In Too Hard (Freshman Roommates Trilogy, Book 3) (24 page)

It had been a tremendous month writing-wise. In every other way I was completely miserable.

I’d freaked when I realized Syd had been a…superfan. I couldn’t call her a Folly Dolly, even though I wasn’t really sure what the difference was between her and the other women who felt they were destined to be with me because of a character I wrote years ago.

The difference was I was in love with Sydney O’Brien.

And there were lots of other things, too. For one, she’d never let on that she’d read
Folly
that many times. I’d played all our conversations over in my mind countless times in the last month and I was fairly certain she had never even mentioned that it was one of her favorite books.

And for another thing, she
never
initiated contact with me in any way. And, being in my class, she certainly had every opportunity. Hell, if I had been told I had a zealous fan in that class I would have pegged Jane Winters as it for sure.

I sat back in my chair at the kitchen table in my apartment and watched as the email to Nora chugged through. Even though Syd was no longer in my office in the evenings (or ever), I continued to work in my apartment, only spending time in the office for my official office hours and to pick up and drop off students’ papers.

It was just too painful to spend time in a room that reminded me of Syd at every turn.

She had finished her work a couple of weeks ago, just around the first of April. It felt like a cruel April Fool’s joke to see her note reading “last one” with a flash drive sitting on my desk. But it was no joke, and I realized that, even though Bribury was a small campus, there was a very good chance that I would never see Syd O’Brien again.

I’d had all the boxes with my original notes shipped to my parents’ place. They were going to put them in storage for me. I didn’t want to trash them altogether, even though Syd had transcribed every bit of them, and I’d backed them up on external drives, flash drives and on Dropbox. I still liked knowing they were there for me somewhere—five years of my life. Five tough years of floundering with ideas that wouldn’t stop coming, and no focus or direction to do anything with them.

Syd had given me that. Or Bribury. Or time. Or just plain manning up.

But I knew…it was Syd.

I’d wanted to call her so many times in the past month. Or leave her a note on the desk. But then I’d look at the calendar and realize we only would have another couple of months anyway (and only a month by now), and I’d crumple up the paper, or put my phone down.

She was so young, so sharp, and the drive she had…Syd was going to go places. And I didn’t want her making any of those life decisions based on me being in NYC.

The night we broke up, when she told me about her past… My heart ached for her, for her thirteen-year-old self, for the woman she was becoming. I’d wished I could have taken on her pain myself. I’d also wished that I had half the guts that she did. Does.

And then I’d gone and caused her more pain. It was for the best, though. Or at least that’s what I’d told myself about forty times a day for the past month.

My phone rang, jarring me out of my pity party. “Hey, Nora,” I said when I picked up. “I just sent you—”

“I know. That’s why I’m calling.”

“That was fast.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been waiting five years for that email.”

I laughed. “Hopefully it will have been worth it.”

“I’m sure it will. Listen, Billy, I want to show this to Adina first as we talked about. I’m prepared to give her a week to make a preempt deal if you’re okay with that. If she doesn’t hit our number, we shop it all over and hope it goes to auction.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’d really like to work with Adina again. So, what should we ask for?”

We discussed our magic number for a while and finally came to an agreement. I thought Nora was asking for too much, but she assured me she could get it.

It wasn’t about the money for me, it never had been. I just wanted to be able to write. But the way publishing worked, the bigger the advance, the bigger the push a publisher made, protecting their investment. And I wanted this book to do well. Ego. Pride. Professional preservation. Whatever. It was very important to me that
Down in Flames
be read.

“Okay, I’m going to call Adina tomorrow morning and tell her we’re sending it to her. And that we’re offering her the chance at a preempt.”

“You’re not going to read it first?”

“Normally, yes, but I’ve had her salivating since we had lunch weeks ago, so I’ll read it while she does.”

“Okay,” I said.

“It’s good, right? Strong? Do you think I
should
read it before I send it to her?”

I thought for a second. Thought about the hours I spent deconstructing Syd’s flower of ideas. Everything had clicked after that. Her combination of
Gangster’s Providence
into
Flames
was startling with how well it fit. It had been there all along, I realized, I’d just been too close to see it.

But Syd saw it. And had the guts to show it to me, even after getting involved before had turned me into a complete asshole and cost us a valuable month of our time together.

“Yes,” I said to Nora, no doubt in my voice. “It’s strong. It’s good.”

“Okay then, I’ll let you know what I hear in a few days.”

“Okay. And hey, if she passes on it completely she’ll be discreet right? I mean, word won’t get out that my
Folly
editor passed on my second book?”

“I thought you said it was good? Strong. Why would she pass? I can see not meeting our number, but passing completely? Not going to happen.”

“Okay…”

“Jesus, you authors. So talented and yet so…” She caught herself. We had a good relationship, Nora and I, but she probably knew better than to call me out on my bullshit.

“Insecure? Neurotic? Completely self-absorbed?” I offered up the choices for her. All being completely accurate. At least for me.

“Yeah, that,” she said laughing. “Okay, more later.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And Billy?”

“Yes?”

“Have some champagne chilling.”

I hung up and thought about maybe taking her advice and getting a bottle of bubbly in case good news came. At the very least I could toast typing “The End” for the first time in a
long
time.

And then I thought about not being able to celebrate with Syd. And about the fact that she hadn’t even read the completed manuscript, made possible by her brilliant ideas.

It wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would be the same for a long time.

