Chapter 17 Downbeat
Downbeat
When Sage and Noah were younger and thick as thieves—before things like jobs and life paths and adulthood added their strain—they used to spend hours playing video games together.
It was one of those rare things that they both loved: Noah because he was obsessed with anything on a screen, and Sage because she was obsessed with anything that brought her closer to her brother.
Mario Kart was one of their favorites, even if Noah always won.
But one time, Sage was in the lead. It was the final lap, and she could feel the sweet thrill of victory climbing up her throat as she stared at the screen so hard her eyes burned.
She tackled the hardest curve, let out a shout of joy, and blinked.
In that brief moment her eyes were closed, Yoshi hit a banana peel and sent the cart spiraling out of control.
Noah took the lead and won.
Sage had cussed so loudly their mom had heard from the kitchen. She’d been grounded for a week. But at least she’d learned a life lesson.
It’s never really the tricky curves.
It’s the fucking banana peels.
It starts, as it so often does, with an email.
She did, in fact, silence the group chat a few days ago, but that was more because she needed to focus on writing. She’s been on a roll. She’s just wrapped up another productive drafting session when her editor’s name appears in her inbox.
A smile stretches across Sage’s face, and she clicks on the reply to her first act with a flourish to usher in the tidings of joy and good cheer that surely await.
The email is brief.
To the point.
Dec 8
Hi, Sage! Thank you so much for sending.
It’s so exciting to dive back into the world of Nights!
That being said, something feels off to me about starting this way.
Maybe it’s a bit too downbeat? I don’t know that readers will resonate with it.
I think they’ll be eager to jump right back in with Cleo, too.
Not bringing her in immediately feels like a missed opportunity. Is there rearranging we can do here?
Let me know if you want to talk it through. Here to help!
Marie
Sage’s back aches as she slumps a bit on the barstool.
She wasn’t expecting effusive praise from Marie, but a flat-out this isn’t working has her pulse ticking up unexpectedly. She’s finally found her rhythm with the new direction. She can’t afford to start over again.
Sage rolls out her neck. She’ll sit with this for a bit.
It doesn’t have to mean anything more than she makes it mean, and she refuses to make it mean that her progress has been a waste.
That the story that’s been swirling around in her brain, fed by movies and fresh air and Theo, isn’t worth telling.
Sage minimizes the email, but her phone ringing stops her from doing much of anything else. She frowns as her dad’s face flashes across the screen.
Her dad never calls out of the blue. He’s a CEO down to his very bones. He needs a calendar invite and a confirmation text, and you better give him three days’ notice.
“Hey, Dad,” she greets, closing her laptop. “Everything okay?”
“Hi, hon.” Her dad’s deep voice fills her ears, and she relaxes a little at how normal he sounds.
There’s no underlying panic, no blaring sirens in the background, no indication that someone is dead or dying or some other catastrophe.
“Everything’s fine,” he assures her. “I just wanted to go over some Christmas things with you if you have a sec?”
In hindsight, Sage should’ve known that there was another shoe and it was about to drop. But as it stands, her brain is murky from work and the disappointment she’s trying to keep in its buffering pattern, so instead she leaps right into what can only be described as an expertly laid trap.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You remember Paul Jensen? We worked together back at Piege. He heads up the analytics team there now.”
Sage can confidently say that she has no fucking idea who Paul Jensen is, but a murky picture of a mediocre old man floats to mind anyway as she drags herself off the counter stool and pads her way over to the light switch.
She flicks it, squinting in the suddenly bright kitchen, and says, “Sure, I remember Paul.”
“Well, he wants to get together for dinner over the holidays, and I’d love for you to be there.
I know you’re all set to fly in on the twenty-second, but he’ll be leaving to see family then, so I was thinking perhaps you could come home a bit early, and we do something the nineteenth?
I’d be happy to cover the change fee for your flight. ”
Sage frowns as she leans a hip against the counter, her gaze finding the darkening late-afternoon sky. She’s mulling over a polite way to ask why the hell he wants her at a dinner with his former coworker, but it turns out she doesn’t need one.
Her dad plows on. “He’s looking for a senior-level analyst, and, well, he’s used to me talking you up, so he was keen to meet you when he learned you’d be home for Christmas.”
