Chapter 18 - The Write Off

10 Years Ago

Senior Year, Second Semester

It’s official; I have an agent for my West-inspired faerie novel. (Weeks later, my face still flames with embarrassment when I think of the Fox-West parallels. West’s ego has never been bigger. It’s a fantastic disaster. An absolutely humiliating dream come true.) In the span of one month, I went from an aspiring writer to an agented one. Danielle is smart, experienced, and almost as obsessed with Juniper and Fox as I am.

When I finish my revisions based on her notes, she plans to send the book to every major publisher in New York. No sale is ever guaranteed, but her confidence makes it hard to keep my hopes from spiraling wildly out of control. It starts with daydreams about book signings and launch parties and hitting bestseller lists and ends with me booking plane tickets to New York. Sure, I can be a writer from anywhere, but if Hannah Horvath taught me anything, it’s that grad school sucks, and why would you live in the Midwest when you could live in Brooklyn instead?

It’s almost midnight, and my heart is racing when the train spits West and me out into Penn Station. I’m hopped up on Red Bull, disgusting airplane coffee, and the incomparable high of blasting “Welcome to New York” through my headphones as the city came into view. We drag our suitcases up the steps and emerge into a cold night in Midtown. It’s spring break in Arizona, but it still feels like winter here. Goose bumps race across my bare legs, and my breath puffs in front of me.

I glance at West as he messes with the strap of his bag, swearing lightly under his breath as he struggles with it. He’s finally letting his hair grow out, and the East Coast humidity has unearthed a loose curl above his ear. The urge to run my fingers through it is stronger than ever, and my head feels a little buzzy. After so many years of schooling my heart and my hands into submission around him, it’s wild to know that I can touch him whenever I want.

My eyes trail from his stern profile to the busy midnight street, and cold spring air expands like champagne bubbles in my chest, fizzing with the promise of dreams I’ve been carrying for more than half my life.

“You ready?” I ask.

He slings his bag over his shoulder and nods. “How do we get to the hotel? Cab? Subway?” He surveys the dark street with wide, apprehensive eyes. West has never been to New York, and I plan to wield my vast experience over his head. (I spent four days here with my family the summer before fifth grade. If West needs to know what the inside of the Statue of Liberty looks like, I’m his girl.)

I bounce on the balls of my feet to stay warm. “We walk.”

He drops his arm around my shoulder and rubs his hand against my skin to warm me up. We walk a few blocks to a Koreatown hotel wedged between a liquor store and a hair salon, and I’ve never felt as grown-up as I do standing at a hotel check-in counter with my boyfriend. The moment West palms the room key, however, my nerves catch up with me. He might be a New York virgin, but I’m an actual virgin, and this week we’ll be staying together, in a hotel room, in the same bed.

I didn’t set out to be a twenty-two-year-old who has never had sex, but it never felt right with anyone else. (Likely because I was in love with West. Obvious only in hindsight, if you can believe it.) It’s been about a month since West kissed me in our spot outside Modern Languages, and it’s getting harder and harder to say goodbye when he pulls himself out of my arms at night. Until now, we’ve been taking our time, tiptoeing over lines that were once carefully drawn, finding new places to touch, new ways to make each other gasp.

We come to a stop in front of a door, and I take a deep breath, knowing that I’m finally ready. West grins down at me like there’s a thought bubble above my head, tucks one finger into the waistband of my jeans, and pulls me in to him. I blush hot, and he sweeps his thumbs over my heated cheekbones before trailing a familiar path over my mole, across my jaw, down the side of my neck. I turn my head to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. Eyes shining bright, he swipes the key card to unlock our room. I push the door open in anticipation and dissolve in a fit of laughter.

It’s so tiny that West could stand in the center and touch both walls, but that’s not what gets me.

He follows me into the room with a strangled groan. “Bunk beds?”

We stand in front of the rickety furniture and eye each other warily. We might need to rethink our plans. I don’t even know if we can both fit in one of those beds.

“They really said if we’re going to pay like broke college students, we’re going to sleep like broke college students.”

“To be fair, some of us are broke college dropouts,” West deadpans as he places his duffel bag on the floor. My stomach tightens at the remark.

“Well, in a couple of months, we’ll both be broke, and college won’t have mattered at all.”

