A Storybook Wedding

Chapter 15 Cecily

By the following night, I have stats logged in my notebook.

IGFOLLOWERS:516

QUERIES SENTOUT:25

AUTO-REPLIES:7

REJECTIONS:4

FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUESTS: 0

I am not doing well.

The social media stats should be providing me with some relief, but really, how hard can it be to get followers? I’ve posted a few cute things, put up exactly three pictures (one of the snow, one of my Tbr stack, and one of the birthday cake that Nate asked the kitchen staff to bake for me last night), reposted a couple of clever things that other people have created, and followed almost two thousand people in small batches of about thirty at a time.

It’s not like it’s rocket science or anything. A toddler could have the same success as me on Instagram.

The querying, however, is doing bad things to my stomach and my psyche. I know Nate’s stats; he told me them. And Work was his first manuscript, just like Hard Pass is mine.

I thought I’d have at least a few full requests by now.

Yes, I realize it’s only been a day, and people are coming off a long holiday break, but still. I am frozen in the desk chair the following night, having skipped an alumni virtual reading on Zoom in favor of staring at my screen, hitting Refresh over and over again on my email.

“This is not a good look for you, babe,” Nate says.

I smile because I really like the way that word makes me feel. “Keep calling me that. It’s way better than CJ.”

“Fair enough. But hey, I’m serious. I’m worried about you. This feels a little like a downward spiral you’re embarking on here.”

“I’m fine,” I rebut. “It’s just—I mean, I know that our genres are totally different, but you had such incredible stats for your queries. And so fast too.”

“First of all, I didn’t query immediately following the winter hibernation of the entire publishing industry. And second, I queried different agents than the ones you’ve reached out to. It’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. You know that.”

He’s right; I do know that. It just sucks is all. I hit Refresh again.

I have a new message in my inbox. My heart races, but only for a split second. I see it’s from Alice Devereaux and assume it has to do with the following day’s workshop. Except, wait a second. The subject line reads Congratulations.

I click to open it, and my eyes skim the page.

“Holy shit. Pen, you won’t believe it.”

“What?”

“I won that thing!”

“What thing?”

“The contest thing. Listen to this! ‘Dear Cecily Jane Allerton. On behalf of the MUMFA selection committee, I am pleased to inform you that your submission to the Rising Star Program has received the award for Best New Fiction. We hope you are as excited about this accomplishment as we are. As you know, the award comes with a stipend of one hundred dollars, which will be mailed to you at the address in your application. It also comes with publication in our literary journal, The Isle, as well as a special reading at our MUMFA graduation ceremony on January third. More details will follow shortly. In the meantime, congratulations on this esteemed accomplishment. Yours, Professor Alice Devereaux, Selection Committee Chair, MUMFA Rising Star Program.’”

“Babe! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!”

There’s that word again. Mmm. It gives me the chills. It’s been so long since anyone’s called me by a nickname like that. I shake my shoulders. “Oof,” I say. “I really needed a win. This is good.”

He gives me a hug from behind. I can smell the now familiar ingredients he uses to create a scent that is uniquely Nate, and it warms my insides. He feels like home in the best possible way. “So you’ll be reading at graduation tomorrow then. That’s awesome. I can’t wait.”

“Thank you,” I say, grinning. “And now I’ll have a very particular accolade to put on my next batch of query letters.”

“You see? That’s why you’re supposed to send them out in batches. Because things happen, and you never know when you might want to change them.”

“You’re so smart. I’m definitely glad that I married a PEN Award winner who’s been down this treacherous road before.”

He kisses my neck, and I discover I’ve found an antidote for my querying jitters. Sex with Nate seems to get my mind off things.

Good to know.

The following day, my morning workshop is a lecture covering what to expect when your manuscript goes out on submission—a nice hopeful change from the therapy session Alice Devereaux should have led for when we’re in the query trenches. Of course, I am the only student at Matthias who’s actively in the process of looking for an agent. Nate says I’m a unicorn. I think maybe I’m just the village idiot, and everyone’s having a grand old time watching me flail about like a cartoon character that somebody’s inadvertently lit on fire.

People act funny when they’re jealous,Nate tells me.

