Chapter 10
Ellie
I came back at seven o'clock on Wednesday.
This was not part of my schedule.
According to the schedule, I left at five on Wednesdays, went home, made dinner—which was usually something simple because I lived alone, and people who live alone are not accountable to anyone for elaborate meals—and then read or wrote in my notebook or both, in that order or any order.
Today I made dinner.
Pasta.
Simple.
Literally boiling water.
I ate and then spent an hour trying to read before realizing I had read the same page three times without retaining any of it.
The thing I kept thinking about was:
You talk very specifically about something that isn't your job.
The next thing I kept thinking about was:
He said accident. The best scenes are always accidents.
The thing I was actually thinking about—the thing I would not admit even internally without significant resistance—was this:
He had read J.D. Mercer's books.
For research.
Since when?
Why romance specifically?
Literary fiction authors generally do not research romance unless—
I closed the book.
Put on my coat.
Went back to the bookshop.
Jo had a spare key.
I had a spare key.
That was the arrangement because Jo had once locked herself out for two hours in February, and ever since then we each carried a copy of the other's keys.
I had never used mine to come back at night.
There had never been a reason.
If I forgot something, I usually just called Jo.
But technically, this was allowed.
I used the key.
Walked inside.
Lights off.
I stood in the darkness for a moment.
A bookshop feels different at night.
During the day, it's functional.
Bright.
Warm.
Customers talking.
The sounds of transactions.
At night, it's just books.
And that specific kind of quiet that exists when thousands of stories are gathered in one place and nobody is reading any of them.
I had never explained that to anyone because it sounded strange out loud.
In person, it made perfect sense.
I turned on my phone flashlight.
Walked toward the counter.
Looking for the thing I had actually forgotten.
An order confirmation.
I had printed it earlier and left it on the counter and wanted to take it home so Jo could review it before morning.
The paper was still there.
I picked it up.
Then I looked upstairs.
Noah's lights were on.
I was about to leave.
I was clearly about to leave.
Paper in hand.
Phone flashlight on.
Key ready.
Then I heard footsteps.
Coming down.
Back stairs.
Third step.
Creak.
I froze.
He opened the door from the kitchen.
The light came on.
The kitchen lit up.
He stood there holding a mug.
Clearly he had come downstairs for coffee.
Then he saw me.
One second.
Then another.
"You're here," he said.
It wasn't an accusation.
Just an observation.
"I forgot something," I said, holding up the paper.
"At seven at night."
"I remembered later."
"Uh-huh."
He walked into the kitchen.
I could hear the coffee maker.
Maybe he had already set it up.
Maybe he was looking for something else.
"You here alone?" he asked.
"Jo went home. I—yes. I'm alone."
"Why didn't you turn on the lights?"
"I was only grabbing the paper. One minute."
He came back out of the kitchen.
No coffee in his hands.
Meaning he hadn't specifically come downstairs for coffee.
Or coffee had been secondary.
He stopped near the counter.
Not approaching me.
Just... there.
"Are you leaving?" he asked.
I folded the paper.
Put it into my pocket.
"Yeah," I said.
And then, because apparently I had lost all control over my own mouth:
"Are you okay?"
He looked at me.
"Why?"
"Because you've been awake all night. And two nights ago too. And Jo mentioned—"
"Jo mentions a lot."
"She cares. We all do. That's one thing about Wren Falls. People notice each other."
I paused.
"It can be annoying. I know."
"No," he said quietly.
"No, actually."
Silence.
Outside, a car passed.
Headlights swept across the windows.
For a brief moment the entire shop lit up.
Then darkness returned.
"I was writing," he finally said.
"That's why I was awake. There was something that needed to be finished. A scene."
"The scene you rewrote?"
"A different one."
He leaned against the edge of the counter.
Comfortably.
Which was strange because he generally didn't seem comfortable in spaces.
He always held himself slightly apart from them.
"There was a character in the novel," he said.
"She wanted to say something, and I... I didn't know what she actually wanted to say."
He shook his head slightly.
"I should have known. That's her job. To tell me."
A pause.
"But she wasn't talking."
"And now?"
"Now she is."
Another pause.
"It's always like that. You can't force it. You wait."
I looked at him.
His profile.
The side lighting.
That expression he got when he talked about things that genuinely mattered.
Unguarded.
Which, I realized, was becoming less rare.
He was more present here.
More available.
As though Wren Falls had loosened something that had been pulled tight for a very long time.
