Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Even though it was Saturday, my phone lit up with EDITH – DO NOT IGNORE at nine thirty in the morning.
I stared at it on the table, next to my coffee and a half-finished sketch of Seris standing in the ruins of her city, and considered letting it go to voicemail.
Edith was my editor, my publicist, and also, occasionally, my benevolent tyrant.
Ignoring her would only buy me maybe ten minutes of peace before the follow-up email.
With a sigh, I hit accept and put her on speaker.
“Hey,” I said. “You know civilians are still in pajamas on Saturdays, right?”
“Don’t care,” Edith chirped, way too awake. “Because I, my dear, am looking at the new pages you sent last night and I am officially losing my mind.”
I blinked. “In a good way?”
“In the best way.” I could practically hear her pacing. “Chloe, these spreads? The rubble sequence? The panel where Seris is standing in the broken doorway and the light is behind her? I might have actually gasped out loud. My cat judged me.”
A little warmth slid into my chest despite myself. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “This is career-best work. I want to start teasing it now. We can do a cover reveal, then a few interior panels, build some buzz. People are already rabid for the next volume, and if I don’t give them something soon, they’re going to storm my inbox.”
I winced and looked down at Seris. She stared back at me, inked hair wild, city in ruins, eyes full of all the things she couldn’t say.
“Edith…” I ran my thumb along the edge of the page. “Hold on, okay? It’s not done. I still haven’t figured out the ending.”
“That’s what revisions are for,” she said, breezy. “We tease, we build anticipation, we—wait, what do you mean you haven’t figured out the ending?”
“I mean,” I said slowly, “that I don’t…know how it ends.”
Silence. For about three seconds.
“Okay, no,” she said. “Absolutely not. I am putting my foot down. It has to end with a happy ending.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course she’d say that.
“How happy are we talking?” I asked. “Like, confetti and baby dragons? Or, like, they’re both alive and making eye contact?”
“Chloe.” Her voice softened. “Come on. It’s been a rough series. They’ve earned it. You’ve earned it. You cannot put these two through all this trauma and then just…leave them in separate corners staring at the wall.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
Seris and Kael were ink and paper. Lines and shading. Fiction.
They were also…us.
Me and Zarek. Twisted sideways. Put in a different world with magic and monsters and a war-torn city instead of Jasper Creek and grief and a nursery that stayed empty.
Seris, who couldn’t speak. Kael, who carried everyone else’s weight until it crushed him.
I wasn’t sure how we resolved. So how was I supposed to know how to resolve them?
“I honestly don’t know,” I said finally. “I don’t know if they get to ride off into a sunset or if they just…keep walking, separately, but not destroyed.”
“No.” Edith sounded like she was talking to a recalcitrant toddler.
“No ma’am. I love you, but absolutely not.
This is not that kind of manga. You write hope.
You always have. You don’t have to give them babies and white picket fences, but you do have to let them be together, okay?
They’re your characters. You can do literally anything to them—and you have—but you can’t just… leave them alone after everything.”
Something in my chest pinched.
“I know,” I whispered.
“Look,” she said, relenting a little. “I’m not asking you to spit out the perfect ending today. I know it’s tangled up with…stuff.”
She didn’t say Kristen. She didn’t say the word miscarriage. Edith didn’t know the specifics, but she knew enough to handle my landmines with care.
“But I need a timeline,” she continued. “Even a loose one. Is this a two-week thing? A month? I want to start the marketing machine, but I’m not going to throw you under the bus by promising a date you can’t hit.”
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling of my little Gatlinburg apartment.
Another month. Could I untangle Seris and Kael in a month? Could I untangle myself?
“I need another month, maybe two,” I said. “At least. I’ll work my ass off, I swear. But the way it ends…” I swallowed. “The way it ends is going to be a surprise. To you. To the readers. To me.”
She blew out a breath. “All right. Six weeks. I can work with that. We’ll do soft teases—character art, maybe a behind-the-scenes reel—without promising specifics.” Her tone shifted back to brisk. “But I’m holding you to those six weeks, Chloe. Put it on your calendar. Tattoo it on your hand.”
“I’ll write it on a sticky note,” I said. “That’s my level of commitment today.”
She snorted. “Fine. Go make art. Or, you know, live your life or whatever normal people do on Saturdays.”
“I’m making potato salad,” I said.
There was a beat.
“Of course you are,” she said. “You’re the only manga artist I know who makes emotional potato salad. Send me a picture of the bowl, I’ll use it in the marketing.”
