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)
I giggle with the goodbye, hang up, and collapse backwards, the book pressed to my heart, the plaid skirt bunched under my knees. I stare at the ceiling, listening to my heartbeat, wondering if next Tuesday will bring the end of the story, or just another chapter.
Either way, I’m going to write my own lines from now on.
The next morning, I wake with the book pressed against my sternum like a loaded weapon. My phone is underneath it, lighting up my clavicle with a series of pings from Simone: YOU DREAM OF THE PLAID? and then, in quick succession, DON’T FORGET TO BRING PROTECTION (FOR YOUR HEART), followed by the more on-brand, IF HE DOESN’T GROVEL I WILL FIGHT HIM IN THE PARKING LOT.
I text back a line of laugh-cry emojis, then sit up, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. Sunlight cuts a hard angle through my curtains, highlighting the dirty tea mug and last night’s stress-chewed pen caps. I don’t want to look at my own reflection, but I do anyway, bracing myself for the ghost of the girl who left the cabin months ago.
She’s still here, blonde hair messy, eyes bloodshot but sharper than ever. I smile at her, or maybe snarl, and she stares back like she’s been waiting for this showdown.
I thumb the book open to the first page, reread the dedication that’s been gnawing at the inside of my head:
For the muse who showed me what real passion feels like.
There’s no name. Not even an initial. It could be for anyone, or it could be for me, but the word “muse” punches right through my ribcage and grabs my heart and squeezes it. It was the word he used the first week, when I recited his own lines back at him during dinner. “You’re a natural, Kat. A born muse, whether you want to be or not.”
I can almost hear Simone’s voice of reason: “Think about it, Kat. This guy writes books for a living. Maybe putting feelings into words face-to-face isn’t his strong suit. Maybe he had to write a book to speak the truth.”
It would be easy to dismiss this as more of Simone’s relentless optimism, her refusal to believe anyone could be as cold as I made Talon sound. But now, tracing my finger along the words, I realize I’ve never met a man less capable of a normal, healthy apology. Not even “Sorry” in a text, not even a “My bad” in passing. Talon once told me the only time his father ever said he was proud of him was when he won an award for a short story contest in middle school—and the old man ruined the moment by saying, “Imagine if you put this effort into something that matters.”
So, what if this—this book, this raw, beautiful monument to our relationship—was the only way Talon could apologize for what he’d done?
My brain does a weird, backward somersault through every line he wrote. The romantic intimacy. The steamy sex. The way he let the heroine run away. The way, in the end, his stand-in character chases her down, begs her forgiveness, and finally says the words I never got in person. Was it a fantasy, or was it a practice run for something real?
I text Simone:
What if you’re right?
She fires back instantly: Ofc I am. Remember, you should dress in the plaid skirt for the reading. Show him what he’s missing girlfriend!
I giggle, sliding off the bed and hunting through my closet for anything that doesn’t scream “moony woman wearing her heart on her sleeve.” Simone’s pep talk has had a dangerous effect—suddenly, I want to see Talon. Not to forgive, maybe not even to confront, but to look into those blue eyes and see if there’s anything left of the man who made me believe I could be worth obsessing over.
Halfway through brushing my teeth, I remember how odd it is that Talon’s book tour would stop at Century College of all places. We’re not exactly Palo Alto or Cambridge, and the local bookstore is known more for hosting burgeoning poets and writers who have yet to get their careers off the ground, and not blockbuster authors with bestsellers on their resumes. Surely, with his sales, Talon could fill a real auditorium in New York, or San Francisco, or anywhere there’s a thriving literary scene.
So why this small campus? Why now?
Maybe the answer is in the dedication, or maybe it’s in the way his main character never quite gives up on “Angel,” even after she leaves. Maybe it’s just another trick, another plot device to put me off guard. I can’t tell. But the more I think about it, the more I want to believe this is the alpha male’s way of reaching for something better than an ending where I disappear and he just keeps writing murder mysteries.