Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
The words spill out, a mix of frustration, anger, and resilience. I take a break to breathe, staring at the screen. It feels good to channel my emotions, to sculpt them into something tangible. I can reclaim my story. I don’t need Talon to validate my worth.
Suddenly, a notification pops up on screen: New Message.
My heart races as I see the name: Talon McKnight. I hesitate before clicking but then, do the deed.
“Katherine,” it begins, and I can almost hear his voice, low and smooth, cutting through the silence of my apartment. “I’m sorry your employment ended on a bad note…”
I close the laptop, shutting out the rest of the message. How dare he approach me professionally, like our liaison was nothing but a job? My throat closes, my chest feeling tight. I need time to sort through this whirlwind of feelings. I’m not ready to face him, to unpack the mess of emotions I still carry.
With a sigh, I get up and pour myself a glass of water. As I stand at the sink, staring into the murky depths, a flicker of determination ignites within me.
I deserve more than this.
I resolve to circle back to my writing, to use my pain as fuel. Opening the laptop again, I type with renewed vigor, crafting a story that speaks to the truth of my experiences, my growth, and my resilience.
“This is my story, and I will write it on my terms.”
The words flow, and for the first time since I left the cabin, I feel a sense of power returning. I won’t let my past dictate my future. I’ll write myself back to life, one word at a time.
14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – HE WROTE ME A BOOK!
KAT
Six months after my interlude in the woods, and I’m technically thriving. At least, that’s how an outside person would see it.
The world is in living color again, full of barista steam and the hiss of espresso machines, full of the shouts of skateboarders bombing down campus walkways, full of the nervous, caffeinated hum of human hope. Century College is exactly as I left it: pale brick buildings, vintage ivy crawling up the admin facade, kids sprawled on the quad with laptops and weed pens and too-loud music leaking from their headphones. I am another body among them, faded jeans, cardigan, ponytail, my tote bag slung across my chest as I stroll like any other college co-ed.
My phone is chiming with Simone’s texts: WE STILL ON FOR CROSSWORD NIGHT, GIRLFRIEND? and the slightly more earnest HEARD FROM HIM? every couple of weeks. I never reply about Talon. I deleted his number; I blocked his emails; I burned every photo we ever took together except for one, and that’s buried deep in my hidden folder, next to my tax returns and a single tasteful nude. I haven’t told Simone a word about the last week in the cabin, or about what happened after, and she’s too good a friend to ask if she knows I won’t talk.
Today is a Tuesday, the best day of the week: no classes until three, just time to drink cold brew and haunt the bookstore before heading to Literary Theory. The campus has that spring fever buzz—midterms are over, finals weeks away, every puddle glittering with promise and cherry blossoms. I dodge a couple holding hands in the main path, a retriever doing his business on a bike rack, three film students in matching combat boots arguing about Scorsese versus Tarantino.
The bookstore, Century Pages, is an old converted Victorian a block off campus, three stories of creaking floors and staff who all look like they’re prepping for a John Green movie. I pull open the brass-handled door and instantly inhale the scent of newsprint, ancient wood, and the faintest trace of patchouli. It’s comfort food for my brain, better than therapy, better than Ativan, almost better than sex.
The new releases table is a battlefield—authors fighting for space, covers screaming for attention in every hue of desperation. I do a slow lap, fingers trailing the spines, reading back copy like it’s poetry: a dystopia about climate refugees, a memoir by a former Instagram influencer, a middle-grade novel about a kid with a haunted dog. Nothing moves me. I pause at the edge of the display, ready to head for the poetry shelf, when my brain registers a familiar set of letters, a name that trips every wire in my body at once.
There it is, in embossed gold at the bottom of a thick matte hardcover:
TALON MCKNIGHT
For a second, I think I’m hallucinating. There’s a rush in my ears like I’ve just stood up too fast. But it’s real: the cover is a watercolor of a cabin, the kind you’d see on the side of a whiskey bottle, all rustic logs and snowy roof and pine trees that look hand-drawn by a skilled artist. Is this a thriller? It certainly doesn’t look like it. It resembles a romance, with glossy gold lettering as well as a swoop to the font. The title is captivatingly feminine as well: ANGEL’S SHARE, just above his name. I am a living cliché, paralyzed in front of the stack like a Victorian heroine who’s seen her dead fiancé’s ghost.