Gemma begins to cry and blot the tears with the soft spot of her ring finger. She angles herself toward the wall.

I position my body to the side of hers and put my hand on the small of her back. “Why? What happened?”

“I gave up my job as a TA and dropped out of school as soon as I started to show and stayed as far away from USC as I could. I moved out of my neighborhood. I went off the grid completely. Then, once my baby arrived, it was like complete chaos mixed with no sleep mixed with a dark cloud of regret. I messed with the fate we had already decided, and the guilt I felt from that was super intense. It’s never gone away, actually.”

“So nobody ever knew you were pregnant except for Decker? Nobody knew you had a baby?” It sounds far-fetched, but I need to get her facts straight.

“My parents knew. But I’m not close with them. They live in Florida.”

“Well, who did you tell them the father was?” I ask.

“I said I didn’t know.” She cries harder into her hands. “And that didn’t exactly motivate them to help me out at all. In fact, the only thing it motivated them to do was swear I’d tell anyone who asked that I got a sperm donor as part of some feminist movement I believed in. I’m still really pissed about that.”

“Okay, so if your mom and dad weren’t part of this, then someone else has to know about your son. I mean, you said they lied. Is it his parents? Do Debbie and Kurt know about this? Is that who the ‘they’ are?”

“Charlotte, I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much. Just know, I didn’t plan for this. Any of this. I wasn’t prepared for this, I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, and I’m sorry to leave you hanging. I have to go.”

“Where are you going, Gemma? Huh? We’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean right now. Just stay here. Talk to me, will you? Talk to me woman to woman. What’s his son like?” It’s my last-ditch attempt to data mine.

“Loved,” she says, turning away from me and marching over to where the ship has set up something called “Privacy Pods.” They are little makeshift cabanas people can go in to get away from the crowd and continue forming their connections. She finds an open one and locks herself inside, which couldn’t be further from the point of those things. How convenient it is for her to end the conversation on her own terms, barricading herself like a coward so she doesn’t have to deal with me. Little does she realize, I don’t need her to come out to get my answers. I’ll compute this on my own. She’s dealing with a Numbers Queen.

Chapter 19

Follow-up questions start flowing through my head like white-water rapids surging down a rocky river. My skin is hot to the touch. I blink twice to clear the dark spots, but I just feel dizzy. I want to refuse what I’ve heard tonight in every single way, and I believe that I can. But only if I can discredit the authenticity of what Gemma has told me. I cannot do that without my app, my algorithms, and at the very least, some goddamn internet access.