He bristles at the perceived insinuation that he needs to hitch his wagon to Darling’s star and insists that he writes serious books. When I ask if that means he doesn’t take Darling’s work seriously, he seems to shoot from the hip. “It’s a love story for teenagers. It’s never going to be taken seriously.”
“I know a few million people who would disagree with you. I believe they call themselves ‘Torchers,’ ” I counter.
Emerson laughs along with his friends. “Do you think I care about anyone who calls themselves a ‘Torcher’? Those people need to get a life.”
The honesty catches me off guard.Torchedhas a passionate fan base, and insulting them won’t doEmerson any favors. I ask him to be clear—is hedenyingthe rumors that Fox Caldwell is based on him?
“I haven’t seen Margot in half a decade,” he says, a statement that garners audible scoffs from the rest of the group. Seemingly unwilling to allow his friends to speak on the topic of Darling, he continues without pause. “If I was some sort of inspiration to her, and she’s still writing about me all these years later, wouldn’t that be kind of pathetic?”
It’s not exactly a denial, but it is a rebuke. One thing is clear: West Emerson has no interest in being cast as anyone’s muse.
When West finally calls, I block his number.
I spend the day in my hotel bed. The YA faction of every social media platform is the car crash I can’t look away from. Just when I think it can’t get worse for West, it does. He’s the main character of the day, and they’re tearing him to shreds on behalf of me, my readers, and the entire YA community. Uninvolved parties emerge from internet obscurity to contribute their two cents. And as usually happens, everyone has the same two cents: West is a judgmental, untalented, bitter snob. He doesn’t respect teenagers. He doesn’t respect women. He doesn’t respect YA readers. He doesn’t respect fantasy as a genre. He doesn’t respect romance.
He doesn’t respectme.
By the time the West Coast is sitting down for their morning coffee, the review-bombing has commenced. West’s previously under-the-radar novel gets spammed with one-star reviews.
I feel sick. The man in that article is not someone I know. Ishould have seen his friends for the glaring red flag they are instead of blindly believing he’s still the same person I fell in love with. I wanted it to be true so badly that I ignored common sense.
By evening, I’m trembling with unspent energy. It has taken every ounce of my self-control not to vomit my feelings all over the internet, but that will only make me look wounded, and what was the word West used?Pathetic.
I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
In search of a distraction, I open my Word document to read my manuscript one final time before sending it to my editor.
As I review the painstakingly chosen words, anger spills from my fingertips. It strikes me as absurd that Fox is so attractive. It’s not realistic! Before I know it, I’m making small changes here and there. Suddenly, Fox is a little less hot, a little less perfect. Instead of flawlessly tousled hair, I give him a bad haircut, and feel a small hum of satisfaction. What kind of masochist was I to immortalize my college boyfriend in paper and ink? The injury is too much, and there’s only one hope of fixing it.
When I stumble across a line of romantic dialogue that makes my stomach clench, ithurts, so I delete it. Human boys don’t ever say the exact right thing at the exact right time. Why should an immortal king be any different?
When Juniper waxes poetic about how much she loves Fox, I frown. Am I sending teenage girls a bad message? Should I let my heroine be a little more independent? Is she sure that Fox is even worth all this trouble?
Driven by West’s betrayal, I charge carelessly through revisions. I edit with the reckless abandon of someone who hasnothing to lose. By the time I get to the final act of the book, I’m knee-deep in blinding anger and unbearable hurt. I delete the last three chapters and rewrite them. I kill Fox Caldwell.
No one gets a happy ending. Not Fox, not Juniper. Not even their adopted magical wolf. He dies with Fox. It’s revenge and misery and gloom all the way down.
As the sun is rising over the Thames, I email the manuscript to my editor. She calls in a panic a few hours later. “None of this works. Especially not the ending.”
“It’s the ending I want.”
“Don’t betray your readers,” she begs. I tell her that nothing else feels honest. To the bitter end, West is the muse I can’t shake. I take perverse pleasure in knowing it’s a title he hates. When this book is published, headlines will be written with both our names in them. He can screw me and then screw me over, but he’ll never be able to escape me. He wants to be removed from this conversation?Too bad. With this ending, it’s impossible.
Whitney asks me to take a week to reconsider. She offers to brainstorm with me. But when the week is up, the sting of betrayal is still too fresh to consider anything else, and we both know that we’re out of time. The book goes to print. It is what it is.
At least it’s not boring.
By the timethe final book in theTorchedtrilogy is released, I realize thatboringwould have been a blessing. Readers can forgive boring. My sins are much greater, and there is no shortage of critics eager to catalog them all.
Each review reads worse than the one before it, and despite Daphne’s insistence that I stop reading, I can’t. I feel cursed. Addicted. I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and reread the tangible proof of my failure. I memorize the lines that hurt the most and let them play on a loop.
…an insult to both its genre and the intelligence of anyone brave enough to finish it…
Comically misguided.
Bestselling author Margot Darling strips the heart from a genre that deserves so much better.
Darling takes the very essence of YA romance and shreds it, leaving readers with a soulless imitation.