“You’re about to sell your book for a million dollars, but okay.”

I roll my eyes. “No one gets million-dollar book deals.”

West slants his eyebrows. “You sure about that?”

“Fine, almost no one, and definitely not me.”

He crosses his arms and leans against the post of the bunk bed with a sardonic smile. “I can’t wait to say I told you so. Top or bottom?” he asks, changing the subject so abruptly that my mind returns to the daydreams I was having in the hall.

“What?”

“Top or bottom?” he asks again slowly, one side of his mouth curling up. “Where do you want to sleep?”

My cheeks flush. “Top.”

“Perfect. This arrangement will be good inspiration for you,” he says, his eyes glinting in the dim light.

I smell a setup. “How so?”

“You can start planning book two while you’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, pining for me.”

“I hate you.”

His smirk transforms into a wide grin as he pulls me into his arms. I yelp in surprise when he cuts me off by planting a kiss on my lips, and my embarrassment melts into desire.

As he pulls away, I nip his bottom lip with my teeth. “You’ll be the one dreaming of me,” I joke.

He looks at me through half-moon eyes, which makes my throat dry. “I always do, Jupiter.” He kisses my forehead and then leans toward the window to pull back the curtain. “Check it out.”

I stand over an ancient radiator, and my breath fogs the glass as I stare at the glittering Empire State Building. “Should we go out?” It’s late, but we’re still on Pacific time, and I’m so loaded with adrenaline that I don’t think I could sleep in these shitty bunk beds if my life depended on it.

West wraps his arms around me from behind and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Sure. This is your trip, I’m just along for the ride.”

I frown. I don’t want him to think of it like that. I want him to want to be here. I crane my neck back to look at him. “What do you think of New York so far?”

He nudges my face back to the window, and I watch his eyebrows raise in the reflection of the glass. “I think I need to see it before I form an opinion, but I’m not worried. If you love it, I’ll love it.”

I spin in his arms and peer up at him. “Do you mean it?”

His eyes heat as he tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and cinches me tighter against his chest. He opens his mouth, grimaces, closes it again. “All these years later, I still have a hard time finding the right words around you,” he says, an edge of frustration bleeding through.

“What do you mean?”

He rubs the back of his neck. Looking at war with himself as he considers what to say, he finally reaches a détente. “I hope you get everything you’ve ever wanted, Mars, starting with New York.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and tug until his lips are on mine. The kiss surprises him, and we’re both knocked off balance, stumbling sideways. I grab his shoulders and pull him again, harder this time, until we’re lying flush against each other on the bottom bunk, his body pressing into mine. He shifts until his weight is half-balanced on the mattress, one leg thrown over mine, pinning me with his hips. He bends his head and kisses me with brain-melting, aching slowness, but after several hazy, lazy minutes, I am unmoored with want. His unhurried, careful, exploratory kisses aren’t nearly enough. I need all of him, right now.

“I’m ready,” I whisper against his lips.

He pulls back in surprise. “What?”

“I’m ready,” I say again as I reach for his belt buckle.

“Now?” He looks slightly horrified.

“Now,” I confirm as I slide his belt out of his pants. I drop it to the floor and reach for his button.

His eyes rove over the walls of the dingy room, halting on the bunk bed only a foot above his head. “Here?” he asks weakly. “I wanted something less…dreary than this for you. For us.” If I weren’t horizontal, the rasp in his voice would have buckled my knees.

“West,” I say, drawing his attention back to me. “Are you really going to make me say it again?”

His pupils grow, black swallowing amber, and his careful restraint snaps. He presses his thigh up between my legs and rocks into me, overwhelming me with the exquisite gift of friction. My eyelids flutter shut as he parts my lips with an insistent tongue and presses his body into mine, bracketing my head with his forearms. “One day,” he says, peppering me with frenzied kisses between each word, “I’ll find the right words.”

I take his face in my hands and pull his mouth reluctantly from my collarbone. “Sometimes words aren’t enough,” I say, hoping he comprehends what I mean. I don’t need him to say the perfect thing, because I already know. As he presses his forehead to mine, I think he understands. I lift my arms as he pulls my shirt over my head, and we spend the rest of the night trying to tell each other how we feel without ever saying anything at all.

