did not, in fact, die
told Knight off and survived
I blink. “What is that?”
“My life patch notes,” she says, like obviously. “You know. Like when a game releases an update and posts all the fixes and glitches and new features? I’ve been doing it for myself for a while. Big changes, little changes, bug fixes.”
I look at the list again, at the mix of stupid and serious.
“That one’s old,” she adds quickly, snapping the notebook shut. “Point is, we’re going to play a version together.”
I raise a brow. “We grew up together, Lark. There’s not a lot we don’t already know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my emotionally constipated friend.” She points the pen at me. “We see each other. We don’t actuallyknoweach other in certain ways. So. Patch Notes game: we take turns. Each round, you give me one ‘note’ about yourself I don’t already know. Bug fix, new feature, vulnerability patch, whatever. I get one follow-up question. Then you get one from me. First person to refuse to answer has to eat the canned bread.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“That’s motivation.”
I almost say no.
We should be reviewing logs. We should be planning contingency routes. We should be… something.
Instead, I hear myself say, “Fine. You go first.”
She brightens, tucking one bare foot under her and clicking the pen. “Okay. Lark v3.2, new patch note: I almost moved to Berlin two years ago.”
That hits like a glitch in a familiar program.
“You what?” I say.
She grins, clearly enjoying my surprise. “See? You didn’t know. Gage doesn’t either, so don’t narc. I applied for an internship with a cybersecurity research group over there. Got in. Spent a week convincing myself I was going to go. Had the plane ticket window open and everything.”
My brain scrambles to overlay that mental image—Lark, different city, different continent, not popping into our living room to steal my chips and my bandwidth.
“You didn’t go,” I say, stating the obvious.
“Nope.” She taps the pen against her knee. “Okay, Hayes, you get one follow-up.”
“Why not?” I ask immediately.
That knocks the smile off her face, just a little.
She looks down, pen cap between her teeth, thinking. When she looks back up, her eyes are softer.
“Because I was scared,” she says quietly. “Like… big scared. The kind that disguises itself as a hundred little reasons that allsound logical. Money. Family. Timing. But really? I didn’t think I was… big enough for it. Or good enough. Or that I deserved it.”
A muscle jumps in my jaw.
