I have long learned that, just like animals, humans are all born into a hierarchy of predator and prey. Sure, most of us don’t go around ripping each other’s necks out, but we are all hunting or being hunted in one way or another. And I am one of nature’s prey. I’ve made peace with that.
My patience knows no boundaries. Somehow, even when I think I’ve had enough, when I think the last shreds of my dignity have been snatched away, I manage to scrounge up an extra tiny bit. Like now, for example. I would’ve loved to stand up straight, shoulders back, and say in a firm voice, “Annette, you are a brilliant photographer and I admire you deeply, but I don’t think making your coffee is part of my job description.”
Of course, I don’t do any of that. Just the thought of it is enough to make me shiver. An actual tingling going down my spine at the image of me speaking like that to not just Annette but anyone, really.
If I sound like a pathetic loser, it’s because I am. My therapist would sigh and shake her head if she heard me referring to myself as a “pathetic loser,” but I haven’t been able to let go of that label. For now. I have this firm belief that once my book gets published, I will be able to stop seeing myself as a loser.
Annette often jokes about how I’m learning all her trade secrets so that I could replace her one day, but the truth is, I don’t want to be a photographer. Dealing with customers terrifies me. No, I want to be an author. It’s the whole reason I moved all the way from LA to New York City. Here is the hub of publishing, where every major publisher is and where all the respectable literary agents are. I have dreams of bumping into an editor in chief of some Penguin Random House imprint while buying Annette’s kale-and-brussels-sprout salad. Of my manuscript flopping out of my bag (in my daydreams I carry around a printout of my manuscript everywhere I go, even though of course I don’t do this in real life) and the editor flipping through the first pages. Her entireexpression would light up as she reads my first paragraph. She’d look up at me and say, “Who are you? Let’s talk.” And my life would change, just like that.
Unfortunately, this isn’t how publishing works. The truth is, editors are inundated with manuscripts to read. If one actually fell at their feet at Sweetgreen, they’d probably run away screaming.
But I’m not entirely hopeless; in fact, I have a literary agent. Bet you weren’t expecting that. Not Fern! But yup, I do. I signed with her eight months ago (best day of my life), and after three months of revisions, we are now on submission to publishers. Most people outside publishing don’t know what a feat it is to even get a literary agent to represent you. My parents definitely don’t. They are real estate agents, and when I was querying literary agents, they kept going, “Fern, I don’t understand what’s the holdup in finding a literary agent to represent you. Our clients come to us with a house and we’re like, ‘Sure, I’ll be your agent.’ Why can’t you just do that?” I got tired of trying to explain that literary agents get thousands of emails a year from hopeful writers begging for representation and that they can only sign on a handful.
So I know enough to know that my book is actually good. Good enough to get me an offer from a real-life New York literary agent! Her name is Poppy, and she is brilliant. Okay, so she’s pretty junior; technically she’s an assistant herself, but her boss trusts her enough to start her own list, which is saying something. And everyone says that younger, newer agents are hungry, which is perfect because that’s what I am too. Hungry. Starved, really. Like there’s a black hole inside me that can never be filled up. It’s what I’ve been for as long as I can remember. But I know that once I get a publishing deal, none of this—not Haven’s glossy success or Annette taking advantage of me or even my horrible, painful past—none of it will matter anymore, because that hole inside of me? It’ll finally be filled up.
Chapter 2
Age Eighteen
I don’t know what I’m doing here. Prom. What a joke. It’s not like anyone asked me to come. And Haven left a note in my locker a month ago that said: “If you dare show your disgusting face at prom, you’ll regret it.”
She hadn’t even bothered to type it out. She’d written it in her easily recognizable handwriting, knowing that I don’t have the guts to report it to anyone. Every teacher in school absolutely adores Haven. I can just imagine their reaction if I showed them the note and told them I thought it was from Haven. They’d tell me I don’t have enough proof, that anyone could imitate someone else’s handwriting. They’d give another useless speech about bullying, blah, blah, blah, and at the end of the day, nothing would be achieved aside from me gaining a reputation as a snitch.
So I did nothing, and now it’s prom night and I find myself driving to school and selecting the darkest, most secluded spot to park at. I just couldn’t stay away. I wanted to go, and, I don’t know, I guess torture myself by seeing everyone else there with their friends, all dressed up and looking beautiful and having fun. What a cliché, huh? I guess part of me thought I could be like a character in those YA books where the female main character is way too cool to go to anything as dumb as the school prom. I thought that maybe if I just went in my jeans and shirtand saw everybody else dressed to the nines, I’d be like, “Ha, who wants to go to prom anyway?”
But the truth is, as I sit here in my car watching people arrive, the thoughtThey look dumbor anything like that never crosses my mind. They actually look amazing, like models or influencers or whatever. And I’m the one that looks dumb, sitting here in my hoodie and jeans, watching them like a total creep. Tears fill my eyes, and for the hundredth time, I think: Please take me away from this existence. I don’t want to exist anymore. It’s too painful. Please, universe, please take me away, please just—
Something slams into my window. Holy shit. It’s Haven, both of her palms pressed up against my window. Adrenaline surges through my veins, my thoughts a manic scramble of fear and shame and so many other emotions I can’t even name. How the hell did I not see Haven approaching my car?
