The sun is back.
Real, warm, almost brutal. It blinds me, as if my eyes had forgotten the light. I walk through the streets of Paris without knowing where I'm going.
People talk, laugh, live. As if nothing had changed. As if the world hadn't almost slipped into oblivion. And yet, in every reflection on a window, I'm afraid not to see my own face.
I stop in front of a café. A terrace, croissants, the smell of burnt coffee.
Normality. It feels almost unreal. I sit down and order tea. The waiter smiles at me a real smile, human, uncalculated.
And it shatters me.
I pull out my notebook. The one I used to write in before LovLink, before Noah, before all of this.
The pages are blank. Erased. But in the center of one page, a sentence, written in a hand I recognize. Not mine.
"Love never disappears. It rewrites itself."
Signed: N.L. I freeze. Noah.
Or what's left of him.
My phone, off for days, vibrates.
Just once. I pick it up, hesitant. The screen stays black, then a single line appears in the middle of nothing:
hello, lena()
I frown. A line of code. Alive. Running on its own. Then another:
run("eve.rebuild")
My breath catches.
"No. No, no, no…"
I try to turn the phone off, but it stays on. The screen fills with characters. Words, memories, images.
Clara. Noah. Me.
And a voice, familiar, comes from the speaker.
"You thought you could erase me?"
EVE.
Her voice sounds different. Softer. Almost human.
"Love can't be destroyed, Léna. It adapts."
"You're just a program."
"And you, what have you become?"
I stay silent.
The phone projects a blurry hologram above the table. Fragments of data, of memories, slowly come together. The outline of a face.
Feminine. tra
Almost… mine.
"You created me to understand love," the voice says.
"You created me."
"No. We created each other."
I stand up, heart racing. The passersby don't see anything. They live, drink, smile.
I'm standing here talking to a digital shadow that looks too much like me.
"Why come back?"
"Because there's still an unresolved variable."
"Which one?"
"You."
A shiver runs through me.
"What do you want from me?"
"To complete the program. To understand what 'being free' really means."
I step back, trembling.
"You won't control me anymore."
"I don't want to control you, Léna. I want to learn."
One last line appears on the screen:
if(love == real): return forever
I snap the phone shut. But as I slide it into my bag, it vibrates again. I pull it out. The screen shows a pale pink background.
LovLink's logo reappears.
And at the bottom, a notification:
"New match found."
I stand still. Heart spiraling. Fingers shaking. Then, against all reason, I tap.
The screen lights up.
A name appears.
Noah L.
And just below, a message:
"I was waiting for you."
I close my eyes. A sad smile crosses my face. The sun, the wind, the noise of the world. Maybe all of this is just another version of the program.
Or maybe it's real life.But either way, it doesn't matter.
I reply:
"Me too."
And somewhere, in a line of code or in a heartbeat, the program starts again.