Sam hangs up the phone before bouncing up, rocking the camper with her movement, and trudging toward the door. “I hate to do this, but I need to leave. Ethan said he’s not feeling well and is heading home from work. I should go check on him.”
“No worries. Give him a hug for me, and let me know if I can bring anything over later after my meeting.”
“Meeting?”
I smile and shimmy my shoulders, relishing in the news I have for her. “It’s the reason I invited you over today. Well, that and to help me with Shakespeare, of course.”
Sam raises her dark blonde eyebrows and motions for me to continue.
“I’m meeting with a literary agent at Main Street Coffee later.” I can’t contain the girlish squeal, and neither can Sam as we hug one another.
“I’m so happy for you!” She claps her hands before covering her open mouth. “My best friend is going to be a best-selling author!”
I blush and wave off her words. “It’s just one meeting. Besides, I still haven’t written the ending even though I’ve been working on it for two months. I’ve only had more time recently since we are out for summer break.”A lot of time. Endless time. It’s consumed my existence. And I’m fully in love with a fictional man.
“I didn’t know you created a pitch.”
My embarrassed-at-the-praise blush deepens. “I didn’t. I’ve been posting vague snippets about my book on a new author's social media account for the past month because I know that’s where I’ll find a readership, and it kind of blew up. One reel with the blurb of the book went viral. The agent saw it and reached out to me. I looked the company up, and it’s a legit business.”
I looked it up enough to know the agent eerily looks like my male main character, though a little more put together than I imagine Noah to be, but how could one really tell from one photoshopped picture on a website? The company isn’t huge, and they only represent Southern authors.
And they represent my all-time favorite romance author—Lucy May.
Maybe I’ll get to meet her.I hold back a squeal at the thought.
“Are you famous?” Sam asks in all seriousness, already whipping out her phone and pulling up the app. “What’s your handle?”
I shake my head. “No! I’ve only got like three thousand followers.” I’m kind of nervous for people I know in real life to follow my page. Not because there is inappropriate content, but because this book is personal to me. It’s a testament to the woman I wish I could be instead of the bland, boring, boxed-in life I’ve lived. It speaks to the type of passionate love I wish I could experience, the type Lane said was irrational and unreal.
But Sam’s my best friend, so I tell her. “It’s @authorlorraineejenkins.”
“And you’re just now telling me this?” Sam’s eyes bulge out of her head as she scrolls through my account. Then her screen goes black and she shoves the phone into her jean pocket. “Okay, I’ve got to go, but schedule me in for dinner tomorrow because unless I’m vomiting and forcing Ethan to clean it up, you’re telling me everything.”
I laugh and agree, and then see her out, halfway hanging out of my door and waving as she drives off in her silver Honda.
I’ve been shoving the meeting from my thoughts ever since the agent, Nikhil A. Prewitt, reached out and asked for it a week ago. (Yes, I chuckled at the fact his last name is the same as my female character.) I can’t allow myself to get too hopeful only to crash and burn. As much as I enjoy teaching, I want to be a full-time author. It’s a torch I’ve carried for a long time, but I was always too scared to light it up. Failure isn’t an option in my book, and my parents would have a heart attack if I quit my steady job in education due to the unpredictability of the publishing realm. They’ve ingrained in me that stability is the most important thing to have in life outside of God. It’s a little contradictory if you ask me, because God calls us to trust Him. That’s it. Trust in Him. Not in stability.
However, I know they’re not entirely wrong. God calls us to trust Him alone, but He doesn’t call us to be ignorant and readily set our lives to flames.
But as I’ve told them, God has given me this story to write, and I have to trust that He will provide everything I need at every step of the way. I’m almost twenty-seven and can make my own decisions. I won’t quit teaching yet (because I’m not ignorant), but the moment I can remotely afford a basic living off of my books, I will light my torch and carry it high. Because I trust God not to let it catch everything around me on fire. Even more so since He kept me alive during that Jet Ski accident last year, which has been the sole driving force in me being able to stand up to my parents regarding this authoring gig.
I forgo reading Shakespeare for today since the meeting with the agent and all the possibilities it brings to the table are too front and center in my head now. Instead, I make another pot of coffee and sit down to hopefully edit another scene (because I’m procrastinating the ending) before I need to start getting ready.
The blinking cursor on the screen reminds me I’m atthatscene—the first kiss between my beach-going lovers. I didn’t write yesterday to avoid this moment, opting to spend my day reading first kiss scenes instead, but I have to power through. Just as I did when I wrote the scene originally.
Here’s the thing: I’ve only kissed two men before. The first was my college boyfriend, Lane Burtram. The second was Bryan, the ex-fiancé that I forgot due to amnesia, which is good because he stood me up at the altar. Supposedly, according to my family, he suddenly claimed he wasn’t ready to get married, so I took my honeymoon alone to get some space from the town and their pitying looks. My family has no idea what happened on the island other than what the officials told them, and so their next memories of me after getting on the plane are hovering over my unconscious body on a hospital bed in Bora Bora.
Their stories feel like just that—stories. Not real. Not like it actually happened to me, though the scenario is a great reason for fictional Esme to be in Bora Bora. I changed the guy’s name to Ryan, to be polite. And added a cheating layer even though infidelity was never mentioned to me as a reason he called off the wedding.
Ultimately, there are no hurt or sad emotions at the name Bryan. No memories of taking my honeymoon alone. It’s all a tale of a dead version of me. I guess, for which, I’m thankful. I’m not married to a man who didn’t want me (which, yeah, stings just a smidge due to the notion of the concept). I assume I kissed him if I was going to marry him, but outside of that logical conclusion, I don’t remember ever kissing a man besides Lane, and those memories still feel a little too raw due to my amnesia. I dated him for two years while I was in college, and I don’t want to dwell on the way his kisses always made me feel warm inside.
Or the way I thought I loved him.
Or the way he told me that my idea of love and romance was too grandiose for any normal, real guy to live up to.
Which resulted in him breaking up with me on Valentine’s Day of my senior year of college at Juniper Grove University.
What a—,I have to cut off Noah’s voice in my head, but I smile anyway. At least my fictional boyfriend has my back.
