Chapter 9
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It’s like looking in a broken mirror…
Crisis
“You seem…” I nudge a few scrambled eggs onto a slice of buttered toast. “…more tired than when you slept on the floor.”
Across from me, Viktor’s eyes lift, the dark circles under them catching the morning light that streams through the main dining hall’s tall windows. Wearily, he blinks, stifles a yawn, and grunts.
My stomach constricts. “Was your…pillow uncomfortable?”
“The dog bed is very comfortable. Shockingly comfortable. No complaints.”
Okay…so why do you look like you’re about to collapse in your oatmeal? Don’t tell me his body has actually become reliant on the green protein smoothies I make for him. That would be terrible—for him. Justifying for me. Proof that I’m totally not torturing anyone and am just unorthodox in the way I benevolently assist my clients.
No pain, no gain, and all that.
I open my mouth, to cast light on my benevolence.
“I’m not exhausted because I haven’t had the morning concoctions you make.” He rubs his eyes, downs a bite of oatmeal, crunching a piece of apple he cut into it. “It’s just…hard to sleep the first night in a new bed.”
“Is it?” I ask. I slept great yesterday. Super great. Last night was no different. To be fair, though, the first night here, I lulled myself to rest by thinking about Viktor on the floor and last night it took everything in me not to wiggle with glee over the picture of his head snuggled up against a dog bed that looks like a cartoon sloth face.
He stares at me in such a way I worry he can see through my terrible thoughts. Maybe he can. He did know exactly what I was thinking a moment ago. At least he doesn’t call me out again, though. He just mutters, “Yes, usually,” and stuffs down another bite of oatmeal.
“H-hi!” a young woman chirps, startling my attention toward a bespectacled lass covered in more freckles than even Crimson has. Red curls frame the woman’s face and bounce when she throws her hand out toward Viktor. “Huge fan.”
Tired Viktor must not be as terrifying as Hurting Viktor. Either that, or these people are getting brave and soon we’ll be swamped with young whippersnappers, eager to touch the master’s hand.
Case in point, the woman melts a little and squeaks when Viktor greets her—by means of lifting his chin an inch higher and stuffing another bite of oatmeal in his face.
“I-I just wanted to say—” She swallows, pulling her hand back to her side and wiping it on her plaid dress “—I absolutely loved your book Dust and Dawn . When Raweina and Prince Lark could finally, finally be together, I died. I just absolutely died.”
Wild. She’s dead, is she?
Yet, she still stands.
Running her mouth.
Awful chatty for a dead person, I think .
She continues yapping. “My favorite scene ever, in any book I’ve ever read, is the campfire moment. Their first stolen kiss by firelight. The regrets that followed. I stopped breathing. The way Lark cared about her while they both fought to save their kingdoms… I just—” She squeals.
Like a pig.
“—I want to write something a fraction as incredible. It’s been my dream ever since I first read one of your books years ago.”
Is someone going to tell her that writing something a fraction as incredible as someone else’s work is a wholly attainable dream? Drivel is a fraction as incredible, because a fraction can be as small as one one-millionth.
I think girly needs to define her fraction a little more clearly. How far are we aiming here, gumdrop?
Half as? A fourth as?
I’ll be kind and bet you’ve got an eighth in you—with enough practice…and rewrites. Again, and again, and again.
Ugh. I can’t believe I once was this person. So…so bright and hopeful and hanging onto the great Viktor Bachelor’s every word. I studied his work. Intimately. I diagrammed his sentences to learn their patterns. I, like in every other area of my life, obsessed .
I threw my heart, body, and soul into loving his words and learning to love mine.
If my commitment to vengeance appears strong, it barely holds a candle to how I used to commit to love. I worshipped the pages of Viktor’s novels, adapted the common phrases into my daily lingo. I did anything to feel closer to the man, the myth, the legend.
Who, presently, is squinting up at one such adoring fan with his brows knit and the sincerest, “Um…thanks,” around .
The redhead falters, pushing up her glasses, and I wonder if the age-old never meet your heroes is slashing itself through her mind right about now, too. She laughs, awkwardly, timidly, and works her fingers into her curls. “I’m sorry for interrupting your breakfast. I just…well…it’s another busy day of writing, isn’t it? Are you making good progress on your current work in progress?”
“My daily goal is five thousand words, so…yes. Usually, I am.”
“F—” She blinks, gawks. “ Five thousand? How do you have time to eat? Sleep?”
Look at him, girly. Has he slept ? No.
“It’s not that many words when you break it down. I average anywhere between seven hundred and two thousand an hour.”
She pulls up a chair, plops down, scoots in.
Oh.
Okay.
We’re doing this, huh?
Where did your stutter go, lady?
I crunch my toast, watching the interaction like a bad movie.
“ How? ” is the woman’s illustrious question. She’s twitching slightly, as though she regrets not bringing a notepad to this interrogation.
Viktor stares at her. “How…what?”
