Twilight

For software developers.

Recently, I enlisted the creative prowess of ChatGPT to reimagine my beloved chapter from Twilight, specifically Chapter 13 - "Confessions" (available at https://readtwilightsagaonline.blogspot.com/2010/07/twilight-chapter-13-confessions.html). The outcome is nothing short of a literary masterpiece. Allow me to present the reimagined chapter:

In the glow of the computer screen, Edward was dazzling. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at his code all afternoon.

His fingers, agile despite the hours of typing lines of text, literally danced over the keyboard, like a maestro conducting a symphony. He sat perfectly still in his chair, his code open on the screen, his scintillating eyes focused. Lines of code scrolled on the monitor, his glistening, pale hands swift and precise. A perfect programmer, crafting in some unknown language, smooth like well-optimized algorithms, efficient like a flawless script.

Now and then, his lips would move, so fast it looked like they were murmuring incantations. But, when I asked, he told me he was debugging; it was too technical for me to understand.

I enjoyed the hum of the computer fans, though the air wasn't quite cool enough for my taste. I would have liked to lean back, as he did, and let the soft glow of the monitor warm my face. But I stayed hunched over my own code, unwilling to take my eyes off the screen. The code was complex, tangled like the branches of a git repository.

The codebase, so brilliant to me at first, paled next to his programming prowess.

Hesitantly, always afraid, even now, that he would disappear like a program with too many bugs, too challenging to be real… hesitantly, I reached out one finger and clicked the mouse, where it lay within my reach. I marveled again at the perfect syntax, clean as well-documented code. When I looked up again, his eyes were on me, analyzing my work. His quick feedback turned up the corners of his flawless lips.

"I don't intimidate you?" he asked playfully, but I could hear the real curiosity in his soft voice.

"No more than usual."

He smiled wider; his expertise flashed in the code.

I inched closer, stretched out my whole hand now to point out an error in his script.

I saw that my fingers trembled, and knew it wouldn't escape his notice.

"Do you mind?" I asked, for he had glanced at my shaky lines of code.

"No," he said without looking up. "You can't imagine how that helps." He sighed.

I lightly trailed my hand over the perfect logic of his program, followed the faint pattern of nested loops inside the structure. With my other hand, I reached to adjust a variable's value. Realizing what I wished, he corrected the parameter in one of those blindingly fast, disconcerting moves of his. It startled me; my fingers froze on the keyboard for a brief second.

"Sorry," he murmured. I looked up in time to see his keen eyes on the monitor again. "It's too easy to be myself with you."

I lifted his code, scrolling through the lines as I watched the screen light up with his brilliance. I held it closer to my face, trying to see the hidden efficiency in his algorithms.

"Tell me what you're thinking," he whispered. I looked to see his eyes watching me, suddenly intent.

"It's still so challenging for me, not knowing."

"You know, the rest of us feel that way all the time."

"It's a tough coding life." Did I imagine the hint of regret in his tone? "But you didn't tell me."

"I was wishing I could know what you were thinking…" I hesitated.

"And?"

"I was wishing that I could believe that you were real. And I was wishing that I wasn't afraid."

"I don't want you to be afraid." His voice was just a soft murmur. I heard what he couldn't truthfully say, that I didn't need to be afraid, that there was nothing to fear.

"Well, that's not exactly the fear I meant, though that's certainly something to think about."

So quickly that I missed his movement, he was half sitting, propped up on his right arm, his left hand still on the keyboard. His programmer's face was only a few inches from mine. I might have — should have — flinched away from his unexpected closeness, but I was unable to move. His keen eyes mesmerized me.

"What are you afraid of, then?" he whispered intently.

But I couldn't answer. As I had just that once before, I smelled his coffee-scented breath. Rich, intoxicating, the aroma made my mind buzz. It was unlike anything else. Instinctively, unthinkingly, I leaned closer, inhaling.

And he was gone, his hand lifted from the keyboard. In the time it took my eyes to focus, he was twenty lines away, standing at the edge of the coding challenge, in the deep shade of a massive server rack. He stared at me, his eyes dark in the shadows, his expression unreadable.

I could feel the hurt and shock on my face. My empty hands stung.

"I'm… sorry… Edward," I whispered. I knew he could hear.

"Give me a moment," he called, just loud enough for my less sensitive ears. I sat very still.

After ten incredibly long seconds, he walked back, slowly for him. He stopped, still several lines away, and sank gracefully into the chair, crossing his legs. His eyes never left mine. He took two deep breaths, and then smiled in apology.

"I am so very sorry." He hesitated. "Would you understand what I meant if I said I was only debugging?"

I nodded once, not quite able to smile at his joke. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as the realization of the coding challenge slowly sank in. He could sense that from where he sat. His smile turned mocking.

"I'm the world's best debugger, aren't I? Everything about me invites you in — my code, my logic, even my debug messages. As if I need any of that!" Unexpectedly, he was on his feet, bounding away, instantly out of sight, only to appear beneath the same server rack as before, having circled the coding challenge in half a second.

"As if you could outrun my debugging skills," he laughed bitterly.

He reached up with one hand and, with a deafening click, effortlessly fixed a two-foot-long bug from the trunk of the codebase. He balanced it in that hand for a moment, and then threw it with blinding speed, shattering it against another massive bug report, which shook and trembled at the blow.

And he was in front of me again, standing two lines away, still as a well-optimized function.

"As if you could debug me off," he said gently.

I sat without moving, more fascinated by him than I had ever been. I'd never seen him so completely freed of that carefully cultivated facade. He'd never been less human… or more brilliant. Face ashen, eyes wide, I sat like a coder locked in the eyes of a genius.

His brilliant eyes seemed to glow with rash excitement. Then, as the seconds passed, they dimmed. His expression slowly folded into a mask of ancient sadness.