After workshop, we have lunch, and there’s an interesting energy in the air. This is our last full day of residency. Tomorrow, we leave the island. Students and faculty are tired; it’s a lot to constantly be “on” for twelve-plus hours every day for over a week, but there’s also the buzz of excitement about the graduation ceremony. Friends and family members of the grads will be there, and there’s a champagne toast afterward in the same area of the main house where the New Year’s Eve thing was held. The faculty members are waning from seven days of teaching and lecturing. Everyone is eager to see who will be matched with whom for mentorship this semester. The list will be up on my old friend, the Whiteboard, tomorrow morning. The entire lot of us are walking around kind of like a bunch of children on Christmas Eve—all sugared up from too many of Santa’s cookies and ready to crash but trying to stay up to catch the big guy coming out of a chimney.

Of course, in my house in Queens, there was no chimney. Mom used to leave a window cracked and told us that Santa knew to just reach in and open it all the way—and that he would close it up on his way out. Not going to lie, between our strange rituals and the annual viewing of Home Alone, I used to have recurring nightmares about getting robbed every December.

It’s a funny thing that I remember that little tidbit as I’m getting dressed for graduation. No cap and gown for me, of course. I’m not a grad yet. But Nate has to don academic regalia, and I adore how cute he looks in it all.

“You nervous?” he asks me as I straighten my dress in the mirror.

I shrug. “It should be fine. I mean, I’m not psyched about reading, but I have to get used to it, right? Like Dillon Norway said, I have to be willing to immerse myself in this world, and reading my work aloud to strangers is definitely a part of it.”

“You’re immersing, that’s for sure. How many followers are you up to?”

“I haven’t checked since lunch. I don’t want to become one of those people who’s always on my phone. It was very much on purpose that I never had it before this.”

“Time suck, right?”

“Yup. I mean, just yesterday alone, I was on there for over three hours when all was said and done.”

“How do you know?”

“I logged it.”

Pen smiles at me and gives me a soft kiss on my temple. “Of course you did.”

“I’m going to try and keep myself to two sessions a day—one in the morning and one at night, no more than twenty minutes per session.”

“Whatever works,” he says. “Anyway. You have your reading?”

“Yup. I’ve got two copies printed out in this folder and a backup on my phone.”

“Why two copies?”

“I don’t know. Just want to be prepared, I guess.”

“In case what? A sudden hurricane blows through the Spiritual Sanctuary and sweeps your reading up with it?”

I smirk. “Wise guy.”

“You’re prepared for anything, I guess.”

“You know it.”

We finish getting ourselves together and bundle into our coats to walk to the sanctuary at 7:15 p.m. The ceremony begins at 7:30, but they’ve asked graduates, faculty members, and readers to arrive fifteen minutes early.

In the lobby of the sanctuary, Dillon Norway gives the group a quick reminder of how we ran through the program at rehearsal this afternoon. Of course, I didn’t have to read then. It was more Dillon Norway saying, Okay, Cecily, you’ll be seated over here, and then I’ll introduce you, and once I‘m done, I’ll invite you up onstage for your reading. He showed me which set of steps to use, how to adjust the mic and said that there would be a small bottle of water at the podium for each of the readers labeled with our names on them.

So yeah, the jitters are creeping in.

The other two readers and I are told to take our seats—the front pew on the left side has been labeled Reserved for us. I walk carefully in my heels, holding my folder. The sanctuary reminds me of a small church—it’s wide but only goes back about a dozen rows. The graduates—all nine of them this semester—will be sitting in the front pew on the right side of the stage, and faculty (of which there are about twenty in total) will be seated all across the front pews. Everything else is open season for family members and other guests.

The space is quite full too. Surprisingly, people have traveled far and wide to be here, despite the residual ice on the roads from the storm the other day. It’s warmed up several degrees for the occasion, a balmy thirty-five, but at least the ground isn’t completely frozen over. There’s a camera set up on a tripod in the middle of the aisle, facing the podium, and a small table, chair, and laptop set up in the back, directly behind it.

I try not to fidget, taking care not to bite my nails or do anything else that could appear juvenile. Finally, the music begins to play, and all heads turn to the back of the room. We onlookers stand as “Pomp and Circumstance” floats in the air around us, causing a swell in my chest (not sure why, but it’s one of those songs that has that special power), and the faculty members file into the space, led by Dillon Norway, who looks almost regal in his garb. Nate winks at me as he passes by, and it comforts my nerves a little. It’s crazy to think how different this residency has been from my last one. This time around, I feel like I am part of this tapestry of humans, and even though I am maybe somewhat of a zoo animal in that I’m married to Nate and I’m the only one here who’s in the process of seeking representation for a manuscript that I completed in just one semester, there’s beauty in the striving, and I am part of a journey that we are all on as authors and creators.

Graduations are filled with optimism, just like me.

