“Not this.” My hand is cupped on the back of his neck, and I apply pressure until my lips are against his ear. “Writing kiss scenes.”
His eyelids flutter closed as he presses his lips to my neck, and I shiver against him. He cinches me tighter in his arms and trails kisses from my earlobe down. “Happy to help,” he says, and this time, I feel his smile in the hollow of my collarbone before he chases it with a breath of hot air and a firm kiss. And another. And another. I dissolve slowly in layers, melting into him, and when the earth shifts beneath me, I feel like I’m slipping over the edge of something steep.
9
Present Day
Never underestimate howfar in life you can get on determination and spite. When I march away from Daphne, I don’t have even a hint of a plan vis-à-vis West’s continued efforts to ruin my life, but I’m fueled by righteous indignation. That need for retaliation propels my feet forward. My destination is currently unknown, but I’ll pace this campus until either West expires under the weight of his own self-importance, like a dying star collapsing in on itself, or I figure out how to deal with him. Whichever comes first. I’m not picky.
I keep to the fringes of the festival, waiting for inspiration to strike. Since I started living in New York City, walking has become my best method for brainstorming. During the drafting ofShattered, I walkeda lot. Every day. Sometimes for hours. Then, when I felt ready, I returned home to write.
Buoyed by my success after so many years of wondering if I’d ever write another word, I preached the virtues of the brainstorm walk to Daphne and dragged her out with me. This usually turned into her helping me with my plot problems; walkingdoes nothing for her creativity, because she does it wrong. The problem with my best friend is that she always has something in her ears, usually a podcast or an audiobook bumped up to 2.5 speed. My brain couldn’t untangle anything under those conditions, either.
No, the trick is to stop trying so damn hard and let my mind wander down unexplored paths. I’ve filled many a plot hole aimlessly trawling the streets of New York, and I expect today’s walk to give the same results. A brilliant flash of inspiration, if you will.
Ithasto.
Except it doesn’t.
I’m on my fourth lap when I begin to worry.
Relaxing is an issue. My shoulders are tense, my chest is tight, and my mind is loud with the grating sound of West’s voice scraping over bone.
Likewise, Darling.
As ifhehas the right to be angry withme.
Staying focused is another issue.
Instead of exploring creative ways to exile West from my life or send him to his knees, groveling for forgiveness that I will not grant, my brain is stuck on the same story as always. West and me, how we nearly got it right and then imploded in spectacular fashion. (Perhaps this is where the dying-star metaphor belongs.)
Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly vulnerable, I wonder if there’s a part of my brain that thinks it can outsmart the past. As if history is a plot hole I can rewrite.
Backing away from the dangerous edge of that thought, I pull open a door and step inside, goose bumps pebbling across my skin. I inhale the scent of the library, which is really just anunidentified mustiness that refuses to be romanticized by nostalgia. Independent of a conscious decision, my feet carry me to the third floor. I close my eyes and let my weight sag against the stacks that West once pressed me up against while my mind is hard at work turning worry to despair.
What am I going to do?
No brilliant answers appear. And sometimes brainstorming is like that. Sometimes my first idea is the only one that will really work, and there’s nothing to be done but grit my teeth and force the story into submission through sheer will. It’s not my favorite way to write, but not every chapter can be driven by mad flashes of inspiration. In fact, most of them aren’t.
I need to get West kicked off my panel.
I retrace my steps down the library stairs and back out into the festival. I’m heading toward the admin building when I’m nearly bowled over by a harried-looking woman in business casual. “Oh! Sorry!” she gasps as she stops short two seconds before collision.
“No worries.”
She looks up at me then, her face alight with recognition. “Margot! I’m Kate Marsh, one of the directors of events! It’s so good to have you with us this year!” We shake hands. “I’m glad I caught you.” She gives me a conference schedule from a large stack in her arms. “Have you seen the new schedule? The old one was a mess. Tents were double-booked, and if that wasn’t a big enough nightmare, they had to rope some off on the west end because of a bee problem, and now we’re scrambling to get the new schedule into everyone’s hands. The changes are highlighted in yellow. We’re making announcements, and emails have gone out to the mailing list, but I’m worried about thesigning event that starts in fifteen minutes. It was moved all the way to the other end of the lawn.”
She points to a small list of highlighted names. At the top is West Emerson.
My expression must betray my interest, because she frowns curiously. “You know West, don’t you?”
“I actually wanted to talk to you about that. About my panel with him on Sunday.”
“We’re excited about it, and we appreciate your flexibility. We’d hate to have to cancel.” She looks up with a smile, and then back at the schedules. In one hand is a phone from which she’s been firing off texts or emails for our entire conversation. “Have you seen him today?” Her question hangs in the breezy, sunny, floral-scented air.
We’d hate to have to cancel.
“I don’t know where he is.”