“How do you write so many words in an hour ? I can spend all day getting less than five hundred. How do you handle the constant doubts? The fears that everything you’re writing is garbage? How do you just push through and get it all out of your head?”
“I don’t really have constant doubts. I spend a few days before each book plotting a detailed outline, then I follow it. The first draft doesn’t matter. At all. You’re just putting words on a page. Then in the second draft hopefully you can convincingly pretend you knew what you were doing with them in the first place. Finally, once you feel you’ve done all you can, you send the draft to your editor, trusting that they’ll tell you what’s utter garbage and have some insight on how to fix it.”
The woman shudders. “Isn’t that terrifying?”
“No? It’s their job to look at garbage. As long as you’re putting in the work to make sure you aren’t repeating correctable errors they’ve already alerted you to, there’s no shame in sharing an imperfect story. They’re all imperfect in the end, no matter what we do with them, so there’s no reason to doubt. People love imperfections. It’s a staple in creating characters that are relatable.”
It’s so…cordial, isn’t it?
Where was my they’re all imperfect in the end when I set my draft down in front of him ten years ago, took a deep breath through the crying nerves, and pressed send ? I wasn’t even an unsolicited, entitled fan, sending him something and expecting that he’d have time for it.
I won a giveaway. He offered a critique for some writer’s event, and I applied tirelessly, following every instruction to get entries every single day it ran. And I won.
I had every right to impose.
Yet he still made me feel like an imposition.
I wasn’t interrupting anything he hadn’t agreed to, yet here he is—having a bad, exhausted day—being polite and genuine and helpful to a total stranger with less than an eighth as much reason to be here interrupting his breakfast.
Something sours in my gut, curdling the chocolate milk I grabbed at the buffet earlier.
“How do you achieve a mindset like that?” she asks, imploring his almighty hacks. “I’ve tried, and tried, but it still feels like I’m messing up every line I write. And if they aren’t the best they can be the first time, I just know I’ll miss something so important in editing.”
“It’s my job to make books. It’s not my job to judge them. A good editor is going to tell you what went wrong and how to fix it. All you have to do for any of your drafts is your best.”
Do your best .
What fluffy motivational trash speak is that?
Don’t tell me the morning hoorahs have already gotten to him, after one measly day.
“What if you can’t afford a proper editor and are considering going…” She swallows, braces herself. “…independent?”
“Independent is a great option, but it does have more upfront costs in order to make the higher backend royalties. Until you start getting returns and can afford an editor, make sure you at least have a handle on grammar and get some critique partners or beta readers to go through the book with you. They may not be professionals, but having someone else’s eyes on your work to tell you whether or not they enjoyed it will provide some validation, if that’s what you’re looking for while you grow as a writer.”
This conversation is making me sick.
What did I do so wrong that Viktor couldn’t spend this much time offering me the same kindnesses and encouragement? Was my book really so bad that all he could tell me was to start over and try again and that every area needed a blanket statement of help?
Even just the assumption that I would dare to send him a first draft was cruel. I combed through my book a dozen times before sending it to him. I was delusional, thinking I’d query, get an agent, become an author , so I’d been working on that thing for years .
Heart and soul.
Blood and tears.
And it wasn’t good enough for a single, vague compliment. A scrap—a modicum —of you can do this .
“Crisis?” Viktor’s voice squeezes a fist around my heart, and I look up to find his and the woman’s eyes pinned on me.
A scrambled egg falls off my toast. The wet lump lands in my spoon, which somehow flips the utensil into my open chocolate milk carton.
Dully, I reach for a napkin to wipe the karma splatters off my face. “Yes?”
The woman blinks, staring—appalled, horrified, shocked—at the spoon sticking out of my milk, but eventually she contains herself. “Gracious. I’m so sorry.” She looks at Viktor. “Is this your wife?”
Ew .
Viktor’s eyes widen, expression falling short of the appropriate level of disgust.
The redhead stammers, “S-sorry. It’s just. I’ve seen you both go in and out of the same room in the morning.” Her hands fly up, defending. “I’m not stalking! Promise! I was just coming down the stairs at the same time and saw.”
I stand, putting the poor lass out of her misery. “I’m not his wife. I’m his assistant. There was a mixup with the rooms, but since we’ve worked together so closely for two years, we decided not to make a big deal of it.” I fix my eyes on my boss. “Viktor, I’m gonna get started on today’s tasks since the whole…” I wave my free hand as I pick up my plate. “…morning writer thing isn’t really for me.”
It’s for other people, whose goals remain intact. It’s for writers who still think they’ll be authors someday. It’s for dreamers who cry and hug or find themselves overflowing with determination.
It’s not for people who don’t believe a single word. It’s not for people who threw all their dreams away in the name of revenge.
Eyeing me cautiously, Viktor nods. “Okay. I’ll join you soon.”
No rush.
I think I need to be alone for a minute and do my affirmations anyway.
Not letting them out these past few days has left them to fester inside me.
And I don’t like the person I am when I can’t get the sludge out of my head.