I watch in awe as Dillon Norway invites us all to be seated, then welcomes everyone to the fifteenth annual commencement ceremony of Matthias University’s MFA program. He recognizes the dean, acknowledges the graduates, and shares his own musings on the passage of time, growth, and evolution. He evokes spectacular metaphors, and his language is eloquent in a way that mine will never be. In this moment, I feel particularly privileged to be under his tutelage.

He begins to share the details of the Rising Star Program, and I feel my stomach start to clench. He told us the order would go fiction (me), creative nonfiction, and then poetry. So I’m the opening act.

I try to calm my breathing as I listen to his words.

“It’s now my pleasure to introduce Cecily Jane Allerton-Ellis, the winner of our Rising Star award in the fiction category. I’ve worked with her for the past semester and am privileged to do so again this coming semester. Her high energy, laser-beam ambition, and bright enthusiasm to write and learn have—in a very short time—made her one of my role models.”

Wow.My breath catches. That is one of the highest compliments I’ve ever been paid.

“I’ve been very impressed by both the quality and quantity of her work,” Dillon Norway continues, “as well as the voluminous research she’s undertaken in just the first semester of her MUMFA career to learn as much as possible about book publishing, with an emphasis on finding an agent. She’s figured out early in her MFA career what she wants to accomplish and has since worked single-mindedly toward the goal of writing publishable, popular novels. Her goal is not only to become published but to have a lasting career as an author. She wrote an entire novel this past semester, as she has expressed to me that she plans to do each semester for the duration of her participation in MUMFA. Four semesters, four novels. Her work ethic is unparalleled. She writes crisp commercial fiction, fast paced and lively, with memorable characters and situations and surprising but credible plot twists that reveal what those characters are made of. Her first book, Hard Pass, is both entertaining and enlightening and would seldom fail to be interesting to the audience she seeks to enthrall.” He pauses to take a sip of water.

“Professionally, Cecily is a children’s librarian in one of the branches of the Queens Public Library in New York City; that is, she makes a living by encouraging young people to embrace the vast world of literature. Sometimes, acquaintances or new friends are surprised to learn how deeply informed this bouncy, articulate, hyper-organized, unflappably good young woman is about the world and its conflicts, biases, and many problems. It would be difficult to put into words how enjoyable it’s been to work with Cecily this past semester and to see her grow as a writer in such a short time.”

He smiles before finishing up this, the loveliest speech I’ve ever heard. “On a personal note, I encouraged Cecily to dip her toes in the vast pool of the literary world and was unsurprised to find that she cannonballed directly into the deep end, where she inadvertently captured the heart of an esteemed PEN Award winner, our own professor Nate Ellis. Their marriage will keep her treading water out there, sustaining the life of an author just by being in one’s constant stead as his wife. However, I have no doubt that Cecily will blaze her own trail with the same rigor and fire as Nate, if not more so. Friends, please welcome Cecily Jane Allerton-Ellis.”

Applause follows, and I approach the podium. Dillon Norway hands me a certificate, and we take a picture together. Then he takes a seat. I open my folder and clear my throat.

“Good evening, esteemed colleagues. Thank you, Dillon, for such a lovely introduction.”

I look out at the sea of faces. My rational brain knows that it’s a hundred—maybe a hundred twenty—people out there, but it feels like the whole world is watching me. Just a normal reading, like an open mic or something, would be nerve-racking enough. But this—well, let’s just say Dillon Norway isn’t wrong. I’m definitely an all-in kind of person. Cannonballing into the deep end, as he put it, is kind of my brand.

I remember Nate’s advice and seek out his face in the crowd. Just make sure you read slow enough, he told me. When you think the tempo seems right, slow it down even more. He smiles at me and gives me a little nod.

“This is the prologue of the manuscript I completed this past semester. It was a labor of love that was borne from personal experiences, which I’ve dramatized because it’s fiction, right? So that’s what you do.” A low rumble of laughs emanates from the audience. “People like to give new writers advice, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the saying Write what you know. I came to this program as my own personal act of defiance. I was giving up on relationships: a revelation—or epiphany, whatever you want to call it—that came to me during my sister’s wedding. I finally had the opportunity to write about it, and the entire story spilled out in just one semester. Anyway, the following—which was my Rising Star submission—was a part of it. I hope you like it.”

Audience members shift in their seats, bracing themselves for the ride we’re about to go on together. They embody an energy that reminds me of story time on my magic carpet at the library. The only difference is these are grown-ups instead of kids, and I’d be hard-pressed to find a beagle puppy around here looking for a leg to relieve itself on.