* * *

On our second full day in New York, West uses my phone to take my photo under the elm trees at the Central Park Literary Walk. As I scroll through the hundreds of nearly identical pictures, I try to imagine my face on the inside of a book jacket. I’m smiling so hard I look like I’ve got a secret that I’m bursting to tell, and with the golden-hour sun on my face, you’d never know that I was shivering the whole time.

“How’d I do?” West asks, blowing into his hands to warm them up while I survey his work.

I delete a handful of pictures that really emphasize the vein in my forehead and keep scrolling. “If this writing thing doesn’t work out, you can become my full-time Instagram boyfriend.” I maximize a photo where the breeze has picked my hair up just right and save it in my favorites.

“How long do we have until we meet your agent?” he asks in a tight voice. He’s stuffed his hands in his pockets, and his nose is turning red. We need something warmer if we’re going to survive the rest of the trip.

We have a couple of hours before drinks with Danielle, so we kill two birds with one stone by walking to Times Square and finding a gift shop with cheap hoodies. West clasps my hand in his as we walk, and while I chatter about the cute shops and my favorite neighborhoods and how if I moved here, I’d have to buy a whole new wardrobe, West is quieter than usual. He doesn’t say more than a few words until we pass a piercing and tattoo shop advertising a flash tattoo event. “Remember when you got your nose pierced on our first date?” he asks as he draws us to a stop in front of the window.

I touch the ring in my nose as I smile up at him. “You consider that night our first date?”

“Obviously.” West’s eyes darken with the twilight sky. “Do you remember what we did in the library?”

I press my cold hands to my warm cheeks. “I still don’t think you can call that our first date.”

“Why not?”

“Because it took you two and a half years to ask me out again.”

He rolls his eyes. “And whose fault was that?”

“Beth-any’s,” I declare with a grin, unable to stop myself.

West laughs, but then his smile fades as his eyes rove over my face like he’s trying to memorize the pink tint dusting my cheeks.

“Any particular reason you’re thinking about that night?” I prod.

He runs his fingers through his hair with a sigh. “School’s almost over, and, I dunno, I’m upset about all the time that we missed.”

“What are you talking about? We have nothing but time,” I insist, although the future is looming in front of us, wild and heavy, hard to ignore and even harder to see. We don’t talk about the specifics of it.

He drums his fingers on his thigh, looking more nervous than I’ve ever seen him. “Maybe.”

I wonder if he knows that I’m in love with him. We haven’t said it yet, and this moment doesn’t seem like the right time. But I want him to know that I’m all in. I don’t know how to picture a future without West.

“Let’s get tattoos!” I point to the flash designs in the window, my finger landing on a small orange surrounded by flower blossoms. “It’s kismet.” All of campus smelled like orange blossoms on the night of our first kiss, and now I can’t think of anything else when I smell them.

West narrows his eyes. “Aren’t matching tattoos bad luck? What if you break up with me?”

“Please.” It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “If you break up with me, I’m going to have bigger problems than an orange tattoo.”

“Such as?”

“Such as a character known as Fox Caldwell, remember him? I still have at least two books to write, and I need the inspiration, so you’re stuck with me.” I nudge him playfully to distract myself from the painful thought of losing him. “Not to mention I’d be devastated.”

His eyes bore into mine, steady but wary. “Me, too.”

I pull open the door to the tattoo shop, and an hour later we walk out with orange blossoms on our inner forearms. I can’t help but stare at mine as we walk side by side in the dark, and I like how permanent it feels.

West hates Times Square. He doesn’t say it, but he scowls as we shoulder our way through the crowds and moves closer to me, his fingers tightening on my waist every time we nearly collide with other tourists.

“I think most New Yorkers avoid Times Square at all costs,” I shout to be heard over a band of street performers. I wonder if he picks up the subtext beneath my words: If I lived here—if we lived here—we wouldn’t be tourists anymore. Over the last forty-eight hours, I’ve been unable to stop myself from imagining a life here. Every coffee shop we pass could be the one where I write the sequel to my book. Every train stop could be my stop. It feels like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

“I can see why” is all West says, and my heart dips. We stop for a selfie and get scammed into tipping five dollars to an unknown character who photobombed us. Minutes later we come face-to-face with a wall of I NY merch, and West’s scowl deepens as he dons his new beanie and gloves. “We look like a gift shop threw up on us.”