I crossed champagne off my mental grocery list, pushed my laptop aside and pulled over a pile of papers to grade.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Syd

I
was standing in front of Billy as he sat behind his desk. I’d received notification from my bank that morning that a direct deposit had been made. May first. My last paycheck, even though I’d finished the work a month ago.

And had finished with Billy six weeks ago.
 

At first it had been torturous. Never having told Lily and Jane about Billy in the first place, I couldn’t turn to them to help me heal. So, I did what healed me all those years ago. I read. And read. And read some more. Basically anytime I wasn’t in class, working or studying, I escaped into different fictional worlds, until I was finally able to see that spring had fully arrived on the Bribury campus, and that life would go on.

But I needed to wrap things up with Billy. I didn’t want to leave it as we had. I’d texted him that I’d like to stop by his office for a quick word and he’d agreed.

Now, he waved me to sit in the guest chair and I did. I took a deep breath and tried to articulate the thoughts and conclusions I’d come to.

“This needs to be said. And it’s not that I’m trying to get you back. Because, what the hell, you’re going to be gone in a few weeks anyway. But…I need you to hear me. I’d
like
you to understand me, but I need you to at least hear me.”

“Okay,” he said. He came from behind his desk to stand in front of me, leaning against the front of his desk, his legs crossed at the ankles, his arms behind him. A casual look, but I could tell by the grey of his eyes that he was nervous.

He wasn’t the only one.

But, I channeled my inner Celtic goddess of strength and got off my chest what had been weighing me down for the past six weeks. For the past four months, really.

“Yes, I fell in love with you…the writer, before I ever met you. But you must have had some feelings for me because of the papers I’d written for your class. You told me yourself that those papers were part of the reason you hired me.”

“Yes, hired you. I had no preconceived notion of you…as a woman. As someone I would come to—” He stopped, ran his hand across his chin. His voice was lower, softer when he finished, “be involved with.”

The words stung, mostly because I knew they weren’t completely true. But what stung most was the word unsaid, the thought unfinished, changed.

Remembering those early days on the phone, even before we started FaceTiming, I challenged him, like he used to enjoy then. “Oh, come on. You probably had a hundred students last semester. You’re telling me it was only
my
papers that showed you I could put five sentences together? I’ll bet I didn’t even get the highest grade in your class.”

From the look of chagrin on his face, I knew I’d made a hit. “Grades don’t matter with something like writing, you know that.”

I tilted my head. “Says the man who has hidden for five years out of fear of being judged.”

He waved a hand and his face turned hard, his cheekbones, usually so touchable, became edgy and sharp, and the grey of his eyes turned dark, as if they were storm clouds about to burst. “It was the combination of your writing and the fact that you referenced a lot of good literature. It was obvious you were very well read.” His voice was low, controlled. His tone said he was done talking about this.
 

But I wasn’t through. “Well, the same could be said about everyone with an office in this building, and the administrative staff to go along with them. I would just bet that Corrine Patterson would have
loved
doing this for you.”

He glanced away and I knew I’d made another hit. Shit, a couple more and I’d probably sink his battleship.

“Christ, she would have done it for you, wouldn’t she?” He looked back to me for a second, then down at his feet. Hit. “She’s the one who even gave you the idea to have someone help you. She asked to help you, didn’t she?” He continued to stare down at his feet. I stood up and put a hand to his chest, still so warm and solid like the first time he’d held me, right here in this small office, in this exact spot. God, how I’d loved how solid, how real, how…mine it had felt all those times. And now, today… It was still the same chest, his body heat seeping through his shirt and sports coat. But it wasn’t mine any longer.

And I wasn’t going to let him forget that it once was…and because he’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted him. That I was no Folly Dolly. (I’d Googled it. Wasn’t impressed.)

“Didn’t she?” I said more loudly, giving his chest a push, but keeping my hand on him, unwilling—unable—to pull it away.

“Yes,” he said, still not meeting my gaze.

Hit. I visualized the smoke rising from the ship as it went down, Titanic style.

“So don’t give me any crap about only lo—wanting you because of your book, or how you write. Or being a damned Folly Dolly. There’s more to it than that, and you know it. There
was
more to it.” I gave his chest another tiny push, and then it was as if the weight of my arm, the weight of my feelings for Montrose, the depth of complications we had, were just too much to bear, and I started to drop my hand.

Which was quickly stopped by Montrose slapping his hand on top of mine, holding it to his heart. “Yes, okay? Yes to all of it. I read your stuff and it, I don’t know, it moved me in some way. Little by little, paper by paper. And there you would be, in the front row, three times a week.” He squeezed my hand and—finally!—looked up, his grey eyes still turbulent, his face still stony. He didn’t like this confession, not one bit.

And I loved every word he would offer.

“And there you were, sitting with Jane and Lily.” He swept his free hand in front of me, as if encompassing me. “Looking like…looking like…you,” he whispered the last.

“I Googled you at the library the day after I finished
Folly
for the first time, when I was fourteen.” It was probably the wrong thing to say. I was just feeding into his issues with me having been a crazy fangirl before we ever met. But it needed to be said, the point needed to be made. “I even got the librarian to print out your picture for me, even though I didn’t have any money to pay for the copy.” A tiny rising at the corner of his mouth, but nowhere near a smile, and certainly not the full grin he gave me months ago. “I didn’t have many girlfriends, but those I did had their walls plastered with posters of hip-hop singers and movie stars, even some Justin Bieber.”