Page 91 of Keeping Kasey
Matteo might not like me very much, but he never wanted me to get hurt.
Seeming satisfied with the conversation, Matteo moves to the door, but he stops when his hand touches the knob. “I think I spoke too soon about you and Logan.”
My heart flips at the simple mention of his name.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I think you were right about making him happy.”
“And what about distracting him?”
He shrugs. “Two things can be true at once.”
With that, Matteo opens the door and leaves, not giving me a chance to respond.
Not that I’d know how to, anyway.
I push the conversation with Matteo to the back of my head and settle into the desk chair. Damon falls onto the sofa across the room, looking ready to nap, but energy is buzzing through my veins.
My fingers fly across the keyboard like my lungs bring in oxygen.
This isn’t only second nature—it’s a necessity tolive.
The excitement that comes with what I do hasn’t faded since the day my father sat me down and taught me coding for the first time.
It’s my favorite memory of him.
I was in the sixth grade, staying home from school with strep throat. My dad stayed home from work to take care of me, and I was so angry that I didn’t feel up to playing board games or going on walks like we usually would.
But my dad wanted to spend time with me anyway, so he brought his laptop to my room, sat beside me on the bed, and built a video game from scratch. It was a simple game, like one you’d see on an Atari, and I later learned he used graphics from several classics.
It was like watching him create his ownworld.
I think he would’ve loved for me to find a love for video game programming, but my fascination went beyond games. I wanted to create bigger, more complex software. If those worlds I watched my father create were a child’s drawings, I wanted to make the Mona Lisa.
I found my passion in cybersecurity—in building walls and breaking them down. Each program outdoing the last in intricacy.
My passion grew with me, making me into the person I am today.
And even if it eventually took my dad’s life, I can’t help but wonder—in moments like this, when I hone in on a mission to dissect the complexities of an entire database—if he would say it’s all worth it.
If his love for what he did was worth the danger it brought.
Because for me, it is.
If doing what I love is what eventually kills me, I’ll consider my life well-lived.
I start my search by looking exactly where I’d hide a comms program—fifteen minutes of my fingers flying over the keyboard with ease. If this were a piano instead of a laptop, I’d be orchestrating a masterpiece that would put Beethoven to shame.
It’s brilliant.
It’s a work of art.
It’smine.
It’s… mine?
An error code pops onto my screen, and my stomach doesn’t just drop—it plummets six feet into the ground.