"Your novel," I said.
"The one you're writing here. Is it different from the previous books?"
He looked at me.
Considered something.
"Yeah."
"How?"
"The earlier books..."
He paused.
"I knew exactly what they wanted to say from the beginning. Every scene was a deliberate choice."
He looked down briefly.
"This one..."
A slight shake of his head.
"It keeps surprising me."
Pause.
"Which honestly never used to happen."
"You like being surprised?"
"I didn't know I did."
A faint smile.
"Apparently I do."
There was a pause.
"Jo says your books are very controlled."
He didn't freeze.
But something shifted.
Very slightly.
"Jo said that?"
"Jo says a lot of things to a lot of people."
I adjusted the paper in my pocket.
"But yes. She mentioned it."
"And what do you think?"
I took a second.
"I've read all three of your books," I said.
"Every one."
"And I posted that video."
I hesitated.
"The her book videos one. About The Space Between Rooms."
He said nothing.
"What I said in that video was what I genuinely believed."
I looked at him.
"The sentences are beautiful. The structure is impeccable."
I paused.
"And I felt like you weren't there."
Fully.
"As though you had decided exactly how much of yourself you were willing to give and that amount was fixed and nothing the reader did would ever earn more access than that."
Silence.
Long enough that I wondered whether I had made a mistake.
"You were right," he said.
Simple.
No defense.
No qualification.
I stared at him.
"I know," he continued.
"I saw the video."
"When?"
"First week here."
He looked down at his hands briefly.
"You said you were waiting."
Pause.
"That one day I'd write something that would actually break you."
I'm waiting. And when he does, I'll be the first one here to say I told you so.
I had said that.
Literally.
On a public platform.
About him specifically.
"Oh," I said.
"Yeah."
"I—that was a professional opinion. From a critical framework—"
"Ellie."
"Yeah."
"I wasn't offended."
I looked at him.
"Seriously."
He smiled slightly.
"Honestly, that was part of the reason."
"Part of the reason for what?"
"Rewriting the scene."
He met my eyes.
"What you said he didn't do—actually letting people feel things—that was true."
A pause.
"And I knew it was true."
Another.
"Hearing it from someone who actually..."
He stopped.
"Someone who actually understands what works."
The room was quiet.
I suddenly became aware of how close we were.
Still separated by the counter.
Still physically apart.
But the distance felt smaller than usual.
Not uncomfortably.
The other way.
"Your novel," I said.
"The one you're writing here. When will it be finished?"
"Dana wants a first draft by the end of the month."
"Three weeks."
"Yeah."
"And then?"
"Editing. Revision. Publication probably next year."
"And Wren Falls?"
He paused.
"What do you mean?"
"When the novel is finished."
I looked at him.
"You'll leave."
A silence.
Different from the others.
"Yeah," he said finally.
"I'll leave."
I nodded.
Something settled inside me.
Not painfully.
Just clearly.
Information.
A timeline.
Three weeks and then it would be over.
It was useful to know.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay," he echoed.
I adjusted my coat.
The paper was in my pocket.
I had done what I came here to do.
"I'm going home," I said.
"Yeah."
I walked toward the door.
Stopped.
The question I wanted to ask.
The thing I had been thinking about during dinner.
During the drive.
During the third rereading of that page.
It was merely curiosity.
Professional curiosity.
A reader interested in a writer's process.
"That character," I said without turning around.
"The one who wasn't talking. The one who's talking now."
A pause.
"What is she saying?"
A long silence.
Then:
"Something she doesn't want to say."
His voice was quiet.
"Because once she says it, she can't take it back."
I nodded in the darkness.
Where he couldn't see me.
"The best lines usually are," I said.
Then I left.
On the walk home—
Cold night air.
Thin ice on the sidewalk.
My hands tucked into my coat pockets—
I thought about that sentence.
Once she says it, she can't take it back.
I thought about my notebook.
The one in the drawer.
Those fragments I had written.
Characters.
Scenes.
Conversations.
Things I had never shown anyone because showing them would mean acknowledging that they mattered.
I thought about Noah.
Who would leave in three weeks?
I thought about the thing I wanted to say.
Not to him specifically.
Just generally.
And about the feeling that comes from holding onto something for so long that it takes the shape of your hands.
Until you're no longer sure whether you could let it go even if you wanted to.
I got home.
Took off my coat.
Pulled out the notebook.
Started writing.
And didn't stop for a very long time.