I breathe. I smile. Here goes nothing.

If there are two things I know:(1) promises and lies go hand in hand, and (2) Ryan Howland looks damn fine in a tux.

He’s got the height, the muscles; he’s even got the smile for it. If a guy is tall and has broad shoulders, heshouldbe able to pull off a tux, but if he lacks thatje ne sais quoi—you know, that charisma—he might be able to fill out the thing but could still look like a total dork. In fact, tuxedos were created in 1750 in London by a bunch of dorky men with the intention of taking down the good-looking dudes by making them look dorky too.

It’s true. Google it.

Okay, fine. It’s a lie. But to be fair, you thought about it. You believed it, even if only for a second.

That’s because I’ve been working on my lying skills.

What isnota lie is that Ryan Howland canget itin a tux. And it’s all because of that damn smile.

I’m looking at him looking at me, and all I can hear is Macklemore’s “Can’t Hold Us,” because that’s an anthem and a time capsule all rolled up into a prom song. Our prom song, to be clear.Can we go back?it asks.

The answer is no, we can’t go back. It was one single night, perhaps the most important night in a young girl’s life: the night she loses her virginity to her one true love.

It was prom night. And yes, I know that’s cliché. But clichés come from true things that happen over and over again in the real world until they become old, tired stories. And believe me,I would rather have had my first time be a cliché with the right guy than a truly original scenario with the wrong one.

He booked us a hotel room for after. Prom was at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. It took me four weeks of paychecks from the bookstore to save up for my ticket. I told Ryan he didn’t have to pay for mine since he offered to pick up the tab for the room. A big group of us split the cost of the limo too, so I figured that when all was said and done, Ryan probably laid out close to $1,000 for this one special night.

Macklemore’s “Can’t Hold Us” was the last song of the night. The DJ was shutting it down afterward. The clock was striking midnight on this fairy tale.

I was ready. I bought new panties for the special occasion. A new bra too, but it had to be strapless because of my dress, so it wasn’t as fancy as the panties. They matched though. Black, black, everything black, as if my body was preparing for a funeral. The death of my virginity. I should have chosen white, right? White like angels and purity, or maybe red like the devil, but I chose black and found myself hoping it wasn’t an omen.

I purchased and packed my own box of condoms because in tenth grade health class, we learned that safe sex is just as much the responsibility of the girl as it is of the guy, and I took copious notes, not just in health but in life. I also brought a toothbrush and toothpaste, a pair of shorts, flip-flops, and a T-shirt for the day after, along with regular underwear (the kind that actually covers stuff), a sports bra, and my hairbrush. I packed light on purpose. Didn’t want to get bogged down by too much stuff. I wouldn’t need makeup or anything like that the next day anyway, I figured. Once Ryan had me—all of me—we would be closer than ever, I decided. No makeup necessary.

I loved him. And we were graduating in a few weeks, and then a few weeks after that, we’d be off to college. Thankfully, we both planned to be in the Boston area. He’d be at Northeastern on a soccer scholarship, and I would be at Emerson College in their creative writing program. We did that on purpose. Neither one of us wanted to go to a new school in a new state far from home without knowing that the other was close enough to see on the weekends. So when we made our lists, for every D1 soccer program he looked into, I found a school with some sort of writing program within a thirty-mile radius. It’s not exactly how I thought “college shopping” would go, but love doesn’t always make rational sense.

We waited to have sex. He’d wanted to for a while, and I’ll admit, I was curious, but something about sex just felt so final—like once you did it, you did it, and you would become a different person from that point forward—and, I don’t know, the fear always outweighed the curiosity. But during that last dance, it was just like Macklemore said:This is the moment. No more waiting.

Also, to be fair, I didn’t want to start the next chapter of my life without knowing I had experienced everything I was supposed to experience in the current one first. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever love someone the way that I loved Ryan, and I didn’t think I would want my first time to be with anyone else. I knew it was unlikely that we would end up getting married one day. I wasn’t some stupid kid who thought she’d run off into the sunset with her high-school sweetheart. In fact, I think it was because I was smart and forward-thinking that I believed it was the right time for Ryan and me to do it. I loved him, like I said. And I knew he loved me too. If he didn’t love me, I don’tthink he would have waited as long as he did. We were together for over two years. That’s not exactly a short amount of time, especially in high school.