“We look hilarious. Danielle’s going to laugh.” I glance at my phone, looking for the fastest train to take us to the Lower East Side.

“Are you sure it’s not weird for me to be there?”

“Why would it be weird?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Because I’m not her client.”

“I told her you’re coming, and she said it was fine,” I say, regretting it instantly. “More than fine. She’s excited to meet you!”

“I’m worried I’ll feel out of place,” he confides, which is exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. “I can hang out here until you’re done.” He gestures to the famous red stairs in the center of the square, and I know instinctively that if he sits here for the rest of the evening, his opinion of the city will have fallen into hell by the time I return.

“I want you there,” I say. He presses his lips together, thinking. “I always want you where I am,” I tell him seriously.

“That might not always be possible,” he says, as if my skin isn’t still sore from my fresh tattoo, as if we didn’t just do something to permanently cement our relationship. He shakes his head like he’s shrugging off a bad thought. “Ignore me. I’m coming. I can’t wait to meet Danielle.”

* * *

“West’s a writer, too!” I tell Danielle an hour later as we sit in a booth, an expensive and foreign cocktail in front of me. The dark and bustling bar has an industrial feel. The walls are exposed brick, and pipes and beams are visible where the ceiling should be.

“Barely,” West says quickly before taking a big gulp of his soda.

Danielle is shorter than I expected—barely five feet—with a mane of curly brown hair. Her size and Southern accent are immediately disarming, and I can see why her other clients refer to her as a “shark in disguise.” She is charming and friendly, and after the past few months of phone calls and emails, we fall into an easy conversation about my book, how excited she is to submit it to publishers, and her recommendations for the best pizza in the city. West has been polite but uncharacteristically quiet, and he’s resisted all my attempts to pull him into the conversation.

“He’s being modest, but he’s an incredible writer,” I tell Danielle.

“What do you write?” Danielle asks him.

“Nothing worth talking about,” West says quickly. Under the table, I nudge him with my foot. He shifts in his seat. “Fiction. Um…literary, I guess.” He grimaces, and I feel a twinge of annoyance. Writers pay good money for the opportunity to pitch their books in person, and he’s wasting this chance.

I shoot him a curious look before turning back to Danielle. “He blurs the line between fantasy and reality in a really beautiful way that always leaves you guessing what’s real.”

West fixes his eyes on the table, and I remember how uncomfortable he gets talking about his own stuff. Luckily, I’m here and can do it for him.

“His writing inspires mine so much. I can’t even tell you how good he is. He was always the best in our writing classes.”

“Do you have a manuscript?” Danielle asks.

West clears his throat. “I’ve been working on something, yeah. It’s sort of like a coming-of-age thing.”

“I’d love to read it when it’s ready,” Danielle says, and I nearly jump out of my seat in excitement.

He looks stricken by the offer. “Oh. Um, thank you, but no,” he says abruptly. I shoot him a look. Why is he being so rude?

“I mean, it’s not even close to being done. I’m not as fast as Mars,” West adds.

“When you are, it’s a standing offer,” Danielle says. I squeeze his hand under the table. He takes another long drink. Danielle flashes me a hesitant smile, and I force one in return. This is not going at all how I thought it would.

“How are you liking New York?” she asks West, trying again to make friendly conversation.

“I don’t think it’s for me,” he says bluntly.

“It’s not for everyone,” she says diplomatically. “Fortunately, you can be a writer from anywhere. I have a client who lives in Noorvik, Alaska. We’ve sold three books together, but she’s never once stepped foot in New York.”

“Lucky her,” West says flatly.

Danielle raises her eyebrows at me, and my stomach squirms in embarrassment. She excuses herself to use the restroom. When she’s out of earshot, I turn to West.

“What is your problem?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re being rude to Danielle!”

“Why do you care?”

I grit my teeth in frustration. It’s not like him to be purposely obtuse. “Her opinion is important to me.”

“And she likes you. Who cares what she thinks of me?”

“I do. I vouched for your book, and you’re acting like you’re too good for her request.”

“I didn’t ask you to vouch for me!” he snaps.

