I looked up to find myself in Pandora's apartment, walking down the hallway towards the kitchen. It was 2014, just a few months after 99dresses failed. I hadn't seen Bryce and Pandora for a while.
I walked past an old bookshelf, and something caught my eye: The Holographic Universe.
How odd, I thought. Isn't that the esoteric book I almost purchased on Amazon last week? Maybe they'll lend it to me.
I picked it up off the bookshelf and continued walking down the hall, past Zac's old bedroom. Memories flooded my mind. We'd spent endless nights hanging out in that room, talking and pushing pixels on our laptops as we built our businesses. My venture had passed away, but his was still thriving. I wondered what he was getting up to in Europe.
I kept walking, and found myself in the kitchen.
"Nikki!" Bryce yelled. He stretched out his arms, a burger flipper in one hand. He was in the middle of cooking dinner.
Bryce came in for a hug, then so did Pandora. "It's good to see you," she said. "We've missed you!"
"I've missed you guys, too!"
"How's country life treating you?" Bryce asked. "Is it all it's cracked up to be?"
"It's a nice change from New York, y'know? I feel like I can breathe and just figure things out."
"What have you been up to?"
"Mainly teaching myself to code."
"Are you working on a project, or-"
"Yeah. I'm currently building this weird little avatar-maker. It can draw a cartoon version of yourself in the style of that TV show, Archer. I've made all the vector graphics myself, and now I'm just gluing them all together in an iPhone app. The avatar is procedurally generated, so I want to try to animate the SVGs. At the moment, it can only smile and wink at you. Anyway, it's just a bit of fun."
I heard footsteps in the hallway. A bubbly Asian-American entered the kitchen.
"Oh! This is our new roommate, Jackie. She's in Zac's old room."
"Ah, the infamous Zac!" she giggled. "I've heard so much about him. He sounds like a character."
Bryce, Pandora, and I looked at each other and laughed. Understatement of the year.
"I'm Nikki, by the way."
Her mouth gaped open in shock before a wide grin spread across her face. "Oh my God! You're Nikki Durkin!"
Bryce and Pandora started laughing.
"What?!" I said. "What's so funny?"
"Well," Bryce replied, "Jackie used to work in management consulting in the US, but she dreamed of moving to Australia. She realized that if she didn't do it now, she never would. So she packed up and left to go on an adventure. On one of her first nights with us, she said, 'Guys! You have to read this viral story that this twenty-two-year-old wrote, talking about failure and chasing your dreams. I found it so inspiring!' And then Pandora and I slyly enquired as to the author of said article, to which she said, 'Nikki Durkin.' We both burst out laughing and told Jackie that you basically live here as a second home when you're in Sydney, so she'll probably be seeing a lot of you."
I looked at Jackie, who was acting a little bit star-struck. "I just can't believe it's you!"
I laughed with them. Wasn't it funny? That my words could inspire someone like that? That others could learn from my experiences?
"Wanna sit?" Pandora suggested.
