Page 25 of Philippa Flynn’s Year of Panic and Piracy

My throat goes tight, and I have to look away. My grandmother used to say the same thing to me. I believe in you. And I hope one day I can help you believe in yourself. I’d call her from grad school, bereft because I’d blown a class assignment, my research was stalled, or I’d lost a fellowship opportunity to a classmate who’d spent the semester partying. My parents had been unsympathetic. If they weren’t turning my disappointments into lessons I should learn, they were chiding me for getting so upset about something that didn’t matter. Failing as a historian wasn’t like failing as a surgeon, with a body on the operating table. All I needed was some perspective. But Grams? She got it. Every time. True acceptance. That’s what she offered me. For twenty-eight years. And I didn’t realize until she was gone how rare a gift that can be.

As I fight off tears, determined not to make this moment about me when Dylan is finally opening up, he draws in a sharp breath while unlacing his fingers to drag a hand down his face. Not just his chin this time. Forehead, brows, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, the whole lot.

“Anyway,” he says, “we stayed in touch. Became friends. She’d ask what I was working on or share a chapter of whatever she was working on, requesting my feedback even though she hardly needed it. I sent her outtakes from cover shoots. We talked about popular romance trends and how she’d do anything to get her characters into a closet together, no matter how contrived.”

I smile, hanging on every word as I recall a few of Grams’s steamiest closet scenes.

Dylan doesn’t smile, but amusement tints his eyes, like he’s recalling those scenes, too.

“My life sort of imploded a couple of years later.” He pauses again, just long enough for me to bookmark the comment. “I told her the basics. She said anytime I wanted it, she’d have a job for me. Or a home.” His hand stays wrapped over the lower half of his face as he looks my way. A form of armor, maybe, even though he’s revealing parts of himself his face wouldn’t disclose.

“Sounds like she really cared about you,” I say.

He nods as he drags his hand downward, resting it in a loose fist on his chest.

“I don’t know if I can write a good novel without her,” he says, and god, it’s like a dagger in the heart, for him and for me. For him, it’s a brutal truth he’s been wrestling with for six years, one that left him hiding away in a crumbling house, alone with a laptop he probably despises by now. For me, it’s a painful reminder of what it’s meant to lose the one person in my life who fully supported me, whether I wanted to spend a summer devouring Nancy Drew books and collecting sea glass, or pursue a PhD in history, or confront my parents about unfriending Harrison on Facebook, which took way more convincing than it should have.

People are so quick to judge when anyone says they need someone else. We’re being codependent, weak, or “propped up” when we should be finding our strength within ourselves. But don’t we all need other people? Or even if we don’t, aren’t we sometimes better with other people? More assertive. More aware. More motivated. More open to ideas that aren’t our own. More able to see when we’re tearing ourselves down unnecessarily. When we’re getting in our own way and a little boost of confidence from someone we care about can nudge us forward.

The challenge, of course, is finding the right people. Or even the right person.

“I’m sorry,” I say, because it’s the only phrase that feels right in this moment. I don’t know enough about Dylan to tell him that of course he can write a good novel, but I do know that what he’s feeling about his writing sucks, and that I miss my grandmother, too. I miss her like a gaping, hollow, windswept pit in my heart that no one and nothing could ever fill. The moment I think I’ve plugged a nook or a corner, the pit changes shape and gapes anew.

“Thanks,” he says, and then he surprises me by lowering his hand and resting it, palm up, between us, wiggling his fingers just enough for me to understand the invitation for what it is.

I unlace my hands and rest the one closest to him in his, fighting another heart pinch as his fingers wrap around mine. It’s a friendly handhold. A thank-you handhold. It’s also a first handhold, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t mean anything, not after it’s taken so long to get here.

“That’s why you weren’t sure you’d want to write her books anymore?” I ask.

“Something like that.” His thumb sweeps the side of my hand. An unconscious gesture, probably, but one I like anyway. “Part of me feels like they’d help. I’d have a road map. I know her writing voice. I’ve spent so much time with the world and characters. The other part feels like I’d be pretending to be someone I’m not anymore, and if I only make it to chapter three, I wouldn’t just be letting myself down. I’d be letting her down, too.”

I give his hand a squeeze, hoping it’s comforting. I don’t know who I am anymore, either, and right now, I feel like the best thing we can do for each other is not know together.

Another long silence stretches out, this one a little more comfortable than the last, despite the lumpy mattress, the disgusting water stain, the air of mutual failure, and a profound sense of loss. More than stones have toppled today. An entire tower came down. Dylan’s also still sweeping his thumb across my skin, and I’m enjoying every sweep.

“Where are you with the books?” he asks.

“Number eleven, I think?” I let my brain reset as I try to remember the cover. An island setting. Zane and Euphoria wrapped around each other. Her gown billowing as he wrenches it off her shoulders, baring her back while he leans over her, his eyes hungry with desire. “Zane broke into Lord Arlington’s estate and found a treasure map in a hidden compartment at the bottom of his daughter’s hope chest. I’m pretty sure he’s about to have a fling with the daughter, since he thinks Euphoria betrayed him with Arlington, but don’t spoil it for me. I’ll read more tonight.”

Dylan nods in that way he does, slowly, barely bobbing his chin, his thoughts deep and his eyes distant. He’s read all the books, so he knows what’s coming. I think he secretly enjoys my speculations, especially when they turn out to be way off. And this one—

“Wait.” His breath halts. His hand goes still. “What did you just say?”

“Um . . . that I’d read more tonight?”

“Before that.”

“That I thought Zane and Delilah Arlington were about to bang?”

“Before that.”

“Zane found a map in a hidden compartment of—” It hits me before I finish.

I bolt upright. Dylan does, too.

“Race you there?” he says.

“Absolutely!”