"Don't be afraid," he murmured, his velvety voice unintentionally seductive. "I promise…" He hesitated.

"I swear not to debug you." He seemed more concerned with convincing himself than me.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered again as he stepped closer, with exaggerated slowness. He sat sinuously, with deliberately unhurried movements, till our screens were on the same level, just a few lines apart.

"Please forgive me," he said formally. "I can control myself. You caught me off guard. But I'm on my best behavior now."

He waited, but I still couldn't speak.

"I'm not bugging today, honestly." He winked.

At that I had to laugh, though the sound was shaky and breathless.

"Are you all right?" he asked tenderly, reaching out slowly, carefully, to place his code back in mine.

I looked at his clean, well-documented code, and then at his eyes. They were soft, repentant. I looked back at his code, and then deliberately returned to debugging the lines with my fingertips. I looked up and smiled timidly.

His answering smile was dazzling.

"So where were we, before I behaved so rudely?" he asked in the gentle cadences of an earlier century.

"I honestly can't remember."

He smiled, but his face was ashamed. "I think we were talking about why you were afraid, besides the obvious reason."

"Oh, right."

"Well?"

I looked down at his code and debugged aimlessly across his flawless functions. The seconds ticked by.

"How easily frustrated I am," he sighed. I looked into his eyes, abruptly grasping that this was every bit as new to him as it was to me. As many lines of code as he had written, this was hard for him, too. I took courage from that thought.

"I was afraid… because, for, well, obvious reasons, I can't stay with you. And I'm afraid that I'd like to stay with you, much more than I should." I looked down at his code as I spoke. It was difficult for me to say this aloud.

"Yes," he agreed slowly. "That is something to be afraid of, indeed. Wanting to stay with me. That's really not in your best interest."

I frowned.

"I should have left long ago," he sighed. "I should leave now. But I don't know if I can."

"I don't want you to leave," I mumbled pathetically, staring down again.

"Which is exactly why I should. But don't worry. I'm essentially a selfish programmer. I crave your collaboration too much to do what I should."

"I'm glad."

"Don't be!" He withdrew his code, more gently this time; his voice was harsher than usual. Harsh for him, still more beautiful than any human voice. It was hard to keep up — his sudden mood changes left me always a step behind, dazed.

"It's not only your collaboration I crave! Never forget that. Never forget I am more dangerous to your productivity than

I am to anyone else." He stopped, and I looked to see him gazing unseeingly into the lines of code.

I thought for a moment.

"I don't think I understand exactly what you mean — by that last part anyway," I said.

He looked back at me and smiled, his mood shifting yet again.

"How do I explain?" he mused. "And without frightening you again… hmmmm." Without seeming to think about it, he placed his code back in mine; I held it tightly in both of mine. He looked at our code.

"That's amazingly pleasant, the collaboration." He sighed.

A moment passed as he assembled his thoughts.

"You know how everyone enjoys different programming languages?" he began. "Some people love Python, others prefer Java?"

I nodded.

"Sorry about the programming analogy — I couldn't think of another way to explain."

I smiled. He smiled ruefully back.

"You see, every person codes differently, has a different style. If you gave a developer a codebase filled with spaghetti code, he'd gladly refactor it. But he could resist, if he wished to, if he were a disciplined developer.

Now let's say you placed in that codebase a project written in the latest, most efficient language — and filled the codebase with its elegant structure — how do you think he would fare then?"

We sat silently, looking into each other's eyes — trying to read each other's thoughts.

He broke the silence first.

"Maybe that's not the right comparison. Maybe it would be too easy to refactor the code. Perhaps I should have made our developer an intern instead."

"So what you're saying is, I'm your favorite coding language?" I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

He smiled swiftly, seeming to appreciate my effort. "Yes, you are exactly my favorite coding language."

"Does that happen often?" I asked.

He looked across the lines of code, thinking through his response.

"I spoke to my fellow developers about it." He still stared into the code. "To Jasper, every programming language is much the same. He's the most recent to join our team. It's a struggle for him to adapt at all. He hasn't had time to grow sensitive to the differences in coding styles, in patterns." He glanced swiftly at me, his expression apologetic.

"Sorry," he said.

"I don't mind. Please don't worry about offending me, or frightening me, or whichever. That's the way you think. I can understand, or I can try to at least. Just explain however you can."

He took a deep breath and gazed at the screen again.

"So Jasper wasn't sure if he'd ever come across a coding language that was as" — he hesitated, looking for the right word — "appealing as you are to me. Which makes me think not. Emmett has been coding longer, so to speak, and he understood what I meant. He says twice, for him, once more powerful than the other."

"And for you?"

"Never."

The word hung there for a moment in the gentle hum of the computer fans.

"What did Emmett do?" I asked to break the silence.

It was the wrong question to ask. His face grew dark, his code clenched into a fist inside mine. He looked away. I waited, but he wasn't going to answer.

"I guess I know," I finally said.

He lifted his eyes; his expression was wistful, pleading.

"Even the best developers make mistakes, don't they?"

"What are you asking? My permission?" My voice was sharper than I'd intended. I tried to make my tone kinder — I could guess what his honesty must cost him. "I mean, is there no hope, then?" How calmly I could discuss my own coding demise!

"No, no!" He was instantly contrite. "Of course there's hope! I mean, of course I won't…" He left the sentence hanging. His eyes burned into mine. "It's different for us. Emmett… these were projects he happened across. It was a long time ago, and he wasn't as… practiced, as careful, as he is now."

He fell silent and watched me intently as I thought it through.

"So if we'd met… oh, in a programming competition or something…" I trailed off.

"It took everything I had not to jump up in the middle of that coding challenge full of developers and —" He stopped abruptly, looking away.