…leaves me wondering whether Darling understands the genre she is trying to exploit…
I assumed the book would be polarizing, but I’ve never been further off the mark. The entire fandom has rallied together under the same cause: hating me.
I receive my first death threat two days after the book is published. I read it with shaky hands before sprinting to the bathroom. Daphne holds my hair back while I puke up breakfast, and then she helps me forward the message to my publisher and report it to the authorities. Half a dozen death threats later, I stop bothering with the formality, although my body trembles every time I open my email.
If possible, social media is worse. My accounts attract an onslaught of angry comments.
You owe me a refund and several hours of my life back.
BRB, burning all of your books
A dumpster fire from start to finish
Did you really have to kill the dog?
(Why the hell did I kill the dog?)
Last book of yours I’ll ever touch
Go die
Two weeks after the release, Daphne pries my phone from my fingers and deactivates all my accounts.
My publishing team cancels my tour.
A complete reworking of the book pops up on a fan fiction website. I read it, and the truth is humbling; the story treats my characters with more respect than I did. It’s more fun, more satisfying. It’sbetter.
On a long, sobbing phone call with Danielle, who has been more loyal amid the shitstorm than any agent should have to be, I promise to write a new book and have it ready to sell by the end of the year. She advises me to slow down, take a breath, give myself time. I don’t want time, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I want; it only matters what I’m capable of. And that includes very little except lying in bed, numb to the world. Daphne tries to help, but she’s out of her depth.
In the span of six months, my entire life and sense of self fall apart. I can’t write. Can’t read. Can’t get on the internet.Can’t leave my apartment. I have always defined myself by my success, and the idea of redefining myself without it is unfathomable. My brain becomes a dark, desperate place, and when I drill down to the center of it, I find West Emerson.
He ruined me, and I’ll never forgive him.
33
Present Day
I slam thedoor to West’s truck and barely think as I charge across rain-soaked asphalt. “Mars!” West catches up to me too quickly. “Where are you going?”
“I’m storming away!” I’m not ready to face him yet. I’m still fuming.
“Why?”
“It’s called a dramatic exit, and you’re ruining it.” Nature has provided all the drama an author could ask for: mountains and desert and a traffic-stopping thunderstorm. If West would’ve just left me alone, this would have been an extremely cool, cathartic moment.
Instead, his long strides easily keep pace with me. His height is pissing me off.Why does he have to be so tall?
“Mars.” He catches me by the crook of my elbow and turns me toward him. “Please talk to me.” His expression is bewildered, and if I had any sense at all, I’d stomp away and leave him wet and miserable and confused.
I hate myself a little when I don’t.
I want him to beg me on his hands and knees to stay.
I want it to hurt when I leave.
And the fact that any of that still matters to me is the reason I stay. If I hadeverbeen capable of walking away from West, we wouldn’t be in this mess at all.
“I read your book.”
