I understand that now, in the way you only understand things when it's too late to do anything about them.
The manuscript sits in a neat stack on my desk. 312 pages of my most honest work. The story of a man who was so afraid of being vulnerable that he almost missed the love of his life.
Spoiler alert: in my version, he figures it out in time. He makes the grand gesture and gets the girl.
In real life, I'm pulling the book and sitting alone in my condo with a half-eaten protein bar and the growing certainty that I've ruined everything.
Fiction is better because it doesn't make you feel like this.
I pull out my phone and draft an email to Rodney, making it official. Cancel the cover reveal. Pull the preorder campaign. Shelve the manuscript indefinitely. I read it three times, checking for typos, making sure the wording is right.
Then I save it as a draft without sending.
I'll send it tomorrow.
Tonight, I just want to sit with the possibility that there might still be another way. Even though there isn't because I know exactly how this story ends.
Tomorrow I'll do the right thing.
Tonight I'll just miss her.
TWENTY-THREE
JESSICA
Austen purrs on my chest like a furry, weighted blanket.
Around three am, he gets up, walks across my face, and settles on the pillow next to my head.
Tonight he's pressed against me like he knows something is wrong.
“I messed up,” I tell him.
He purrs louder.
“I told him he was just like David. He's not. David never bought me anything except guilt trips and a subscription to a wine club I didn't ask for.”
More purring.
“Scott bought my entire building because he was scared of losing me. That's not control. That’s…emotional panic buying. It's like when I bought two dozen candles during my divorce except with real estate.”
Austen blinks at me slowly.
“You're right. That comparison doesn't quite work. But you know what I mean.”
He doesn't know what I mean. He's a cat. But talking to him is better than spiraling in silence.
By six, I've talked myself in and out of apologizing approximately forty-seven times. By seven, I've composed and deleted fifteen text messages. By eight, I've convinced myself that Scott probably never wants to see me again and I should respect his space forever, even though technically I'm the one who asked for space, which means I'm respecting my own request, which means?—
My apartment buzzer goes off.
Austen launches himself off the bed like a missile, because the buzzer is his mortal enemy and must be destroyed.
I stumble to the intercom. “Hello?”
“Open up. We brought caffeine.”
Michelle. And based on the muffled chaos behind her voice, she didn't come alone.
