Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
DAISY
“This is what I’m talking about,” Tarah moans around a bite of blueberry muffin Friday morning.
When I got her email saying she needed to see me right away, I didn’t think we would be rating the entire baked goods menu at The Independent.
In fact, I was pretty sure she had finally decided to disown me after reading the last few chapters I emailed her earlier this week.
“I think this almost beats the cinnamon roll for me.” She sighs contentedly, reaching for her cup of tea. “Are you not hungry?” she asks, frowning at the untouched plate in front of me.
“I’m okay.” In all honesty I’m feeling a little nauseous. She still hasn’t given me any indication why she summoned me here and it’s driving me crazy.
“More for me then.”
“You said you needed to see me?” I ask when I finally can’t take it any longer. “Was everything okay with the pages I sent?”
“Ah yes,” she says, wiping her fingers on a napkin before she starts digging through the tote bag, she set on the chair next to her.
She pulls a stack of printer paper out and sets them down on the table between us, her fingers drumming on the top page. I instantly recognize the scene I rewrote five times last week before finally getting up the courage to hit send. “You rewrote it.”
I nod. “I thought about what you said. How it wasn’t resonating with her character, so I went back to change it.”
“I’m glad you did.” She smiles and I feel my shoulders drop a bit. “It feels like the story is coming to life now. I can hear your voice in these pages, like you’re finally having fun with it.”
“I am,” I admit. She was right—I was trying to force my character down a path she didn’t belong. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m doing the same thing for myself.
“I showed it to my friend in New York,” Tarah continues, pulling me from my own thoughts. “She loved it. Keep it up and she might want to see the full thing when it’s done.”
My heart lodges itself into the back of my throat. “Your friend?”
She grins sheepishly. “Okay, maybe she’s more like my agent. I can’t promise anything, but she’s curious. Changing the direction of the romance arc was definitely the best choice—and I’m not just saying that because I’m on team Damien.”
I gape at her. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You can start by telling me you’ll get the draft done before you finish with me this summer.”
“I’ll get it done,” I promise her, feeling more determined than ever—and possibly like I’m about to fall out of my chair.
“Perfect.” She beams. Then her gaze falls on the untouched croissant in front of me, and I see her fingers twitch around her cup of tea. “Are you going to eat that?”
I push the plate across to her and watch her tear into the buttery pastry while I gather up the pieces of my world and put them back together.
“Shut up,” Willa squeals in my ear. I called her the second I left campus, Tarah’s latest edits safely tucked away in my bag. There’s spring in the air, the sun shining from a clear blue sky, and it’s finally warm enough not to need a coat as I stroll down the Main Street taking me home.
I touch my hand to my face, trying to contain my own excitement. The long sleeve of my cardigan hangs over my hand and I squeal into the soft knit. “I can’t believe it.”
“Oh, believe it.” She tuts before eliciting a loud “Finally!” that has me moving the phone away from my ear at the sheer volume. “I can’t believe my best friend is about to be a bestselling author."
“I have to finish the book first,” I remind her, and hear the sound of bed springs squeaking a second later. “Are you jumping on your bed?”
She ignores me, which tells me everything I need to know.
“You’ll finish it, even if I have to strap you to the chair myself and watch you type,” she threatens in between more squeaking. She’s definitely jumping on the bed. “We’re so celebrating when you get back. Fries at Bennies on me.”
I pick at the skin next to my nail, trying to picture slipping back into my life in Willow Creek. I come up short. “Is it bad that I don’t want to go back?”
It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. I know there’s no world in which this could be my life, but the thought of staring down a white-picket-fence future, in a town where everyone thinks they know me, makes it a little hard to breathe.
The squeaking stops, and there’s a muffled thud like she’s plopped herself back down on the mattress.
“Of course not.” Her voice is soft, matching mine. “If you want to stay, you should.”
I’m already shaking my head, even if she can’t see me, but I feel the fight seep out of me the longer I try to hold it. “Mom needs me.”
“You need you,” she retorts.
“How’s school?” I ask, trying to change the topic.
“Nope, we’re not doing this.”
“Doing what?” I feign ignorance.
“Stop pleasing everyone at the expense of your own happiness. It’s time you do something because it’s what you want to do, not because you think it’s the right thing to do.”
That’s what coming here was supposed to be. One thing for myself, before I go back and mold myself into what everyone has always expected of me. But the longer I’m here, the harder that idea becomes.
“I’m not sure what I want,” I admit, mostly because I haven’t allowed myself to picture a future that didn’t go the way my parents wanted it.
“Maybe it’s time you figured it out.”