We ran in very different crowds. He tried out for varsity soccer as a freshman and snagged a spot on the team. I played flute in the orchestra. He failed his first three English tests and was told he better fix his grades or risk his spot on the team, and his mother, a gorgeous brunette who reportedly competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics as a gymnast, sought him out a tutor. She figured a peer tutor would help him not only academically but socially as well. The guidance office offered me the gig and said I could count it as community service on my college application, so naturally, I said yes.

Mrs. Howland wasn’t wrong about the multifaceted value of peer tutoring. Our relationship was professional through Chinua Achebe’sThings Fall Apart, Toni Morrison’sBeloved, and a unit on transcendentalism—he thought that Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were really cool, and so did I. Transcendentalism gave us opportunities to talk about something other than school gossip or homework assignments. We talked about life, and that made us feel deeper than other kids, whose musings were limited to such trivial issues as who got the lead in the school play or who was spotted holding hands at the mall.

Of course, he still played soccer and I still played the flute, so nothing major changed in our real lives, but by the time we had to read Stephen Chbosky’sThe Perks of Being a Wallflower, we were definitely in the friend zone. By the spring, when we read the ever-controversial novelThe Lovely Bonesby Alice Sebold, I would battle hyperactive butterflies in my stomach every timewe got together for tutoring. He had strong feelings about that book, and it was incredible to see him come alive over a piece of literature.

I made that happen. Talk about a high.

Tenth grade meant British literature, so we worked through Mary Shelley’sFrankensteinin the fall and Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudicein the winter. We had our first kiss when he walked me home in late January of that year, after a heated discussion about Charles Dickens’sGreat Expectations, where Ryan insisted that it made sense for Pip to become obsessed with money and social class, while I argued that he had some nerve begging Estella not to marry Bentley Drummle. We debated the whole way to my doorstep, and when we were done, he looked me in the eyes with great expectations of his own—and then he kissed me.

We were together throughout the rest of high school, each new day adding another small piece to the story of Ryan and me. All those little bits blended together to pave the road that led us to the Macklemore moment in the hotel room after prom.

He stood before me and told me I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He pulled the zipper down on my dress and said it again once he got a glimpse of me in those fancy panties.

And before anything else happened, Ryan gave me two things: (1) that gorgeous charming smile of his, and (2) a promise ring. “I swear that I will love you forever,” he said, slipping it on my finger as if it were a wedding band.

I believed him, and we made love. It stung, and the pressure hurt far too much to be physically enjoyable. But I curled up in his arms when it was over, gazing at the promise ring, whilethe tuxedo he wore so well lay crumpled on the floor by the window.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that the next time he wore a tuxedo was at his own wedding just seven years later, at only twenty-five years old. But it’s true. Because like I said, here I am, watching him watching me as I walk down the aisle, Macklemore chanting in my ear. Ryan looks better than ever in that tuxedo.

It’s the smile though. I’m telling you.

His groomsmen don’t pull off their tuxes the way Ryan does.

I can feel him eyeballing me in my dress. It’s floor-length, made of satin. I wonder if he’s wondering what I’ve got on underneath.

My bouquet is a stunner. White calla lilies and deep burgundy roses. The kind that might remind you of bloodshed, of deep wounds that never quite heal all the way.

At the altar, I face him for a split second, just long enough to search his face for any traces of regret, and then I offer him my best, most genuine smile, because like I said, I’m working on becoming a better liar.

It’s a split second when we face each other. Something unspoken passes between us. I don’t know exactly what it is—whether it’s regret, apology, or something entirely different—but I carry it with me as I veer to the left to line up alongside the other bridesmaids.

As my sister glides down that same aisle on my father’s arm, the “Wedding March” drowns out the Macklemore in my brain.

Daddy lifts her veil and gives her a kiss on the cheek before sitting down in the front row alongside my mother, who daintily dabs at her happy tears.

My sister weaves her fingers into Ryan’s, and there they are, just like I said.

Promises and lies.

Hand in hand.

I look up from my pages, surprised to find my heart pounding but no tears. I no longer feel the pain of this story. Nate beams at me, and the smile I offer him springs directly from my heart.

“Thank you,” I whisper, and the room explodes in applause as I retreat back to my space in the front pew, exhaling a cleansing breath.

I did it.

My first accolade is now entirely official, and the hard part’s over.

As soon as I get back to my room, I will update my query letters.

My phone buzzes. It’s my mom. I shake my head silently. Leave it to her to pick the most inconvenient time to call me. I quickly hit the red button to silence it.

Dillon Norway goes back to his role as emcee. He introduces the winner for creative nonfiction next—a woman who is unironically named Hester. She’s about two minutes into her reading when my phone vibrates again. This time, it’s my parents’ home phone number. The buzzing is loud, and I feel like it echoes in this space, so I change the phone setting from vibrate to silent.

