Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
The manuscript sits on my coffee table. Three hundred and eighty pages of single-sided, double-spaced A4. I’ve reworked, polished, tweaked and altered practically every word on screen, but this is the first time I’ve worked off of a paper copy. My final backstop before I confidently say it is finished.
Probably.
Maybe.
Depends how this read goes.
With a deep breath, I reach out and flip the title page over. My hand shakes slightly, but I ignore it. The first page stares back at me: Chapter One.
Here we go.
I start reading, expecting the worst. Bracing for clichés and clunky metaphors and stiff dialogue, but I find that it’s quite the opposite. Tight, clever prose that flows so naturally I almost don’t recognise it as mine. For a second, I wonder if I plagiarised it.
Well, that’s… unexpected.
And then I keep going. My editor brain takes the wheel, dissecting every word, every comma, every beat. I can’t help it—this is what I do. But instead of finding a mess, I find a story. Pacing that works. Characters that breathe. And then the newer chapters hit—the ones I wrote after Rory bulldozed into my life like some kind of overconfident tornado.
Those chapters? They’re alive.
I can see him in them, in the charming wit of my hero, in the messy vulnerability of my heroine. His fingerprints are everywhere, and not because he gave me notes or feedback or anything like that. It’s more subtle than that. He’s woven into the fabric of the story itself. Little moments, little truths, borrowed straight from conversations we didn’t realise were important at the time.
The irony isn’t lost on me. Rory turned our story into fiction first, shaping and twisting pieces of us into something palatable for readers, something aspirational. And now, here I am, doing the exact same thing.
Except… it’s different.
Because this isn’t a performance. I’m not sculpting some glossy, perfectly structured romance out of us. There’s no neat three-act resolution, no grand declaration on cue. This isn’t about turning pain into a perfectly marketable love story. It’s about understanding it. Understanding him. Understanding myself.
“Of course you’d show up here too,” I scoff, shaking my head as I turn the page. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
But even as I roll my eyes, there’s no denying the warmth blooming in my chest. Because somewhere along the way, this stopped feeling like an exercise in self-flagellation and started feeling like… hope.
I flip another page, my fingers smudging the ink slightly. The words blur for a moment, and I blink hard, forcing them back into focus. I’ve been at this for hours now—or maybe minutes; time feels elastic when you’re trying to decide whether you’re brilliant or completely delusional. Either way, one thing is clear: Rory might have taken pieces of me and spun them into fiction, but he only ever borrowed. I took pieces of him and understood.
And that’s why, this time, it’s different.
The scene I’m reading is one of the newer ones—one of Rory’s unwitting cameos. My heroine is pacing her flat, arguing with the hero over the phone. Their banter is on point but layered with something heavier, something unsaid. It’s good. Really good. The kind of dialogue that makes you lean in, makes you feel like you’re eavesdropping on something real.
“Okay,” I say aloud, because apparently, I’ve reached the stage where I talk back to my own manuscript. “That wasn’t half bad.”
Not half bad quickly becomes actually pretty great as I keep going, each page tugging me deeper into this world I built, piece by painstaking piece. Of course, it needs a third party, another editor to spot the flaws. But what’s working is… kind of everything. There’s voice here, rhythm. Characters who feel like people, not puppets. There’s heart.
By the time I reach the end of the chapter, I’m sitting up straighter, my editor brain uncharacteristically quiet. For once, it’s not dissecting or second-guessing. Instead, something else entirely has crept in—a sensation I’ve spent years running from. Pride.
That’s when it hits me: this isn’t just good. It’s worthy.
And that thought? That single spark of validation? It’s both exhilarating and terrifying. Because if it’s worthy—if I’m worthy—then I don’t have an excuse anymore. No shield to hide behind, no self-deprecating jokes about how I’m “just” an editor who dabbles. If I believe in this story—even a little—I might actually have to do something about it.
I put the pages down, standing abruptly. My heartbeat is loud, too loud, like the sound alone could shatter this fragile realisation. The manuscript sits there, quietly accusing, while I pace the length of my living room. One step, two steps, pivot. Rinse, repeat.
“Submit it?” I mutter under my breath. “Sure. Why not? Let’s just rip open my chest and hand someone my still-beating heart while we’re at it.”
