I shut off my notifications, stuffed my phone away, and walked into my writing workshop.
Conversations stopped. Every head turned. Like I had Gray’s book cover taped to my forehead. Or a Scarlet Letter pinned to my chest. Every person in the room had attended the reading two nights ago. Half of them had witnessed my freeze-and-flight response to Gray at the reception afterward.
Of course they were talking about it.
Then Erinma caught my eye and smiled, and Alan waved. Even Claire broke off chatting with Ryan to nod. Shauna shifted her book bag to the floor, clearing the seat next to hers. I sank into the empty chair, relieved. Grateful. One of them.
Our instructor for the term—“Call me Brian,” he’d invited us on the first day of class—started critique with the skill of a kindergarten teacher or a marriage counselor, inviting us to share our feelings, to useIstatements, to be kind. After the past semester with Maeve, we all knew how it felt to be judged. We pulled up or pulled out our marked-up pages, offering comments and encouragement on one another’s work, pointing out places we thought there could be room for improvement, noting a slow opening here, questioning a character’s motivation there.
Ryan had written a short story set in the violent dystopian future of his game world, a kaleidoscopic scene of a city’s sacking written mostly from the point of view of a brutal, unnamed warlord. We did our best with it, struggling—I struggled—to find things we liked, to be honest and constructive.
“The details are very raw.”
“Real.”
“Risky.”
“Lots of visceral emotion.”
“But it’s shit,” Erinma said.
We drew in our collective breath, looking instinctively to Brian for guidance.
“Respect the oeuvre,” our instructor said. “There is no right or wrong in writing, only what works and does not work.”
“You can quote Yoda all day long,” Shauna said. “That doesn’t make it right.”
Erinma nodded. “I can’t respect a pile of misogynistic crap that glorifies violence against women.”
“In all fairness, video games are historically masculine narratives. Objectifying or sexualizing female characters is pretty common,” Alan said.
“So it’s not only wrong,” Claire said, “it’s derivative.”
Ryan flinched, staring into his laptop screen as if he could disappear inside, like Alice through the Looking Glass.
“Maybe we’re supposed to see how wrong it is,” I suggested. “Like inThe Handmaid’s Tale.”
Heads swiveled to Ryan.
“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled.
“You could work on that,” I said. “Make it clearer.”
“Instead of feeding the stereotypes,” Erinma said.
“And I think that’s all we have time for today,” Brian said. “Dee, do you have anything for us?”
“I’d like another week,” I said. “Mr.Diggs suggested I push my protagonist out of her comfort zone, and I want to take more time with it.”
“Certainly.”
I sailed out of class on a little cloud of self-confidence that lasted through my library shift and all the way home. When I reached Tim’s landing, my hand rose to knock on his door. But I didn’t havethatmuch courage. Or maybe I didn’t want to take the shift in our relationship status for granted. Just because we’d seen each other naked didn’t mean he’d be glad to see me first thing after work. He might not even be home yet.
I should trust him. Trust myself, the way I’d told Reeti. He wasn’t going to ghost me. But it had been eighteen hours, and he still hadn’t called.
Reeti and Toni were eating on the couch when I walked in the door.
“Good, you’re home,” Reeti said. “We’re going to The Old Spot and get pissed.”
