“I’m not taking the offer,” I snapped. “I want credit. I want the truth. I will go public!”
Sage raised her brows. “This blackmail attempt is not cute. And you’re lucky I’m feeling so good after hitting theNew York Timeslist, because blackmail isillegal. Your issues could get a lot worse if I pursue this.”
“You’re out of your mind.” I couldn’t believe she was doing this to me. Again. She wanted to steal another idea of mine. Sure, she’dbe paying me, but at what cost? I wouldn’t have any of the things I really wanted or needed, and Sage was already showing I was replaceable.
“Do you know how expensive it is to sue someone?” Sage continued, glowering at me. “Do you know howhardit is to win a copyright lawsuit, especially when you don’t have anything really written? It’s not worth it. My lawyers would bury you. I’ll ask you one more time: Do you accept my offer or not?”
I couldn’t see. Red and black striped my vision, and my heart was thundering so painfully in my chest I wondered if I was about to have a panic attack. The words came out of my mouth from far away. “No. I don’t accept.”
“Then,” Sage said, shaking her head as if I failed her and not the other way around. “We have nothing more to talk about. It’s over. Good luck, Char.”
I reeled away from her, leaning against the wooden railing of the dock. Sage skirted around me, swishing her hips as she walked back to her apartment building to get her laptop. She was going to continue on with her day, typing away, telling her publishers to move forward with a different ghostwriter. Nothing would change for her.
But I had glimpsed justice. I had smelled hope. And then it was all wrenched away, leaving me feeling worse than before.
I slumped against the rough railing, looking blankly at the familiar boat floating on the river. The boat I spent hours on dreaming up my novel.
Before I knew what was happening, I was walking over to the vessel.
The namePersephonewas stenciled on the side in italics. Seeing it shot another bolt of rage through my torso. Sage’s boat used to be calledSea It to Believe It. She changed it after getting her book deal. After stealing my Persephone and Hades retelling.
I approached the boat, my footsteps thudding heavily on the dock as I glanced around. It was always busy on the riverwalk in the summer, but for the moment, no one else was around. Without thinking, I stepped onboard.
The white leather interior seats were strewn with belongings I recognized as Sage’s. There were three six-packs from Lakefront Brewery waiting for her—Sage’s process of drinking and drafting was still going strong. I wrinkled my nose and glanced around, my eyes landing on a familiar phone case.
Sage, without a care in the world, left her phone sitting out in the sun on the passenger’s seat near the front of the boat. The phone she took notes on while she was stealing my novel. The phone on which she received the call when her agent told her the good news about the bidding war overASOSAS. The phone that was constantly blowing up with notifications about reviews, book boxes, movie deals, foreign rights sales, and social media accolades.
As I stared at Sage’s phone, everything I had been through in the past year bubbled up violently. The echo of Sage’s voice rang in my head, images of her face flickering before my eyes.
“It’s over.”
“Like hell,” I whispered.
I took the phone. I slipped it into the pocket of my athletic shorts. I turned to leave before I got caught. Sage was so cavalier with her belongings; she probably wouldn’t even notice the phone was missing for hours. And that’s all I was going to do. Steal her phone, drop it in the lake somewhere, maybe, make her go through the hassle of having to get a new one.
But I stopped when I saw the anchor.
It was lying there in a puddle of chains, off to the side, old beer cans standing sentinel around it.
My rage wasn’t quieting. Instead, it was building. I looked around again to make sure no one was watching, and then kneeled down, running a finger over the pronged silver anchor. It was attached to a length of chunky chain by a larger link with a threaded screw going through a galvanized shackle.
Slowly, I unscrewed the shackle, removing the small piece of metal that kept the link bolted to the anchor. Then, I dropped the untethered chain to the floor next to the anchor.
She would see it, I knew.
Sage would notice the anchor was suddenly not attached to the chain when she went to toss it overboard after she got out to her usual swimming spot out on Lake Michigan.
She would fix it, anchor the boat, and move on with her day.
Except that’s not what happened.
It was supposed to be a prank. A petty, small piece of revenge by the scorned best friend.
TheMilwaukee Journalspeculated that Sage had been too tipsy to realize the anchor was separated from its chain before she tossed it in the water. Boozy, carefree, never worrying about what might happen ifPersephonedrifted while she was so far from shore, Sage jumped in. She was drunk, after all. Her judgment was hazy. Sage could have turned around, found a safer area to swim. But she didn’t. And when the wind picked up and she realizedPersephonewas floating away from her, fast, Sage must have tried to swim after it. Only the pontoon was far, and Sage hadn’t bothered to put on a life jacket because we never did when we swam.
Sage wasn’t a mermaid. She wasn’t like the characters in my book.
If she hadn’t been fogged by booze and our fight, would Sage have thought twice about swimming without an anchor on a windy, late summer day?