Because that’s what this would be, wouldn’t it? Submitting this manuscript means inviting someone else to see everything—all of me—the parts I’ve kept hidden for so long that I almost forgot they existed. It means risk. Vulnerability. Potentially catastrophic humiliation.
And yet… I can’t stop thinking about Rory. He’s the one who told me months ago, between drafts of his own book, “It’s the fear that means you’re onto something. No one’s scared of mediocrity.” At the time, I’d rolled my eyes so hard I thought I’d sprained something, but now? Now, it feels like he was talking directly to me, like he somehow knew this moment would come.
Rory gets it. He knows what it’s like to chase something that feels too big and too personal and too impossible all at once. He knows what it’s like to put yourself out there, even when every instinct screams at you to stay small, stay safe. And he does it anyway. Every time.
“Must be nice,” I grumble, though there’s no heat behind it. Just a faint, reluctant admiration.
And maybe a little envy, too. Because the truth is, I want that courage. I want to be the person who takes the leap, who believes in herself enough to risk the fall. Or, at the very least, I want to know that if I crash and burn, it won’t be because I never even tried.
I glance back at the manuscript, sitting patiently on the coffee table, its pages slightly raised on the corners and the unmistakable weight of possibility. My stomach twists, half dread, half hope.
So. What’s it gonna be?
The question hangs in the air, unanswered but alive, daring me to find out.
* * *
It’s ready. Or at least, as ready as it’s ever going to be. I’ve spent weeks tweaking, second-guessing, convincing myself it needs just one more pass. But the truth is, I’m not afraid of the edits—I’m afraid of what comes next. Submitting. Being judged. Failing publicly.
That’s exactly why I can’t send it to anyone at Scott & Drake. If they rejected it, I’d have to walk into work every day knowing my colleagues— the people who see me as the editor, the one who fixes stories, not writes them —know I wasn’t good enough. And if they did accept it? I’d never know if it was because the book deserved it or if they just felt obligated.
So I’m sending it to a literary agent instead. A fresh set of eyes. Someone who doesn’t know me, doesn’t care about office politics—just the work. Because if this book has a chance, I want it to stand on its own. And if it doesn’t? I need to be the only one who knows.
The cursor blinks at me like it’s taunting me, daring me to chicken out. My hands hover over the keyboard, trembling slightly—not from caffeine this time, but from something heavier, something rawer. Fear, maybe. Or hope. They feel the same when they’re this close together.
The first step is easy enough: opening the submission portal. The website loads with infuriating slowness, each spinning wheel another opportunity for doubt to creep in. But I don’t let it. Not this time. Instead, I focus on the mechanics—the click of the mouse, the tap of keys—as if breaking it into smaller tasks will keep me from noticing the magnitude of what I’m about to do.
I type the book’s title into the box. My fingers falter for half a second before I force them to keep going. Author. That’s me, I guess.
“File upload,” I read, dragging the file with the first three chapters into the glowing blue box. My chest tightens as the progress bar inches forward, the seconds stretching impossibly long. Lastly, I paste in my query letter. This is it. The point of no return.
Before I can think too hard about it, I press submit.
There’s a tiny whoosh sound as the file disappears into cyberspace, and for a moment, everything goes still. Quiet. Like the universe itself is holding its breath alongside me.
And then it hits—a rush of adrenaline so fierce it leaves me dizzy. I lean back in my chair, exhaling shakily as the enormity of what I’ve just done sinks in. It’s gone. Out there. Irretrievable. My work, my heart, my risk—it’s all in someone else’s hands now.
A laugh bubbles up unexpectedly, startling me with its brightness. It’s not relief, exactly, or even triumph. It’s something closer to freedom, unspooling inside me like a ribbon finally released from its knot. For the first time in years, I feel… weightless.
I glance out the window, where the city lights flicker against the night sky like tiny points of possibility. Somewhere out there, someone might be reading my words soon, judging them. Hopefully liking them.
I stand, stretching out the tension that’s wound tight in my shoulders like coiled springs. My chair creaks in protest behind me as I push it back. It’s quiet in here—too quiet—the kind of quiet that makes you hyperaware of your own breathing, your own thoughts. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen is suddenly deafening.
The journey isn’t over. Hell, it might be just the beginning. But standing here, barefoot in my living room, staring at the confirmation message on my screen, I finally feel ready for it—for all of it. Whatever happens next, I think I’ll be okay.