Chapter 13 #2
"That's—you can't just—" Clara sputtered.
"You don't know what it's like. Having something that's yours, something private, something that kept you alive, and being asked to hand it over to strangers and let them judge it.
Let them see everything you put into it. Every ugly, broken, desperate thing."
"You're right," Jack said. "I don't know what that's like."
"So maybe don't—"
"But I know what it's like to let fear make your decisions for you." His voice was steady. Not pushing. Just honest. "I've spent seven years doing it. It's very comfortable. And it doesn't get you anywhere."
Clara stared at him. The thing about Jack saying that—about the man who'd spent seven years running from any connection telling her that fear was a bad compass—was that it landed differently than if anyone else had said it.
Not because it was hypocritical. Because it wasn't. He was telling her what he knew from the inside.
Holding up his own damage and saying look, this is where it gets you.
"What if it's not good enough?" she asked. The question came out smaller than she intended. "What if I say yes and they actually read the whole thing and realize it's just—a broken woman drawing sad cartoons about the ocean?"
"Clara." Jack's voice was gentle but firm. "An agent cold-emailed you. Followed up after a week. Showed it to an editor who used the word 'brilliant.' These are professionals. They read comics for a living. They're not doing this as a favor."
"People make mistakes."
"Yeah. And people also recognize talent, and you're terrified to believe that someone has recognized yours because Sam spent years teaching you it didn't exist." He paused.
"I'm not going to tell you what to do. It's your work, your decision, your life.
But I will say this—watching you dismiss something this big because a man who didn't deserve you said it wasn't real?
That's the saddest thing I've heard in a long time. "
The words hit her like cold water. Not cruel—just clear. The way cold water woke you up whether you wanted it to or not.
Clara's throat ached. She pressed her fingers against her eyes and breathed through the tightness, trying to sort the fear from the desire, the Sam-voice from her own.
"I don't know how to say yes to this," she whispered.
"You pick up the phone. You call the agent. You say, 'Let's talk.'" Jack shrugged. "The rest you figure out as you go."
“Wow. Thanks. Very helpful. I'll just be brave, then. Problem solved.”
He chuckled at her sarcasm. “In my experience, we often make our problems bigger than they are.”
Clara laughed, watery and surprised. "When did you get wise?"
"I'm not wise. I'm a carpenter who sank his own boat.
I just know what it looks like when someone's too scared to build something that matters.
" He reached across the table and took her hand.
"Your comic kept you alive, Clara. Literally.
It pulled you through the worst time of your life and then turned into something that people love.
That's not a hobby. That's not Sam's opinion. That's a fact."
She looked down at their joined hands. His rough, calloused, scarred from years of building things. Hers ink-stained, the side of her pinky permanently smudged from dragging across wet panels.
Two people who made things with their hands. Who understood that the act of creating was indistinguishable from the act of being vulnerable.
"I'm not saying yes tonight," Clara said.
"I'm not asking you to."
"I need to think."
"So think."
"But I'm going to... maybe... write back. Not say yes. Just respond. So she doesn't think C.H. Winters fell off the face of the earth."
Jack smiled. Small, warm, no pressure. "That sounds like a good first step."
"It's not a step. It's a reply to an email."
"Okay."
"Don't look smug."
"I'm not looking smug."
"You're doing the thing with your eyes."
"I'm not doing anything with my eyes. These are just my eyes."
"Your eyes are very smug right now, Callahan."
He laughed, and the tension in the room broke—not disappeared, but softened into something she could carry. Jack stood, kissed the top of her head, and went back to the counter to deal with the pasta that had gone cold while she was having an existential crisis.
"I'm reheating this," he said. "And then we're eating dinner. And then you can spiral quietly for the rest of the evening while I pretend not to notice."
"That's actually a very good plan."
"I have my moments."
Jack fell asleep around eleven, one arm slung across her waist, his breathing deep and steady.
Clara lay awake.
The lighthouse was dark except for the glow of her phone, which she held in front of her face like a teenager hiding under the covers.
She'd pulled up both of Nora's emails. Read them again. Then again. Studied the language, the tone, the specific things Nora had said about the work.
I genuinely believe this work has a readership well beyond what it's currently reaching.
Her response was enthusiastic. She used the word "brilliant."
Clara minimized the emails and opened Tidal Lock's admin page. Scrolled past the analytics—the slow, steady climb in readership that she'd been ignoring, the comments section that had tripled since the indie blog mention in Chapter 5—and stopped on her profile.
C.H. Winters
The avatar stared back at her. A cartoon lighthouse, clean lines, simple design. She'd drawn it in fifteen minutes three years ago, sitting on the floor of her bedroom with mascara tracks on her cheeks and a half-empty box of crackers beside her.
It was a good avatar. Recognizable. On-brand. Perfectly designed to say a person made this without saying this person specifically.
Clara zoomed in. The lighthouse in the cartoon was her lighthouse.
Same proportions, same gallery railing, same light at the top.
Anyone from Beacon's End would recognize it in a heartbeat.
But nobody from Beacon's End read Tidal Lock—or if they did, they'd never mentioned it—and the anonymous internet was a big place and C.H. Winters was a small name in it.
A small name that a New York literary agent had sought out. That an editor at a real publishing house had called brilliant.
Clara set the phone on her chest and stared at the ceiling.
The cracks in the plaster looked like a map of somewhere she'd never been.
Jack had mentioned patching them. Had said the plaster needed resealing before winter, that the moisture would widen the cracks if she left them.
Another repair planned months ahead. Another sign that he was thinking in terms of staying.
Everyone was asking her to open doors she'd nailed shut.
Jack wanted her to let him in. Nora wanted her to let the world in. Both required the same impossible thing: standing behind her own work—her art, her heart, her choices—and saying this is me without flinching.
She picked up the phone again. Opened a new email. Typed in Nora's address.
The cursor blinked in the empty body of the message.
Dear Nora,
Clara stared at the two words. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Dear Nora, thank you for your emails. I've been thinking about your offer and I'd like to
Delete.
Dear Nora, I appreciate your interest in Tidal Lock. Before we go any further, I should let you know that I
Delete.
Dear Nora,
She sat with it. Just the greeting. Two words and a comma.
Then she typed:
I'd be open to a phone call. My schedule is flexible — let me know what works for you.
— C.H. Winters
Clara read it four times. It was two sentences. It committed to nothing except a conversation. It was the smallest possible yes she could manage.
She hit send before she could talk herself out of it.
Then she locked the phone, shoved it under her pillow, and pressed her face into Jack's shoulder, her heart hammering so hard she was surprised it didn't wake him.
It was just a phone call. Just a conversation. She hadn't agreed to anything.
But lying in the dark with the email already traveling through whatever invisible infrastructure carried words from a lighthouse in New England to a literary agency in New York, Clara felt the ground shift beneath her.
Something was starting. Something she couldn't undo with a delete key or a closed app or a cartoon lighthouse avatar.
Something that required her to be seen.
She didn't sleep for a long time.