Page 47 of Undone

I made prayer hands and gave her a pleading look. “No housewives, please. Anything but them.”

Zoe laughed and started flipping channels.

“Or teen moms.”

“Getting mighty picky over there for someone who just handed over the remote,” Zoe said, arching her eyebrow at me.

I watched her scroll through the channels and felt the airy feelings start bubbling inside of me. She was just soadorable, especially with messy hair and wearing old pajamas. I refused to admit that her face and hair did look better after all that yogurt. Shannon’s, too.

“Ooh,” she exclaimed as she landed on a channel that was just displaying a title. “I’ve wanted to watch this documentary! It’s about software manufacturers, it’s supposed to be scandalous.”

“Well, that’s doubtful.” I laughed. “Maybe I want to watch the housewives after all.”

“Stop,” she scolded. “There’s so much that goes into the creation of this stuff that you don’t even know about. Even the simplest app on your phone is a piece of sophisticated back-end design. I love studying it.”

I saw an opportunity. “Speaking of studying…have you heard back from the grad school program yet?”

I felt as though I should cross my fingers as I asked the loaded question. A tiny part of me hoped that she’d lost interest in it, given how great everything had been going at the ranch and with her side photography projects around town. Sure, I wanted her to chase her dreams, but maybe some of those dreams had room for me and Lost Valley. I couldn’t deny that I also wanted her to stay. Maybe she could see how building a life in Poplar Springs was a solid choice?

A life withme.

“Not yet,” she answered, still staring at the TV screen. “But I keep checking my emails and refreshing the school’s website for updates. They just added some new guest lecturers that I’m dying to hear. Like Raj Gupta, the guy who designed Scenic Route, if you can believe it.”

I furrowed my brows. “Who and what?”

Zoe sighed. “It’s only the world’s biggest project management program. Raj is agenius. And Kelly Rafferty too, that nerdy model. She started a coding program for middle school girls, and it’s the coolest thing ever. She’s like a personal hero to me, since everyone thought I was a big weirdo for doing it back in the day. What Iwouldn’t have given for validation from someone like her when I was a kid.” She shook her head sadly.

“Yeah, but look at you now,” I said, hoping to keep her from sliding into a funk about the teasing she’d endured. “Badass coder extraordinaire.”

“Getting there,” she said, focused on the TV. “This grad school program will jump me to the next level for sure and open more doors in terms of career options with organizations working on projects I want to be a part of.”

We watched the documentary in silence for a few minutes as I processed what Zoe had just told me without actually saying the words.

She was excited to leave. She hadn’t even considered staying put; her focus was firmly on her future.

Where it should be.

How could I ask her to stay and give up everything she’d been working toward and wanted so badly?

“See her?” Zoe asked excitedly, pointing at the screen. “That’s who I want to be when I grow up.”

It was a clip of a well-dressed middle-aged woman being interviewed by someone off screen.

“That’s Amanda Abromovich. She revolutionized web design. Have you heard of Yoshka?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m just a cowboy living in a tiny town in Colorado. I haven’t heard of any of these people or tech companies.”

“Stop, it’s not your world. You have no need for any of it, just like I have no need for the saddlery shop. Anyway, her company is an out-of-the-box web design company for the masses. Like, if you didn’thave me and you wanted to update the ranch website, you could’ve gone to Yoshka dot com and done it yourself. Obviously, it wouldn’t be as good as what I made for you, but it would be worlds better than what you had, not to mention easy to update and maintain yourself. She wrote all the code for the site and launched it on her own, totally bootstrapped.”

“What’s with all of these weird company names? What’s a ‘Yoshka’?” I scowled, hating that I was so out of the loop on things that were important to her.

“She’s Russian and it’s a play on ‘Matryoshka,’ those cute nesting dolls. It’s a reference to the code.”

“Ah,” I said glumly.

Zoe was in her own world as she watched the doc, leaving me to ponder everything she’d just told me.

There was no way I could even hint about her staying on in Poplar Springs. I couldn’t even understand her dreams, much less help her reach them from here. She had her life mapped out, and this was just a stopping point on her journey. I started to get depressed about it but gave myself a mental punch in the nose.

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