I laughed, even as my throat burned. “Goodbye, Edith.”
“Love you, menace. Talk soon.”
The call clicked off.
I sat there for a second, the apartment weirdly quiet after her voice disappeared. Seris gazed up at me from the page, eyes full of ruins and stubborn hope.
“I don’t know how to fix us yet,” I told her softly. “But I’m trying.”
She didn’t answer, obviously.
With a sigh, I set the page aside, pushed back from the table, and went into the tiny kitchen. The bowl of half-mixed potato salad sat on the counter, mocking me with its chunked potatoes and chopped pickles and celery.
“Okay,” I told it. “Let’s make you socially acceptable.”
I stirred in the mayonnaise, tasted, adjusted the salt, added more dill, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that I was making side dishes for a family barbecue that my almost-ex-husband might or might not attend.
Fuck that noise. Zarek was not my almost-ex-husband. He was my husband, goddammit. He was the love of my life. And he damn well better attend.
By the time I was done, the potato salad looked respectable. I covered it, slipped it into the fridge, and checked the clock.
If I didn’t start getting ready now, I’d end up throwing on leggings and a hoodie and hiding in a corner while everyone else looked alive.
I went to my bedroom and opened the closet.
The dress hung there like a dare.
A burnt orange, online impulse purchase at two in the morning on a night when I’d been feeling reckless and optimistic in equal measure. The reviews had promised it would “compliment a woman’s body” and “make you feel like a sun goddess.”
Sure. Or it would make me feel like a traffic cone.
But when I’d tried it on two days ago—just to see—I’d stared at myself in the mirror for a long time.
It fit.
Not the way things fit before. Not the old familiar lines of my body.
But it fit the version of me that existed now.
The one that still needed to eat more, but still had a softer belly.
The color made my skin look warm instead of washed out.
The neckline hinted at cleavage without feeling like a billboard.
The skirt flowed when I moved, brushing my knees.
I took it down gently and slipped it on.
A knock sounded on my mental door, the one labeled ARE YOU BEING RIDICULOUS? I ignored it.
If Zarek came, I wanted… I didn’t want revenge. Not exactly. I just wanted him to see me and remember that I was more than a reminder of grief, I once was his joy.
I wanted to knock his eyes out of his head.
I added earrings, a bracelet, and the pair of sandals that made my legs look like I’d maybe done a squat at some point in the last year. I did my makeup slowly—liner, mascara, a sweep of bronzer, a lip color that wasn’t quite brave enough to be red but was definitely more than ChapStick.
When I was done, I stared at my reflection.
“Okay,” I told the woman looking back at me. “Barbecue time.”
Whether or not he showed, I was going.
Because my life was bigger than just my marriage.
Bigger than the man who had been my best friend since I was seven years old.
But damn, I sure hoped he’d be there. I needed to see his face.
Trenda and Simon’s backyard looked like a Norman Rockwell painting had collided with a Pinterest board.
Kids ran everywhere—Bella shrieking with laughter as she was either being chased or chasing the Drakos twins around the swing set, neighborhood little ones darting between folding chairs and coolers.
The grill smoked contentedly at the far end of the yard where Simon, Aiden, and my big brother Drake were arguing about the proper way to flip a burger.
Folding tables sagged under the weight of potato salad (mine), coleslaw (Zoe’s), baked beans (Maddie’s), and approximately fourteen bags of chips because no one in this town knew how to do “enough.”
It smelled like charcoal, sunscreen and summer.
I stood in the middle of it all, my burnt orange dress swishing around my legs, holding a plastic cup of sweet tea and trying not to get kidnapped.
“Aunt Chloe!” Holden skidded to a stop in front of me, sneakers digging into the grass. His six-year-old face was flushed, blonde curls damp with sweat, blue eyes wide with urgent purpose. “Come climb the tree with us!”
Behind him, Zephyr—four, freckled, and sticky with what I hoped was Popsicle juice—bounced up and down. “Tree! Tree! Aunt Chloe, please, please, pleeeease.”
I glanced across the yard.
The big sycamore at the back of the property spread its branches like an invitation, low limbs perfect for little hands and feet. Two makeshift tire swings hung from one side.
“Buddy,” I said, crouching down to Holden’s eye level, “I would love to, but I’m wearing a dress.”
“So?” he demanded.
“So,” I said carefully, “if I climb the tree in this dress, everyone in this backyard will be able to see my underwear.”
Holden considered this gravely.