She grins at me, and in the darkness, her face looks grotesque, the mouth stretched painfully wide, her eyes lasered on mine. She looks like a beautiful monster who wouldn’t think twice before ripping me apart. As I watch, frozen, she takes her manicured finger and trails it from one side of her neck to the other.
A metallic taste fills the back of my mouth. I am this close to actually peeing myself. In all of my fantasies, I am a courageous heroine eager to face down her enemies. But in reality, I am so scared. So fearful. And so powerless.
Someone in the distance must have called out to Haven, because she turns her head and straightens up, that vicious grin quickly replaced by her usual gentle smile. She shoots me another glare, then stalks off toward the school entrance, her svelte figure sashaying attractively. No one would believe what I’d just seen. The real Haven, unmasked, nothing but sharp claws and fangs. Even I’m questioning it. Did that really happen? Did I imagine it? That’s the problem with Haven. Every awful thing she does to me is so quick and fleeting that I end up questioning my own sanity.
I grip my wheel hard and lick my lips, willing myself to calm down. Once the adrenaline starts to ebb, tears rush into my eyes. I spot Dani in the distance, waving at Haven. The two of them skip with excitement and hug each other, and I can no longer stifle the sobs. I wish I could describe the desolation I feel.
They’re all going to good colleges. Haven got into Stanford, and Dani’s going to Berkeley. I just know they’re going to remain friends throughout college while I fade from their memories. I am nothing. Just a blip in their lives that they won’t even remember, but I will always remember them. I will always remember my friendship with Dani and how wonderful it was, and how Haven came and ruined everything, and even that wasn’t enough—she couldn’t stop there, after stealing Dani from me. She had to go and ruin everything else.
I didn’t get into any colleges. Miss Jordan, the guidance counselor, had sighed and said, “I did try to warn you, Fern. I told you that you needed extracurriculars. And didn’t I tell you to apply to safety schools?”
I told her that I tried, I really did, but that they all rejected me because of Haven. But she wouldn’t believe me. No one believes me when I tell them what Haven’s done, and maybe that’s part of her genius, that she goes to extremes to torture me, to such lengths that it sounds ridiculous. I mean, who’s going to believe me when I say that Haven went around bad-mouthing me to every club and every society so that they all rejected me? It sounds crazy. But that’s Haven for you.
So now I’m gonna have to go to a community college for a while, and I’m so ashamed of it. I’m such a huge failure. I don’t understand why I’m such a loser. I have nothing, and she has everything, and it’s not right, because she’s so evil. Why can’t we live in a world where evil people get what they deserve?
Chapter 3
It’s funny how we never know when our lives are about to change. Today, for example, starts out like any other day. In the morning, like usual, I am woken up by Terry’s music. Terry is my next-door neighbor, and just like how I’m trying to be an author, Terry is trying to be a musician. But the similarities between us end there. Writing is a quiet endeavor. Terry’s vocation, on the other hand, not so much.
He has a keyboard right up against my bedroom wall, which is really not ideal. I once gathered enough courage to ask if he could move it to a different spot in his apartment, and he said, “That room has the best acoustics in the house. You’d understand if you appreciated the arts more.” Fair point, I guess.
I admit, after he woke me up at 4:00 the seventh morning in a row, I complained about it to our landlord, who told Terry to turn the volume down. Terry did so, but over the next few days, he turned the volume back up in increments so small that I wondered if I’d imagined it, until it became loud enough to wake me. I didn’t bother lodging another complaint. And anyway, I didn’t like snitching about Terry behind his back. It felt slimy, the kind of thing Haven might do.
And that is why I spend most of my nights with my pillow pushed down over my head, trying to block out the noise. At six, my phone alarm goes off. I grab my phone, turn off the alarm, and open my Gmail account, hoping to find an email from Poppy.
There is, in fact, an email from Poppy. My heart leaps for a split second before my brain registers the subject line: “Fwd: rejection from Summerhouse Press.” My breath releases in a dejected sigh. I scroll through my inbox, taking count of all the rejections that Poppy has forwarded me so far. We are on our second round of submissions. The first round, she sent my book out to ten publishers and received six rejections. The remaining four publishers ghosted her. This round, she sent it to seven publishers, and so far we have received two rejections. I try not to dwell on the fact that Poppy burned through all the major publishers in the first round and we are now left with the midsize publishing houses. Let’s face it: I would take a deal from the smallest, least prestigious publishing house if it means that I get to be a published author.
I don’t need to go to Annette’s studio until later in the day, so after getting up, I go to the kitchen and turn an audiobook on while I make my breakfast. I take out my sourdough starter, Doughlores, from the fridge and pour some of it into a bowl. I’m proud of Doughlores’s name. I mean, come on, how cute is that? She’s four years old now, so she’s pretty mature tasting, and she gives the most amazing depth of flavor to everything I bake with her in it. This morning, I opt to make sourdough chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I always make way too much to finish on my own, so I set some aside to bring to work with me, and the rest I pack up into various plastic containers.