I’m tempted to text my mom or dad to make sure everything is okay, but the last thing I want to do is be rude to another reader when I just finished my own reading. Talk about poor taste. I slide my phone under my thigh, and I leave it there until the end of the ceremony, which is only about forty-five minutes later.

The rest of the ceremony is really quite poignant. The graduating class has chosen a student speaker and a faculty speaker, both of whom do a wonderful job reminding all of us that the journey of education doesn’t end once you graduate. It’s one of those few moments in life when the whole world seems shiny and new, just waiting for you to step out into it like a fresh pair of sneakers. I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. I love being here, in the world of academia, absorbing information like a sponge, shaping my future. I can’t imagine how overcome with emotion I’ll feel when it’s my turn to wear the flat square hat and the polyester gown.

When everything is said and done, I’ve choked back tears twice. The graduates disband to find their guests, and I stand up and check my phone.

Holy shit.I’ve missed five calls and three FaceTimes, all from my family.

My stomach drops, like in that way that it would if you were preparing for your worst nightmare. My mind spirals. Dad’s been killed. They’re getting a divorce. Something happened to one of the babies.

The back of the sanctuary is crowded, between graduates and their families and students trying to file out. The faculty and Dillon Norway are all still toward the front of the room; I guess they’re seasoned enough to know that it will take a few minutes to clear out, especially in the dead of winter. Nate approaches me as I type out a quick text. What’s up? Is everything okay?

Immediately, a FaceTime call comes in. “Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. I turn to Nate. “I have to take it. Something’s wrong, but I don’t know what.”

He nods, but concern weighs down his brow.

“I’ll be right out there,” I explain, jutting my chin out at the corridor just outside the sanctuary. There are people everywhere, but at least back there, folks are on their way out. I squeeze my way past a family with a baby and a couple walking an elderly woman toward the exit. “Excuse me,” I mumble, trying to avoid being rude. The phone in my hand shines with the light of urgency.

I swipe at it, trying to huddle as far away from the grads and guests as possible.

“Cecily?” my mom says. Her face is red, splotchy, and definitely not right. Has she been crying?

“Hey, Mom,” I say in a hushed tone. “You okay? What’s up?”

“I can’t believe—”

The phone—theirs, not mine, drops to the ground with a thud.

“Cecily Jane, are you there?” This from my father, whose voice booms extra loud in the reverberation of the cold corridor. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nate approaching behind me.

“Shh, Dad,” I say, because his yelling is causing an echo to bounce off the walls in the cavernous space, and several guests have just turned to look my way. I smile and wave at them weakly in an attempt to show them everything’s just fine. Nothing to see here, folks.

“Don’t you dare shush me, young lady!” he hollers. “Your mother is devastated. How could you marry someone and not tell us?”

My heart stops, and the moment plays out in slow motion. I look up at Nate, who is now just steps shy of being at my side. He looks at me, horrified. My eyes pop out of my head like a cartoon character, and a faculty lineup that includes Dillon Norway and Alice Devereaux walks through the entryway into the corridor at that exact moment, turning their heads to see what the ruckus is all about. Then, before I can even think to hang up the call, my mother grabs the phone back from my father and screeches, “We heard all about it on the livestream, Cecily. You married someone without even telling us, and then you went on to start a smear campaign against your sister and Bryce! My God, Cecily! What the hell is the matter with you?”

“I, um—” I stammer, but nothing else comes out, because all I see is Dillon Norway’s eyebrows knit into one, punctuated by a deep crease between his eyes that looks like a stab wound. Beside him, Alice Devereaux’s face does the exact opposite thing, her expression slowly growing jovial at my public scolding. “Mom, I can explain.”

I turn, but since I am literally in the corner already, there is nowhere else to go. I can feel Nate behind me, though my camera shows that he is still out of view.

“Do I even want to hear this? Those things you said about your sister—they were abhorrent!”

“I didn’t really say anything bad about her other than the fact that she married my first love,” I rebut. This is a knee-jerk reaction. An attempt to calm her down.

But naturally it has the opposite effect. My mother clasps her hand over her mouth, and tears spill down her face. My father verbally rushes to her aid, clarifying her prior statement. “I believe it’s not what you said as much as how you said it.”

A lump forms in my throat, and I can’t speak. My mother wipes her eyes hastily, leaving black lines of mascara that run from her cheekbones to her jawline like skid marks on a highway after a truck blows a tire and careens through the guard rail.

