe Ben didn't like you back then, but it doesn't change the fact he likes you now. You just have to trust me on this."

I scoffed, "Talia, respectfully, are you out of your mind?"

"I think you should talk to him about that night, maybe it'll open up that door again," Talia said, sounding almost absent-minded as she shot another person down.

"I don't even think I want to open that door again," I replied.

"Why? Is he just too handsome and perfect and actually interested in you?"

"No, because he's my best friend who doesn't like me like that, and you're asking me to walk down the memory lane of the night that I confessed my feelings and got rejected," I reiterated.

Still, the thought got under my skin. Ben couldn't possibly like me, right? Why would he have helped me with Leo if he liked me?

"Say whatever you want," Talia said, "all I know is that if I had someone who looked at me and talked about me like that, I wouldn't even let them go."

I hesitated, the weight of her words hanging in the air. My mind flashed back to every interaction, every offhand comment, and the times he'd gone out of his way to be there for me. Could that really mean something more than just friendship?

The more I thought about it, the more confused I became.

Did Ben like me?

"Fuck," I muttered as the sound of gunfire filled my ears and I watched as my character got shot down.