Kyle nodded.
“For people who need to get better with girls?” This wasn’t what he’d expected. It was the phone thing—it had to be. Jeremy had never had women problems. Not until Macy dumped him. Unless . . . “Or with a certain girl?”
Kyle did that thing with his arms again. “Whatever. Some people have, like, money problems or whatever, and they go somewhere else. Other places like this. Rehabilitation apps.”
Jeremy rapidly put the pieces together in his head. “So you’re saying I’m here because I’ve got relationship problems.”
Kyle’s mouth turned down. “I don’t know. I think it’s, like, online problems. I think it all has to do with the device, you know?”
“Ah. The device.” It was all coming together, his thoughts, the photos on Macy’s phone, that poignant note in her voice when she’d said to someone in an audio text, I must be the most boring person on the planet.
He could kick himself.
Macy’s last words flew through his mind again. Someday you’re going to get sucked right into that thing . . .
“Yeah, like if you like being on your phone or your tablet or computer or whatever a lot you can do that here. It’s like device heaven, you know? I loved it, at first.”
“Here,” Jeremy reiterated, to be sure. “You loved it here.”
“Yeah. Except for the other people. I hate it when there’s noise. Like that day you got here, yelling across to Brian over there.”
“Wait, that day I got here—that was today. Right? That was earlier today.” Sweat broke out on his brow, under his arms.
Kyle wheezed a short laugh. “No, that was, like, a week ago. Look at your calendar.”
A sudden dizzy spell had him searching for the wall with one hand.
“Look, so, I got a question for you,” Kyle continued.
He’d lost a week. A week! He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he hadn’t figured everything out.
“Where’d you go?” Kyle continued. “Because, I think I’ve decided to go home now. I been here, I dunno, months, and it was great, but now . . . I think I discovered I want someone. Like a girlfriend.”
Jeremy looked up. “Months?” He thought Kyle might be blushing, because his wan face suddenly looked alive.
Kyle shifted, pushed his hands farther into his pockets and stepped closer. “Yeah. So where’d you go, how’d you get out?”
“I took an elevator.” He swung an arm back toward the elevator alcove, only to see a blank wall where it once had been. “Oh shit.”
Kyle looked at where Jeremy gestured, then looked back. “Uh-huh.”
“It was there. I swear it.”
“Uh-huh.” Kyle was nodding. “I meant how’d you get a date? Cuz I can’t get one.”
“A date?” Jeremy’s neck was starting to hurt from looking up to see Kyle’s face. “No. What are you talking about?”
“You gotta get a date, man. That’s how you get out.”
“That’s how we get out?” Kyle had just given him the magic formula! He could have kissed him. “We get out!” He laughed, somewhat hysterically. “Come with me back to my cubicle, okay? Let’s figure this thing out. We’ll both get out of here.”
They walked down the hallway, Jeremy—who wasn’t short—taking twice the steps that Kyle did with his never-ending legs. His mind was spinning, thinking about how often he went for his cell phone, and how many times Macy had mentioned that he might want to put it away. The key to this whole thing was there somewhere, he was sure of it. Did he need to do some actual rehab? Was that how to mitigate this prison sentence and get back to Macy?
In a sudden flash he remembered what she’d said shortly before she’d walked off—what he’d thought was a joke. “I can’t compete with your phone. I’ll never be able to give you what it gives you.”
Hah. What a jerk he’d been.
The thing was, it wasn’t her! He did it to everybody. Hell, he remembered hearing his text alert go off and checking the phone in the shower one time. Damn near ruined the thing—but he’d answered! Thank god for the talk-to-text feature.
By the time they’d found Jeremy’s cubicle, Kyle was panting for breath and looking paler than ever. Jeremy looked at him in concern. “This isn’t a moment too soon for you, buddy. You need some fresh air and exercise. You’ve been sitting in front of these computers too long.”
Kyle gazed at the array of screens in Jeremy’s cube. “Naw, this is normal. I do the same thing at home.”
Jeremy sighed, but a vague chill swept up his spine as he realized he was not that much different from Kyle. He just always had his screen with him.
He glanced at his email program, noting that he had 422 emails. As he looked at the app it opened, the first email being from his administrative assistant asking, Where the hell ARE you? Harrison’s shitting bricks!
He’d have to sort that out later. Maybe tell them some kind of virus had knocked him out, sent him to the hospital . . .
He looked at his phone app, but it was the one square that never opened, no matter how long he looked at it.
“I don’t suppose we can call anyone, can we?” he asked Kyle.
Kyle laughed, a dopey-dog laugh. “Yeah, right. Naw, we can text and email and tweet and post to Facebook and pretty much everything else, but we can’t use the actual phone part. You can dial any number you want and it won’t go through. I’ve tried. It’s great.”
Great. Jeremy sighed. He mentally shut off the mail and plopped himself in his chair. “Okay, so we need to go here, right?” He opened the iLove app. A large welcome screen appeared.
Macy was on this site, he thought.
“What’d they say about you?” Kyle asked.
Jeremy was clicking around the site. Find a Girl, Contact a Girl, See the Girls Looking at You . . .
“Who?”
“On your profile. Haven’t you looked? Why do you think you haven’t gotten any mail?”
“Kyle, I’m not on this site. This is the first time I’ve even opened the app.”
“Oh man.” Kyle shook his head slowly. “Then how’d you get out?”
He craned his neck to look up at the towering Kyle. “I didn’t get out. I just went upstairs. You’re saying I have to do this to get out?”
“Upstairs?” Kyle repeated. “I thought there was only a downstairs.”
It took half a lifetime but Jeremy finally bled Kyle of all the information he had on the subject. According to him, to get out of here Jeremy had to get a date with a woman (or man or whatever, depending on who you were) on this site, at which time he could get out to go on the date. Afterward, he’d end up back here. The only way to stop this cycle was to establish a real relationship with the right woman. Then he would get out permanently.
Macy, he thought again. If he could find her on here, maybe he could get a date and actually get to see her. He wouldn’t have to send her any emotional email bombs, or make up reasons why they couldn’t get together to talk . . . A flutter of hope bounced around in his chest. If he saw her he could convince her to give him another chance. Maybe.