"What happened?" I asked Fiona nervously. Normally her serious face was reserved for her job and when she was mad.

"Life Bar is being bought out," she said, then paused. Probably to build anticipation, but it was still annoying. "By Vitality," she said, right as I was about to tell her to spit it out already.

"Wait. So my boss is being bought out by my other boss?" I leaned back as far as I could without falling off the bench.

Fiona withdrew her hand and nodded. "'Fraid so. The deal will be official next week. We're all keeping our jobs, but I'm going to have to learn a whole new computer system for their records because they're getting an upgrade."

"Don't all those systems basically work the same?"

"They achieve the same results, but they're all slightly different in the way information goes in and get interpreted." She took a bite of her sandwich.

I shook my head. "What does that mean for my job?"

She chewed thoughtfully. "Well, first off it means your membership fee will be taken out of your check," she said around the food.

"Not surprising." I picked up my sandwich and we ate in silence.

---

Most of my afternoon was spent wandering around various shops in the area until about four, when Fiona would get off and we could hit the gym together. It was mostly her idea. We'd gotten our jobs for Life Bar only a couple of weeks ago, not long after we realized that our income was good but not enough. It came with free memberships for the both of us, so she thought of going to the gym a few times a week and for walks every day. Her walk was in the morning while I was working, and my walk was after lunch while she was working.

The thing I usually like about walking is being able to think. Normally, I can walk and not be seen by one of my fans, which lends a lot of time to sheer thoughts. My best ideas are born from a stroll around the neighborhood, ideas that I generally used against Kyle during our debates. It's normally a good thing, but today I didn't want to think about our next one. I didn't want to win, if I'm honest. It would be like arguing over which rumors were true about a friend and taking the side of the ones saying that they were unfair, unjust, and possibly evil.

When it was time to meet up at the gym with Fiona, I was more than ready to push myself as far as I could go so that when I got up the next morning I'd have an excuse to stay in bed for a while playing video games.

---

Monday came around a couple of days later, and I found myself pacing my room. In the past two days, I'd first felt bad, then okay, and now that I was about to publicly shame my own boss, I was a nervous wreck all over again.

Someone knocked on our apartment door and I heard Fiona let Kyle in. He was right on time, as usual. I stopped pacing and took a few deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.

My bedroom door opened and Kyle slipped in. "Hey, you," he said, giving me a quick one-arm hug as he walked by.

"Hi," I said to his back.

He tossed his jacket onto my bed and followed it soon after. "So. You ready?"

"I guess so." I walked over to my mirror and checked my makeup. "I'll be glad when this one is over. I hate the idea of arguing that rumors are true when no one is for sure that they are. It's a kind of gossip that I hate." It was a truth I knew Kyle knew about me, and the only way I could see maybe being able to talk my way out of this.

He sighed heavily. "We already promised our fans. Besides, I don't really see how you could see it that way." He rose up onto his elbows and looked at me. Our eyes met in the mirror, and I could see in them what he was about to say. "Liz, it's all in good fun. No one's going to hold you to what you'll say."

I shook my head. "Maybe not, Kyle, but what if they do? Vitality could kick me off their website! Don't you remember debating that last time?"

He sat up and pointed an accusing finger at me. "Yeah, I remember you arguing that Vitality was wrong in taking measures like that against Sean. I think that they would've banned you if they were going to."

I thought about his words. The girl in the mirror looked convinced, but I wasn't. The girl looked confident, but I wasn't. She looked like she had her life so together that her eye liner was perfect and I had no idea how that had happened. Her auburn hair was straightened and slicked back in a ponytail that rested on her shoulder. "I guess you're right," I said. I turned to look at him. "You ready to start?"

He checked his phone and nodded. "Guess so." He got up and I giggled. "What?"

"Your hair is sticking up. You might wanna smooth it down before we start streaming."

He sighed heavily and trudged over to my mirror next to me. When he fixed his hair, we took our places on the sofa. I fiddled with my notes and he sat our coin on the cushion next to him. I gave him a nod and he reached over, tapped a few things, and we were live.

"Hey guys, and welcome back to He Said She Said. Today we're debating the pros and cons of Vitality!" I knew my smile probably looked fake, which wouldn't be untrue, but I hoped it seemed genuine. Otherwise, all of our fans would be asking what was wrong. "As usual, we're taking sides. Kyle is pros, and I'm cons. So he'll be the advocate and I'll be the cynic. Just one thing before we start: June and Luke Knight, Vitality, I do not stand by any of the ideas I'll be presenting tonight. I love this network."

"Are you done?" Kyle asked. He wore a lazy smile, even though I could see the tightness to his mouth that I was almost positive wasn't being picked up on the camera. "Can I flip the coin now or do you still have a speech to make?"