I draw back, shocked by his sudden burst of uncharacteristic anger. “I don’t understand what’s happening right now,” I say. My chest is tight, and I feel the familiar, awful sensation of burning tears. I blink up at the ceiling and pray that Danielle doesn’t come back for a long time.

“I’m gonna go,” West says.

“What?”

“I’ll wait in the bookstore across the street. Come find me when you’re done.” He takes a final swig of his soda, thumps it down on the table, and stalks out of the bar.

I lie to Danielle and tell her that West had to take an important phone call outside, and even though it’s obvious I’m lying, she glosses right over it, and we chat for another thirty minutes before saying goodbye. I text West to meet me at the nearest subway stop, and as he approaches me with his hands in his pockets and his head down (I NY announcing his arrival from a hundred yards away), I fight another wave of tears, confused about how we went from matching tattoos to utter disaster in the course of one evening.

“Hey,” West says dully as he comes to a stop in front of me.

“Hey.” If it’s possible to make a single syllable sarcastic, I’ve done it.

The glow of the streetlight illuminates his defeated posture. “I’m sorry I ruined your night.”

“What the hell happened back there?”

“I don’t need your pity,” he says.

“Good, because you don’t have it.”

He sighs, looking frustrated. “I mean it, Mars. I don’t want you to bullshit your agent and say things about my writing that you don’t mean.”

“I didn’t.”

He scoffs. “One minute, I’m destined to be your Instagram boyfriend ‘if this writing thing doesn’t work out,’ and the next, you’re acting like I’m Jonathan Safran Foer. Which is it?”

“First, that was a joke. Second, I wasn’t talking about you! I was saying if writing doesn’t work out for me.”

“It is working out for you! You’re going to sell your books and move to New York and be wildly successful, and you’ll deserve it, and I’ll be happy for you.”

“But?”

He sighs, a puff of breath appearing in the cold air. “But I don’t know if that’s in the cards for me.”

“Says who?”

“Look at my life, Mars. I’m from a small town no one’s ever heard of, I’m a college dropout, and my family has no money for me to fall back on if I go out into the world and fail.”

“Why do you think that you’re going to fail?”

He starts to speak but cuts himself off with an aggravated sigh as he scuffs the toe of his sneaker against the ground. Finally, he straightens his shoulders and looks me in the eye. “You’re moving here after graduation, aren’t you?” It’s not an accusation, exactly, but somehow it feels like one.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I say, tasting the lie for what it is. I hadn’t fully admitted it to myself yet, but I think a part of me knew that I’d be moving here ever since I booked my plane ticket.

“Yeah, you have. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Yeah, I have,” I admit.

West nods, and I suddenly understand what he meant earlier about wasted time. He thinks moving to New York means the end of us. I step toward him and wrap my arms around his neck. He eyes me warily, but I hold his gaze steadily until his expression softens, and he snakes his own arm around my waist and pulls me tight against him. He closes his eyes and presses his lips to my temple.

My heart plays a staccato rhythm in my chest. “I’m in love with you, in case you didn’t know.”

I feel his nerves as he swallows. “That’s convenient, given the tattoos. I’ve heard they’re a bitch to remove.”

I make a noise of protest and try to pull out of his arms. He cinches them tighter and tilts my chin until my eyes meet his. His expression is soft, if a little scared. “It’s also convenient because I’m wildly in love with you, and I’d rather not return to my emo phase.”

My heart explodes. I nearly laugh. I’m so happy.

He kisses me. It’s slow until it’s not, tender until the heat of our argument turns it into a deep, hard kiss that leaves us both blinking stars out of our eyes at the end of it.

I swallow, steeling myself for a moment of bravery. “I want you to move here with me.”

“What would I do in New York?” he asks wryly, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“Hang out with me.”

He raises his eyebrows and runs his hand down my back, tucking it into my jeans pocket, giving my ass a squeeze. “How will that pay rent?”

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “We’ll be baristas or servers or bartenders or whatever it takes until someone pays us to write. We’ll be poor until we’re not, and it won’t matter, because we’ll be here together. With proper coats, away from Times Square.” I tug his beanie over his eyes, which makes him laugh, and then he tries blindly to kiss me again. I laugh and squirm away as he pushes the beanie out of his eyes.

He grins at me, the planes of his face awash with affection. “Okay, Jupiter. Let’s move to New York.”