“Oof. That hit like a Caleb monologue in chapter twenty-eight.”
“Don’t talk about that monologue, Micah. I’ll cry literal tears.”
“My bad. But it was such a good monologue. Would have been great toSee on the Big Screen,Hollywood People Who Are Listening to This!”
“There aren’t any Hollywood people listening to us, Micah. We have two thousand subscribers.”
“Two thousand loyal listeners who we would never betray like Petra did her readers.”
“And look at how it turned out for her. She focused on the few who didn’t matter and now has even the most loyal supporters turning their backs. She flipped on us all. It makes me wonder if Petra Rose even believes in her characters or if she’s embarrassed by her own writing.”
“Well, she has been quiet,” Micah says. “Not a single social media post in almost a year, outside her own fan club.”
“Which I hear is dwindling. I wouldn’t know, I left that fan club six months ago,” Kellie says.
“Hopefully the silence is a sign that she’s studying how to write a storyline that she actuallybelievesin. Which is wild, considering this is the same author whose lines people literally tattooed onto their bodies.”
“Speaking of, I’ve seen a few videos of people having her quotes removed,” Kellie says.
“Sad. We used to quote her and now we just ...hateher.”
“Hateis a strong word,” Kellie says.
“This is an honest podcast.”
“True. We hate her. So much so, we’ve pulled a million strings and rescheduled three other bookings to bring you this special guest today. Not sure why he agreed to our little podcast, but we couldn’t be more appreciative. We might even climb to two thousand and one subscribers after this.”
“Yes, dream big,” Micah says. “Ladies and gentleman, we welcome you to join us in conversation with none other than Allister Jones, the producer ofA Terrible Thing.”
“He’s not quite off the hook for that adaptation, but at least he’s brave enough to talk about it. Welcome, Allister!”
“Thank you so much for having me,” Allister says. “That was quite the recap.”
Fuck.
That.
Guy.
I turn off the podcast as soon as I hear his voice. My heart is pounding so hard and my stomach is churning.
I have to pull my car over to the side of the road because I feel very close to puking.
“Oh, God.” My fingers are trembling on the steering wheel. I move my hand to the door in search of the button to roll down the window. As soon as it’s far enough down for my head to stick out, I breathe in the fresh, pine-scented air and close my eyes, repeating slow breaths until my stomach begins to ease.
I can’t believe I actually thought exposure therapy would help me heal.
Listening to that podcast just now was the worst few minutes I’ve lived through since my texts with Allister leaked.
I open my eyes and lean my head back against the headrest. I inhale a few slow breaths, attempting not to focus on the fact that Allister is probably out there doing a tour of podcasts and interviews, and I’mbeing forced to shut myself away in a grimy cabin and write a book I’ve been attempting to write since this whole movie fiasco started, just so I don’t lose my house now that my sales have taken a nosedive.
“You did nothing wrong,” I say to myself as I pull slowly back onto the highway. “You did nothing wrong. What the world thinks of you isn’t who you are.”
I’ve repeated this mantra since Nora made me promise to say it at least five times a day. But I just feel like I’m repeating a lie out loud, and that feeling doesn’t leave me refreshed and ready to skip along and tackle my day.
I’ve been unable to function since all this started. I feel like a fraud. I feel like everything I’ve built has crashed down around me and I’m buried in rubble that no one even cares to dig through because they aren’t even curious if I’m suffocating to death. They only want to know who will show up at my funeral after Idosuffocate to death.
I wonder who would show up at my funeral. I have friends and family who would be there, but I realize now that all the “friends” I’ve made in my years of being in the book world weren’t friends at all. Other than Nora, everyone has ghosted me. And I don’t blame them. They can see that my reputation has tanked my sales, so any sort of public support my way might fuel TikToks that would tanktheirsales. This is a career, and as much as I’ve always hoped the friends I’ve made in this career would also be my friends outside this career, I’m beginning to realize we’re all just unhappy coworkers trying to survive until we retire.
