I’m anonymous here, just another person with a tote bag full of books and a head full of stories. No one knows I’m the woman from Calvin Midnight’s viral poem. No one cares that I have his words tattooed on my ribs or that I just left him standing in his empty apartment with my own poem to decipher.
I feel good. Heartbroken but good. Like I’ve reclaimed something Calvin’s leaving tried to steal. This is my space too, these words, these stories. I belong here just as much as any MFA graduate or published author. And maybe, if Calvin shows up, if he chooses us over his fear, we can navigate this world together. But even if he doesn’t, I’m here. I’m choosing this for myself.
The morning panel on “Women’s Voices in Contemporary Fiction” is standing room only. I squeeze into a spot near the back, notebook ready. The panelists are brilliant, all women who’ve fought for their place in a literary world.
“The thing about writing as a woman,” one panelist says, “is that you’re always writing against the expectation that your work is smaller, more domestic, less universal. As if men’s internal lives are inherently more important than ours.”
I write until my hand cramps, filling pages with ideas and observations. These women aren’t writing about storms as metaphors. They’re writing about the actual experience of weathering them. About choosing yourself even when the world tells you to choose others first.
Between sessions, I browse the book fair. Tables and tables of stories, each one a world someone built from nothing but words and determination. I run my fingers over covers, read first pages, sample sentences like wine. So many voices, so many perspectives.
And maybe, eventually, mine could be here too. Not as Calvin Midnight’s mysterious muse, but as myself. Maren Strand, who writes about storms and surviving and small-town women who pour drinks and guard secrets. Who loves a complicated man but won’t disappear into his shadow.
I buy three books I can’t afford from a small press that publishes experimental fiction. The seller, a woman with silver hair and knowing eyes, asks if I’m a writer.
“Trying to be,” I say.
“You are or you aren’t,” she says, but not unkindly. “Do you write?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re a writer. The rest is just paperwork.”
I carry her words with me to the coffee stand where I pay seven dollars for a latte that would make the Black Lantern customers riot. Find a quiet corner to read while waiting for thenext panel. “The Memoir of Place” starts in twenty minutes, and I want to learn how to write about Dark River, about the bar, about the way a place can save you and trap you simultaneously.
My phone buzzes. Lark checking in.
Lark:How’d it go?
Me:Gave him the poem. Ball’s in his court.
Lark:And you’re okay?
Me:I’m at a literary festival surrounded by people who love words as much as I do. I’m better than okay.
Lark:That’s my girl.
I smile at her message. Life goes on. Even if I still love him. And God help me, I do still love him completely. But love doesn’t mean waiting. It doesn’t mean shrinking. It means being whole people who choose each other, again and again.
CALVIN
I head for the door. I’m done choosing fear. I’m choosing her.
The elevator takes forever. I punch the button three more times even though I know it won’t help. When it finally arrives, the descent feels like slow motion. First floor can’t come fast enough.
I burst through the lobby doors onto the Seattle street. The convention center is eight blocks away. Sunday afternoon traffic is always a nightmare downtown, and parking near the festival will be impossible. Running will be faster.
So I start running.
A light fall drizzle has started, the kind that makes the city smell like wet concrete and coffee. The sidewalks are slick and crowded with Sunday afternoon shoppers, but I weave through them, picking up speed. My shirt is soaked through by block three. I keep running.
People stare as I sprint past coffee shops and tourists, past the normal life I’ve been sleepwalking through for years. A man in a rain-spattered button-down running through downtown Seattle like his life depends on it.
Maybe it does.
The convention center finally looms ahead, its glass and steel facade reflecting the gray sky. People stream in and out with their tote bags and conference badges, moving at normal human speed while my heart pounds against my ribs.
I push through the main doors, already scanning the crowd. The lobby is chaos. Final day energy, everyone trying to squeeze in one more panel, one more book signing. Where would she be? What panel? Which room?
