Chapter 32
On Monday morning, I arrive at Ryan’s, eager to be his human dictating machine.
I want to tell him all about this weekend, how I stood up for myself and my own needs.
He needs to know I am done with Chris. It’s over.
I don’t expect Ryan’s feelings for me will change in any way but at least he won’t feel guilty about kissing me anymore.
Should the opportunity arise, that is, and I hope that it will.
The door is open when I arrive and a strange woman I’ve never seen before is cleaning in the kitchen.
“Hello,” she says, looking up as I walk inside.
“I’m looking for Ryan? He’s staying here, and I work for him.”
“You must be Luci,” she says, handing me an envelope. “He said to give this to you when you came in on Monday.”
“He’s not here?”
“No, he went back early.”
He’s…gone.
I clutch the envelope. This contains bad news and I should be alone when I read what he has to say to me after clearing out of the house like he’s running from the law. But I don’t get far before I tear open the envelope and read his note.
Dear Luci,
I’ve left you a check that should cover the remainder of your salary.
Your help has been invaluable but I’m going back to Pasadena to finish this book.
It’s become too difficult to focus and I don’t mean my ribs.
Kate will be in touch regarding the sequel.
You should have an agency agreement in your inbox soon.
I have no doubt you’re going to write a much better book than I did.
Keep in mind that whether it sells a lot of copies won’t have anything to do with the story or your writing.
There’s a lot of luck involved in this business and you already know this.
Let me make something perfectly clear. Love doesn’t mean you chase someone.
I know that’s what you expect. Chasing after someone like Grayson did in the book, begging them to love you, is nothing but desperation, insecurity, and loneliness.
That’s not true love. Love can simply be the effort of standing still and having the sense to recognize it when it rotates around you like the sun.
Sometimes real love means letting someone go when you realize they’d be better off without you. Because you see, big declarations of love can be quiet. They can be still. I know that’s not how it works in romance books. This is how it works for me.
I’m in love with you, and nothing is ever going to change that.
Write your books and be happy. You deserve it more than anyone I’ve ever known.
Have a good life.
~R
Have a good life?
Have a good life?
What the actual…ugh! I press my back against the wall and dramatically slide to the floor in a heap. And no, I would not write it this way.
Ryan loves me, so he’s leaving. This is how he’s written our ending.
I guess that’s what you get with a man who isn’t a true romance writer.
He’s a one-hit wonder. I read his stupid note again and again hoping I missed the part where he tells me to join him.
Where he tells me he wants to see me again.
This all makes about as much sense as his Soulmates ending.
It’s no ending at all. Incomplete. A cliffhanger.
Author, please elucidate! More feeling here, go deeper.
Don’t leave the reader hanging, a cardinal sin. I am on the edge of a scream.
“Are you okay?” the woman says, gazing at me with narrowed eyes because I’m now sitting on the floor. “Bad news?”
“The worst.”
“Oh well, it will get better. After all, tomorrow is another day!” She says in a sing-song tone and goes back to cleaning the oven.
I’m a bit taken aback by her casual attitude but she’s right.
Tomorrow is another day, her insincere platitudes notwithstanding.
So what if Ryan claims to be in love with me, the point is he left.
The point is he put it in writing when he should have said it out loud.
The point is he doesn’t think I’m worth fighting for.
Instead of tears, there’s a shaking anger that convulses through me. I am so done with men. Done!
Maybe I’m just meant to write the romances, not live them. Most people are probably not meant to live out a great love story but simply learn to live with whatever joy comes their way. It turns out some of the “lucky” people have to wait twenty-five years before they can be together.
Well, I will not be waiting. I will be moving on. Like Eddie before my mother, maybe I’ll date a whole lot and be the woman that goes to the wedding receptions in my forties and is available to dance with all the single men.
I will be happy with my work and my family. It will be enough.
Since I suddenly have the entire day ahead of me I go back to the coffee shop and pull out my laptop.
