Chapter Nineteen
Noah
Fight for It
I find Savannah at her table by the fireplace in the library, and take the seat across from her with a surprised smile, as if I haven’t been running around campus to find her.
“Professor Dixon cancelled class,” she explains, though I shouldn’t know her schedule.
“You’re writing?” I recognize the notebook, and there was a smile mixed with her furrowed brow of concentration.
“I was,” she agrees, closing it with the pen still inside.
“Don’t stop on my account. I was just coming to study when I saw a friendly face.” Because, technically, I don’t even know if we’re friends or just two people exchanging services. Which I would very much like to make amendments to.
“Oh.” She looks uncertain.
“I promise I won’t try to read over your shoulder.” That reassures her, so she opens it again. “Or try to figure out why you’re smiling,” I add, because I’m a shit disturber today. But then her face goes the lightest shade of red as she attempts to school her features, and I’m the ones who’s affected.
“If you’d come in ten minutes ago, I was practically bawling,” she admits.
“Why would you do that to yourself?”
“I don’t?—”
“Don’t say the characters act on their own. I’ve seen you plotting.” Not on purpose, because I don’t think she lets anyone see her writing before it’s done, but she’s a lot more forthcoming with Izzie. And my sister only keeps secrets she knows are secrets.
“Plotting doesn’t mean characters can’t surprise you,” Savannah argues. “But this was backstory. We love happily ever afters, but it took crappy attempts at writing to realize that happy people meeting happy people, falling in love, and living happily ever after is boring as hell. You need to make them fight for it, or grow, or learn a lesson…you need reasons they’re not immediately together.”
It's more than she’s told me about her book in ages, but it’s all general, about books, not her book.
“There was a girl at Thanksgiving reading a hockey romance. The cover was like a cartoon couple on a rink…”
“A lot of them look like that.”
“The Deal or something?”
“Oh, I love Elle Kennedy. She’s the first hockey romance I read before I…fell down a rabbit hole.” She looks at me like I am a huge part of this rabbit hole she fell into, and I am suddenly very grateful for Elle Kennedy.
“Are your books like hers?”
“God, no, she’s way better. I’d love to be half as good as her.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“You haven’t even read anything I’ve written.”
“But you’re awesome, so I’m sure your writing is too.”
Savannah rolls her eyes, but it’s not false modesty, it’s like she truly doubts herself and thinks I’m joking.
“Is yours the same type of book?”
“She’s what I’m aspiring to be,” Savannah agrees, then goes back to writing, which is her way of retreating from this conversation. But then she rereads her sentence to add more, and no matter how still her face has become, her cheeks turn red. Like she’s embarrassed. Or she’s gotten to the sexy parts.
“What are you writing right now?” I ask.
“My book.”