I rolled my eyes. "Flip it." He made a show of flipping it, catching it, and slapping it on the back of his hand. "You first," I told him as I sat back.

He nodded. "Vitality does a lot of good work. They not only support various charities, helped get internet to the places that at one time were completely disconnected, and have provided all of the equipment needed for filming videos like this one - and way beyond standard tech, too - but they also pay everyone that supplied coding at any time, as well as developers of each of the websites they bought out."

I glanced at my blank notes. Right about now I was wishing that I had written something down, even if it wasn't anything important because, for the first time in a long time, I went blank. "But where's the proof?" I blurted. Kyle raised an eyebrow and I was a little taken aback, myself. Since we were live, I couldn't take it back or edit it out. I rolled with it. "Can they prove that they actually pay them?"

Kyle glanced at his notes. "Uh," he said, stalling. After a moment of racking his brain and clearly trying to think of a comeback, he finally shrugged. "I guess they can. I mean, I didn't exactly go looking for that..." He trailed off and glanced at the camera. It was already one of our worst shows, and we were only a few lines into it.

By our standards, I knew I'd won just now. Our audience would agree. I could just end it, ask if they had picked a winner and watch the comments stream in, look at the sea of my name. But I didn't. "Even if they could, how do we know that they pay everyone who has a part in the coding of every bit of the website? That's undoubtedly a lot of people. I'm sure they don't rely solely on one person to do everything. That's a huge task!"

Kyle stared at me. Honestly, I was beginning to wonder where all of this was coming from, too. We stared each other down for a moment, having a silent conversation. He wanted to end the show, or at least for me to stop talking. I was running the risk of having us booted off. I was only making suggestions, repeating unsubstantiated rumors I'd seen online that were accusations of a serious nature. If they were true, the whole company would be dealt with by the government. It wasn't something that could be taken lightly.

I turned abruptly to the camera with a lighthearted smile. "Who do you think won this debate? Put the name in the comments." I watched the wallscreen start showing the comments from our viewers. There were a few with my name or Kyle's name, but most of them were along the lines of, That debate was lame - do over! I glanced at Kyle. He had a question in his eyes and I nodded.

"Whoa, thanks guys," he said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. "Looks like you won this time, Liza."

Did I really, though? "Aww, thanks guys!" I grinned at the camera, too down to celebrate like I normally would.

"But!" Kyle announced, holding up a finger. "There's a lot of you saying they want a do-over." He lowered his finger and sat back. "I think we do owe a proper debate to them after this one. Don't you?"

Honestly, I did think that. But did I think it was worth taking this topic seriously? I wasn't sure. Which is why I hesitated for a moment. Kyle's eyes widened. "Of course they do," I said quickly. It was so short of a pause that I doubt our viewers would pay any mind, but any hesitation on my part shouted loudly to Kyle that no, I did not, in fact, want to give this to them. "But what topic?"

He spread his arms. I'd given my consent to doing this again with my nod, I realized. "The same one, obviously," he said.

I sighed. "Fine." I turned to the camera. "On Thursday, we'll come back to this and debate the pros and cons of Vitality again, but, this time, we'll do it justice. So come back Thursday at six for part two. Bye everyone, and have a good day!" I gave the camera a little wave and held my smile as I waited.

"We're good," Kyle said a moment later.

I relaxed completely into the sofa, but only for a moment. "Kyle!" I nearly shrieked as I jumped up. "We're doing this again! And people expect better!" I wasn't sure which stressed me more: the mere fact we were doing this again, or that this time around people had expectations that I had to meet.

"Relax," he told me in a calm voice. "It's going to be fine, Liz." He stood and hugged me. I tried to pull away but he didn't let me. I sighed and hugged him back. "Try not to worry too much, okay? You don't have to be perfect. No one's expecting perfection."

"I know," I said. I tried pulling away again and this time he let me. "It's not that I don't think our viewers deserve better from us, but it's just that I don't really want to do this topic. Vitality isn't bad. I love this website and they're quite fair with how they run it. I mean, I don't exactly agree with completely banning some of the people they've banned, but besides that, I don't have any problems."

"I know, Liz," he said softly as he gave me a small smile. He pat my arm gently. "Sometimes we have to do things we don't want to, though. This is really only one time, right? Do it right this time and then we never have to do it again. We usually don't revisit any topics we've already debated, anyway."

I chewed my lip as he walked to the door. He made a valid point. This would be the only time I would have to do this. I followed him out of my room. Fiona called a goodbye to him as we got to our apartment door. "See you Thursday?" I asked.

He gave me a relieved smile. "Of course." He glanced at Fiona. "Unless you'd like to discuss what we should say in our debate before then?" His eyes held a hope I usually didn't find there.

I shook my head. "No, I'll be fine. Thanks, anyway." His smile faltered. He gave me a nod and, without another word, turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.