I will rejoin the mighty droves of aspiring authors and playwrights all around me and rage write.
I pull up the beginning of the sequel and add a few hundred words, but they’re unhinged words.
I’m going to have to revise heavily, maybe even (gasp) delete.
There’s little I hate worse than throw-away words, but I admit they get the juices flowing.
“What are you doing here?” Lula screams. “I thought you left.”
Grayson turns to Lula. “Ignore my stupid letter. I couldn’t leave. Because I love you.”
“You don’t love me. What a load of bullshit baloney bull hockey!” Lula grabs her gun, which is legally registered and for which she has a permit.
“What are you doing?” Grayson asks.
Lula cocks the gun, and shoots Grayson in the heart.
“I’m wounded!” He clutches his chest. “This hurts like hell. It’s worse than my bruised ribs.”
“Now you know how I feel!”
And…end scene.
This is terrible. Truly awful. I will never write a crime thriller but if I did, while it wouldn’t be any good, it would be extremely cathartic.
I’d start by killing all the guys who say they love me and then leave.
I’d devise evil ways to torture them. Facts are, I can’t concentrate.
I envy all the writers around me who are lost in the worlds they’ve created.
They remind me of Ryan and his ridiculous powers of concentration.
Since I can’t write words that make any sense, I check my email and find the agency agreement from Kate.
To: theghostwriter@hotmail
From: Kate.Emery@EmeryAgency
Re: Agency agreement
Dear Lucia,
Attached please find the agency agreement.
Please review and sign. We’re all so excited about the sequel to Soulmates.
Ryan ran the query by me and I love the idea of a book entirely from Lula’s point of view.
Please send me the proposal by, shall we say, next month?
Do let me know if you need more time. I look forward to working with you.
Best,
Kate
I quickly reply that I’m thrilled and will sign and email the agreement back today.
At least one good thing happened today but it rings hollow for me.
All of my long-held dreams are finally happening even if not at all in the way I’d imagined.
I have what many in the business would call a “dream agent.” This is everything I ever wanted and I should be happier.
I should squeal, jump for joy, spill my coffee, call my family, and everyone I’ve ever met.
I should post it on my socials and email everyone in my address book.
But I’m in a mood right now since Ryan wrote a note saying he loved me then skipped town.
My thoughts turn to someone whose feelings I’ve obviously deeply wounded even if it was never my intention.
I email Holly and find out whether she’s still in town and might like to meet for coffee.
She’s probably already going to be on a plane back to Missouri but maybe if she took the time to fly all the way here, she and her family made a vacation out of it.
To: inthequerytrenches@yahoo
From: theghostwriter@hotmail
Re: Please forgive me
I hope you’re still in the area. If so, I’d love to chat.
Please email or text if you’d like to meet at a coffee shop.
I’d love to show you around town if you have time.
Most of all, of course, I’m sorry for everything, and I want to talk.
What I’ve done was unfair but I need you to hear my side and I don’t feel comfortable explaining this all in an email.
I sign off by leaving her my cell number.
I don’t expect an immediate reply, but maybe Holly will give me a chance to explain my actions.
While I didn’t write the first book, I’ve officially taken on the pen name.
From now on, it’s me behind Elizabeth Brogan and everything that entails.
And because I’m a good friend, no matter what she might think of me now, I want to help Holly in any way I can.
Ryan helped me and it’s time to pay it forward.
Women in publishing need to stick together.
I drive home for an afternoon of working in my shed without interruptions.
If I can stop thinking about Ryan for thirty minutes, I might get a few hundred words in.
But he’s constantly interrupting my flow, as a montage in my mind goes back to the first time we met.
Me, giving the wrong professor my entire life’s story while behind him, Ryan quietly listened.
I segue to the night I saw the video of him, angry and tearing into the genre that made me want to be an author, the genre he’d accidentally fallen into.
The day he brought me soup and asked me to do him a gigantic favor.
He changed my life. But in the end, I changed my life.