…when I look at you, I still see that little girl who would rather put books in order on a bookshelf than go play with other kids. The one who enjoyed making recommendations and dreamed of writing her own stories one day. I still recognize her in you and I still see the flickers of that old wish in your eyes. And that’s why I want to give you the chance to get that hope back.
I put the letter down and glanced around the room, trying to find my computer. Then I sat on the bed and turned it on. My hands were jittery as I opened a hidden folder. I hadn’t looked at it in years. I picked the first file on the list. One hundred twenty pages of a love story set in a fantastical universe, with gates to other dimensions and people with psychic powers. I grinned as I recalled how I’d come up with the idea after binging on all the seasons ofHeroesand falling in love with Milo Ventimiglia.
I opened another and scanned the first few paragraphs. Dear Lord. I didn’t even remember this one; I must have been nine or ten when I started writing it. Next.
Dear Mr. Darcy, how much harm you did to my idea of love, I thought, after skimming the sad prologue to yet another of my manuscripts.
I lay back and rested the laptop on my belly and started to read my most recent attempt at a novel. A nearly finished project that I abandoned at the last minute out of…fear? Indecision? It felt like a century since I’d written the last word. Now I couldn’t remember what had stopped me.
I looked up, rubbed my tired eyes, and glanced at the clock. For three hours, I’d been absorbed in pages I myself had written. In those words, I had found so many parts of myself that I could have used them to build a second me. And that encouraged me.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn’t lost. I’d justforgotten where I was hiding. For so long that I might as well have disappeared.
I got up feeling giddy with hope, like a rocket that was about to take off. And I knew. I’m not sure how, but I knew. I knew it in my body. I knew it in my heart. And I stopped falling, and the void beneath me disappeared, and my feet were on the ground. The veil had lifted, and I was walking tall, and at last I was getting somewhere.
Like a rocket, I flew out of the room. My heart was pounding out of my chest. It was late. I should have been asleep hours ago, but I needed to tell him. Out loud. I needed to tellhim.
His door was cracked. I pushed it open.
“Trey?” I wasn’t sure he heard me, so I walked close to the bed. “Trey?”
“Harper? Are you…are you all right?” His voice was groggy, hoarse.
“I know what I want.”
“What?”
“I know what I want to do.”
He felt around for the lamp on the nightstand and turned it on, then blinked several times and rubbed his eyes, not quite able to believe what I was telling him. I climbed into the bed on my knees, smiling like a lunatic. I couldn’t help it—I was euphoric. So euphoric that I didn’t notice he was clothed only in a skimpy pair of boxers. A little patch of fabric and then skin, muscles, a patch of hair around his belly button, and five stars, each bigger than the one before it, trailing down his side.
That wasn’t there four years ago!
I tried to ignore the tingle I was feeling as well as my memories of the night we’d made love. He was squinting and smirking, but I could tell he thought I was acting weird.
“I know what I want to do,” I repeated. I waited a few seconds to make it suspenseful, then burst out, “I want to write. I want to livesurrounded by books. I want to move other people with my words. I want to leave a mark on their lives. I want to create memories and feelings. I want to give people things to dream of. I want to make their hearts race. I want all that. And I want to do it in the only place I’ve ever actually been happy. My grandmother’s bookstore.”
Trey sat up and leaned against the headboard, seeming unsure what to say as he looked me over from head to toe.
“See? You do know what you want. You always did. You just needed to remember where you left that part of yourself.”
“I did! I found it! I can feel it. I can feel that tingle in my fingers telling me to write. That’s what I want to do. Not think about the future or other people. Who cares what anyone thinks? I’ve had enough of being the good little girl who just swallows everything, who always says yes, who bends over and lets everyone get their way.”
“Damn straight. Just because other people like to have an opinion doesn’t mean they have any idea who you are or what you need.”
“Well, to hell with them!”
“That’s right! To hell with them! No one can choose your road. It’s yours and yours alone.”
He understood me. And that made me happy.
“You’re a know-it-all, but I like that,” I said.
I felt something tug at that thread that had connected us those days, and suddenly my head was empty. And maybe that’s why I did the first thing that occurred to me. Stupid as it might have been.
I bent over clumsily and grabbed his chin and kissed him. Just for a second. And he kissed back, and I felt him sigh.
I pulled away as quickly as I could, realizing what I was doing, and jumped out of the bed.