“You married some literary professor—some author—and didn’t even think to invite your own parents to your wedding?” she yells at me. “Why, Cecily? What is wrong with you? Why would you keep that from us? Do you hate us all so much? We’ve never done anything but love you and support you!”

Have you ever had one of those out-of-body experiences where you feel like your life is happening to you, and you’re just a spectator, watching from the sidelines as if it’s happening to somebody else? I feel myself crying. I know tears are bouncing off my cheeks. One hits my chest. The next one splashes on my folder. Everyone is watching me. I can’t see them, but I can feel them, and I can hear their low murmurs. The din has quieted some, but I know it’s not because people have left. I am the modern-day equivalent of a circus freak show. Trapped like a feral wildebeest here in the corner of the corridor. Nowhere to go.

Before I can compose a response, Nate reaches over my shoulder and snatches the phone away from me. He looks into the screen at my mother. Just seeing his unfamiliar face quiets her down.

“Mrs. Allerton,” he says, voice composed. “I’m Nate Ellis. It’s nice to meet you, although I would have hoped this would happen under very different circumstances. Now, before you say anything else, I’ll ask you to please just hear me out. First of all, CJ’s writing is incredible. But it’s also fiction. Fiction is creative, and many authors use it as a way to process trauma. CJ is not the type of woman to slander her family. However, she is deeply loyal, and once upon a time, Bryce broke her heart, whether you want to hear that or not. What he and Jamie did to her caused no small amount of damage. She used the therapy of writing to move beyond the pain.”

Because I’ve turned around, I can confirm that everyone is watching now—most notably Dillon Norway and Alice Devereaux. I want to steal the phone back from Nate, but he’s walked several steps away from me, and my knees are too weak and frozen to make any moves.

“You’re that young man from the TV,” my mom says.

“Please, let me finish,” Nate interrupts. “You have no idea how much your daughter loves you and your family, Mrs. Allerton. She loves you all so much that she held that hurt inside and put Jamie ahead of herself. She came to Matthias so she could start a new chapter in her life, but you can’t start a new chapter until you finish the one before it. That’s all CJ was trying to do. She was just trying to move on.”

No response from my mother.

“As for us,” Nate continues. “I would do anything for your daughter. She’s a fabulous author with an incredibly bright future, but more than that, she’s an incredible person. And I’m pretty sure that I’m in love with her,” he says, turning to look at me.

Those words pierce my soul, and I feel my face twist up hearing them come out of his mouth. Shock continues to paralyze my vocal cords. My hands move to wipe the tears from my cheeks.

“And I’m going to lose my job for this, but I can’t risk her losing her family for me.”

Whoa. No. No, no, no.I snap out of it. “Nate, stop,” I say.

He waves me away. “Yes, we’re married, but none of it is real,” he says.

“Nate! Stop it!” I say again, significantly louder. I lunge at him and try to grab the phone away, but he spins away from me and keeps. Running. His. Mouth.

“It was all a misunderstanding. She married me to save my job after that stupid Tonight Show bit. But it was a sham wedding. Legally, it was real, but emotionally, it was fake, all of it. I’m a professor and she’s a student, and because we kissed and people found out, the only way for me not to get tossed out on my ass was for us to get married. A marriage of convenience, you understand? She would never walk down the aisle for real without her family there. You have to know that. She’s not that person, Mrs. Allerton.”

“Goddammit, Nate! Shut up!” I yell. I step toward him again, and this time, I grab the phone successfully. “Mom, I’ll call you back.” I end the FaceTime, my phone stuck on a picture of my mother in a state of ultimate confusion before reverting back to Blinky, my betta fish from work, who also happens to be my wallpaper. I grab Nate by the wrist and drag him directly into what remains of the crowd, past a visibly agitated Dillon Norway, nearly knocking down several people as I barrel through, pushing my way out the main doors and into the cold.

I drag him several steps toward the parking lot, in the opposite direction of the festivities. “Why would you do that?” I scream. The cold night wind howls through the trees as if agreeing with me.

“Do what? I was looking out for you!”

“I could have handled my mother, Nate! You didn’t have to butt in!”

“But you weren’t handling anything, CJ. You froze. She was screaming at you, and you froze. And to be quite honest, I don’t know why you’re angry with me!”

“You outed us!”

“I didn’t out you. I outed myself. It was never you anybody took issue with. It was always me.”

“That was totally unnecessary! You ran off at the mouth, and in, like, the most public setting possible.”