He chuckles good-naturedly, and Sage is so gobsmacked that it takes her a solid seven seconds to speak.
Surely, he can’t be saying what she thinks he’s saying.
She must be misunderstanding him, must be still stuck halfway in work, her mind firing at half speed as she reacquaints herself with the world outside of her laptop.
“Dad,” she says slowly. “I have a job.”
It shouldn’t be a revelation, but apparently it is, because her dad is quiet for a long moment.
“Well, yes,” he finally concedes. “But your mom said that isn’t going well, and the trajectory for this position is really something, Sage.
It could be a fast track to a chief data officer position, and you already know how—”
“Dad,” Sage interrupts. There’s an edge to her tone this time, and it’s enough for him to fall silent.
Her fingers tingle as she grips her phone tight.
“My … my job is going fine,” she stammers.
In the light of the email she just received, it almost feels like a lie, and the fact that doubt is rushing back in so quickly, so easily, nearly makes Sage sick.
Sick, and angry.
Her jaw is tight, that tingling feeling spreading from her fingers to her arms and legs, and she’s shaking her head and continuing on before she can even think about the words pouring out of her mouth.
“Just because I’m stuck on my next book doesn’t mean it’s not …
Dad, Nights was a Times bestseller. Do you know how rare that is? Do you understand what that means?”
Sage loathes knowing it holds some sort of power over her, that it’s some sort of marker that she can point to when she feels like a fake.
But people think it means something, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t use it as a data point her parents so clearly need to see that what she’s doing is something real, and because of that, it …
It means everything.
“I’m very proud, Sagey,” her dad reassures her, but it feels more like a pat on the head, a there, there instead of a true acknowledgment. “But I know this career has been volatile, between the movie studio and your trip to escape the pressure—”
“That’s not—”
“And I just think,” he presses on in that aggravatingly calm but firm way, “that some stability might be good for you.”
This cannot be happening.
Sage knows her parents. She knows what they value and what they don’t understand.
But this … this feels like a manifestation of her worst fears and deepest wounds, laid out in a phone conversation that she feels like she’s witnessing instead of participating in.
It’s like she’s sitting on one of the exposed beams above her, watching as her shoulders curve in and her knuckles turn white.
For all the way her brain catastrophizes, she can honestly say she didn’t see this coming. And that is so much worse.
If she knows the hurt is imminent, she can brace for impact. She can ignore the throbbing in her chest and instead fixate on the fire that fuels her to do better.
She can’t do that when she’s blindsided like this.
“What about what I think is good for me?” Emotion mounts in her voice, and she knows better than to let it show, to give him a single iota of an indication that she’s feeling too much.
He taught her to negotiate, after all. To remain levelheaded in the face of an outburst so she could win.
But she can’t help it. Anger is searing her throat and clenching her muscles and suddenly she’s off of that beam and thrust right back into her body as her vision goes red.
“When have I ever given you and Mom the indication that I don’t want this with every fiber of my being? God, you two are so … you’re so obsessed with what you want for me that you can’t even see that I’m out here fighting for my dreams. It’s like you don’t even fucking care!”
“Do not speak to me like that—”
“Why? Why should I even entertain this conversation when it doesn’t show me an ounce of respect?”
“We’re just trying to help, Sage,” her dad insists. “Ever since you’ve taken this detour, you’ve become—”
“It’s not a detour!” The words bounce around the cottage as she begins to pace in short, jerky steps.
She doesn’t need him to finish his sentence—she can’t stand for him to finish his sentence.
She’s not sure they’d come back from it if he did.
“This is who I am, Dad,” she grinds out, rubbing a furious hand across her tear-stained cheeks.
“I’m sorry it’s not who you and Mom want in a daughter, but this is me. ”
Her dad sighs, and it’s heavy and condescending and Sage thinks she seriously might scream, or throw up. “Honey, we love you. We just know you have so much potential, and we don’t want that to go to waste.”
Potential.
Waste.
Not enough.
Never enough.
“I have to go,” Sage forces out, hating her voice for the way it trembles.
“Sage—”
“I have to go, Dad.”
“Okay. Fine. We’ll revisit the dinner another day.”