The Term Sheet | Wattys 2016 Winner

Chapter 5

"Hold on. Hold on," yelled Megan. "You bought that stupid website? I thought I told you it was a stupid idea. Are you stupid or something?"

She had started the day in such a great mood. He had made her a buffet breakfast that morning with Belgian waffles, eggs, bacon, cantaloupe, coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. When she asked why, he said because you deserve it with a low raspy hush in a horrible but endearing attempt to sound sexy. The white T-shirt and scruffy beard almost helped him pull off the faux sexy voice, but the Superman pants just made her giggle and roll her eyes. But now, at dinnertime, her good mood had morphed into a suspicious one.

"I don't think we ever finished that conversation," said David. "Plus it's from my savings."

"If our relationship is going anywhere, then what you do with your money directly impacts me too."

"I told you it would pay for itself," said David.

"After twenty years, and only then if monkeys started falling from the sky. How much did it cost?"

David paused.

"Twenty-eight thousand, five hundred and thirty-eight dollars. Thirty-eight was the escrow and wire fees. I shopped around and found a discount for escrow. It saved us like a hundred bucks!"

Megan got up from the dinner table without saying another word. That was a generous way to describe the square black card table they had bought at a local Goodwill because of its faux leather top. When friends came over and they wanted more room to socialize, they could fold up the legs and store it behind their beat-up old sofa. They had furnished their small one-bedroom apartment mainly with hand-me-downs and thrift shop finds.

Megan walked silently into the kitchen. They didn't have anything close to that kind of spending money for something like this. He watched her pace, then pause to lean against the sink and stare at the floor. David stayed seated, reminding himself quietly that the best thing to do in these situations was to give her time to think.

"How many credit cards?" she asked.

"Three. No interest for eighteen months. By then I'll be able to pay them all off with the revenue from sales."

David didn't want to look at Megan's face. He didn't even glance in her direction. Her slender shape was broken in disgust. Then all at once she stiffened up.

"Sell it back. Right now. Sell it to the first stupid loser you can find."

Megan's stern voice prompted David to stand up. He walked over to the kitchen.

"You have to give me a chance, Meg. We could get out of this paycheck-to-paycheck existence. This could help pay off my college debts and let me help my sister. Hell, I could help your family with this money. We're never going to stand out from the crowd if we act like the crowd for all our miserable existence on this tiny planet." David grabbed Megan's arm. "Don't you get it, Meg? Without this, what am I working for? What am I doing anything for? Without this, I don't know..."

Megan tore her arm away from David's grasp. "Why are you with me, David? Where is this all going? Do you need this harebrained website to be with me?"

"That's not what I meant."

David walked to the card table, picked up the plates with half-eaten dinners, and started to wash them to the sink.

"David, I love you. I really do. But you make it hard to love you. What makes you think you can make it? Do you know how many harebrained ideas my dad used to have? He got nowhere. He went bankrupt in a Ponzi scheme and left my mother and me with nothing."

Megan wouldn't move out of the way and instead yanked the dishes out of David's hands and began rewashing them. David picked up a towel to dry them and they stood shoulder to shoulder at the sink, both looking out of the small window. The sun was setting far above the overcast clouds, which turned a gloomy spring evening into a dark foggy haze.

"If you don't know what makes me different than your dad by now, I don't..." David trailed off mumbling something unintelligible and then walked a few feet toward the bay window in the adjoining living room. He threw himself on the couch and opened his laptop.

"That's not what I meant," said Megan. "Don't walk away from me. Come back and talk."

David was already lost in the computer. Megan stomped over, hands still wet, and slammed the laptop shut.

"Hey!" David nearly jumped out of his seat, but Megan was standing right in front of him, blocking his exit.

"I was talking to you."

David's heart was beating through his chest. He just wanted her to understand that he was doing this for them. He wanted her to believe in him. He wanted her to understand the disgust and pity he had for her father. He wanted her to be proud of him. "I need to finish my blog post. No one visits a blog without fresh content..."

"It's all about you. YOUR blog post. YOUR website. YOUR sister. YOUR student loans. Do you even spend time thinking about me? Do you care about anything besides yourself?"

"Yes."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. You care about stupid jellyfish, apparently. You care more about jellyfish than your own girlfriend."

"No."

"Are you down to monosyllabic speech now?"

David opened his laptop again and started typing.

"Fine, go hide in YOUR laptop." Megan grabbed her keys and stormed out of the apartment. David continued hitting the keys.

DANGERBOY: well that went over well

ADOG23: you told her?

DANGERBOY: yea

ADOG23: what did she say?

DANGERBOY: that i am just like her dad, a lowlife bum. she likened my idea to a ponzi scheme. she totally doesn't get it

ADOG23: shit, I am sorry

DANGERBOY: then she stormed out, who knows where

ADOG23: sucks, want to see something cool?

DANGERBOY: yea

ADOG23: https://github.com/tutao/tutanota

DANGERBOY: i don't get it

ADOG23: dude, this is THE FUTURE: encrypted everything. facebook, twitter, and google can't be trusted, even when they say they are encrypting your stuff, this site just launched and protects you from it all by encrypting your email and shit

DANGERBOY: this is pure hype dude, there is no substance. there is nothing really new here, the problem is that it stores your information centrally. Whenever there is a central storage system, even one built to "protect" you, there is always a way in

ADOG23: too late, i already registered. wanna come over? we can hack on something

DANGERBOY: no, I really have to finish this blog post

ADOG23: cool

ADOG23: I heard that MochaToca's office space is killer cool, want to check it out with me tomorrow?

DANGERBOY: why?

ADOG23: I don't know. Just thought we should do some networking. You never know, right?

DANGERBOY: I suppose it wouldn't hurt. night

ADOG23: night.

David wiped the dishwater left by Megan's wet hands off the back of his laptop. He finished the blog post. It was the first post that had been added to the blog in the last year, but David hoped he could use some search engine tricks to bring the business back to life. He logged into his sales dashboard.

Zero.

He pressed refresh.