Page 103 of The Sebastian Guarantee
“No way! No freaking way!” Eloise exclaimed. “OSS, Munch Match is OSS!”
Shelby gawked at the screen. “You made the Munch Match app open-sourced software. Anyone from anywhere in the world can download your code and modify it however they see fit. Your algorithm is out there for free.”
“And that means young women like you can use it to help animals and find the best fit for college and whatever else you can dream up,” Phoebe answered as a lightness took over.
“This is so cool! I’m going to post about it on my socials and on the big tech message boards,” Eloise chirped. “Phoebe Gale, you’re our hero.”
Phoebe chuckled. “I’m no hero. I’m just a nerd—a slightly awkward hot-dog-loving nerd.” Like her mom, but she kept that part to herself.
“Do you care if we keep playing around with it?” Shelby asked, vibrating with excitement as she gestured to her laptop.
Phoebe sat back. “Get to it. It’s all yours.”
The giddy girls returned to the giant pink bean bag and started tossing out ideas to test. Phoebe watched them, then thought of Tula and Ivy—little girls she adored. Girls and women needed a place that allowed them to connect to a supportive community. She knew this, but was she the person to create it? Was her dream to build Go Girl too big? Could she do it alone?
“Here you are,” Amaryllis remarked, walking into the computer lab.
The girls greeted the former principal, and Phoebe met the woman’s gaze.
“It sounds like you’ve made some friends,” Amaryllis continued, coming to the table with a large hardback book in her hands.
Phoebe closed her laptop and slipped it into her tote. “Just a little tech talk among girls,” she answered and came to her feet.
“I have something decidedly less high-tech to show you.” The former high school principal handed her the book. “I thought you might like to see this. It’s the yearbook from your mom’s senior year. I found her picture. It’s marked with the slip of paper.”
Reverently, Phoebe touched the cover. She cracked open the book, inhaling the scent of the old pages. She scanned the rows of smiling faces and found her mother.
“I still can’t get over it. The resemblance is uncanny,” Amaryllis commented.
“My blue eyes come from my father, but every other feature from the slant of my nose to the curve of my cheek comes from my mom.” She ran her finger over the photo, then skimmed the few lines below the picture and read her mother’s senior year quote.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
She gasped. “It can’t be.”
Amaryllis watched her closely. “Everything okay, dear?”
“This was my senior yearbook quote, too,” Phoebe answered, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s probably a coincidence, huh?”
“I’ve been around long enough to learn a thing or two about coincidences.”
Phoebe ran her fingertips across the text. “What have you learned?”
“There’s magic behind most of them, if you know where to look. I’d say that yearbook quote is a message meant for you that was years in the making. A seed made of pure love, planted before you were even born.”
“A love seed,” Phoebe repeated.
“A mother’s love is timeless, Phoebe, and it appears this coincidence is your mom reminding you to believe in yourself and follow your dreams.”
Amaryllis was right. Phoebe knew it with every breath she took and every beat of her heart. She had to follow her dream, not only for herself, but for girls like Eloise and Shelby. And that dream was Go Girl. Did she want to do it alone? No. She thought of her aunt and uncle, who complemented each other in every way. Their partnership had taken Gale Gaming to the next level, and their love for each other touched every facet of their work. She’d wanted that, too, but she wouldn’t let it hold her back either.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” she said, reading the words aloud.
It was time to believe in herself. That’s what her parents would want for her. And that started today with a pitch at LETIS Live.
“Phoebe,” Eloise called, “you’re trending. Everyone’s posting about the Munch Match algorithm becoming open-source software. Your website says it’s been downloaded fifty thousand times, and it’s been less than ten minutes.”
“That’s fantastic,” Phoebe replied in a daze as her mind raced. She glanced at the clock on the wall. There was only an hour until LETIS Live. “I have to get back to Denver,” she said, but she was a hundred miles away from the city. Even speeding her ass off wouldn’t get her back in an hour. Maybe there was another way, another route. She dug around her tote, feeling for her phone. She could check the navigation app and see if there was a country road she could take to bypass the highway. It was near rush hour. Traffic in Denver alone would be at a standstill.