“You took the call, CJ! You opened up the can of worms, not me!” He’s getting frantic, and it turns my stomach.

Several graduates and their families exit the building, huddled together like a pack of penguins in the chilly air. “Come on. Let’s go up to our room. We can’t talk here,” I say.

“Not so fast,” a voice says. We turn in its direction. Alice Devereaux stands several feet away, her arms crossed over her chest, wearing a smirk that looks nothing short of evil. “I knew it, Mr. Ellis. I knew you were full of it.”

“Please. Not now, Alice,” he says, waving her off.

“Oh, yes. Absolutely now.” She grins. “So what was it? You began cavorting with a student and then bribed her to marry you in order to keep your job? Was it some kind of gag order? Blackmail?” She rubs her hands together. In her graduation robe, she looks like a witch. The tone of voice she’s using isn’t helping her cause any.

“Professor Devereaux,” I say. “Please—”

“No more out of you,” she chides me. “You’re not the only one who is capable of faking things around here, you know. I had a strong inkling that your relationship wasn’t real as soon as I read that piece of yours prior to coming to the island. No one in her right mind could possibly marry someone when they’re hung up on an ex-lover like that.”

I still. I don’t like the tone she’s using. My face contorts. “I thought you said my writing was good.”

“Oh, it’s excellent, dear,” she seethes. “Very, very convincing.”

“I didn’t bribe anyone, Alice,” Nate says. “CJ and I are a married couple. We have the license to prove it.”

“He’s right,” I say, standing up straighter. “It’s true. It’s on file with Human Resources.”

“That may well be, but you just admitted to the wedding being a sham. Not to mention the fact that on your first day here, I could hear the two of you through the remarkably thin wall separating my bedroom from yours.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“You’d both just arrived and were discussing what to do about sleeping arrangements. This was an issue for you because—in your very words, Cecily—you were ‘living a sham life in a marriage of convenience.’” Her air quotes stab me in the throat.

I’m stunned into silence. Another group of graduation attendees slips past us, too cold to stop and watch the horror show unfold here in the middle of the walkway.

“I’m not sure what you thought you heard,” Nate says.

“Please, Mr. Ellis. That’s enough. I was lying in my bed, reading. You came hurtling in like two bulls in a china shop. I heard it all. I just needed to find a way to expose you.”

“Expose us?” I ask.

“Oh, Cecily. It’s sad because you really are so na?ve,” she says. “But I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase, Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

I nod. “But why would I be your enemy?” I ask earnestly. “I never did anything to you.”

“Not you. Him.”

“Alice,” Nate sighs, exasperated. “You’ve had beef with me since last summer, and I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s a little bit tired. You need to get over yourself and move the fuck on. You’re a grown-ass woman. Please behave like one.”

She huffs. “Excuse me, Nate. Get over myself? How about you get over yourself? You sauntered into this program like the goddamn cat’s meow, but you’re just a fraud, is all that you are. I knew it from the moment they signed you.”

“You know nothing about how I got this job.”

“Not Matthias, you moron. I’m talking about Boone.”

“Boone? My publisher?”

“Yes, Boone, you reckless twit! They signed your stupid book just two weeks before I submitted the manuscript that would have changed my life—and then they told me, We’re so sorry, Alice. We just signed an author whose work has similar themes. You’ll have to submit something else. And then your asinine story took off because of lucky timing? Only a narcissistic bastard would find a way to turn a pandemic that was killing thousands of innocent people into a payday.”

The vitriol spits out of her like dragon fire.

Nate nods, his eyes squinting as the puzzle pieces come together. “That’s what your book was about. That book you made your students read.”

“Well, I had to write something, and write what you know, that’s what they say. So I knew that it wouldn’t be hard to tell a story about a working author who gets bumped by a lucky debut. That, I was told, they could publish. They even said I was ‘clever’ for making lemonade out of the rotten lemons you left me with. Dan finally agreed to publish my original manuscript four years later, after your season had long come and gone. It came out last spring, and though it didn’t have quite as much relevance by that point, it still held its own.”

“But none of that was my fault. You do realize that, right?” Nate asks.

“And then you show up here, in my house, with your dumbass charm and your stupid PEN Award, and everyone falls at your feet while you pour a lovely combination of ignorance and salt right into my wounds.”

“I didn’t even know who you were,” Nate says.

“Exactly,” Devereaux seethes. “If you had any sense, you would have done your homework and realized that authors do best when they stay in their respective lanes.”

“So you set out to—what? Hurt me?”

“I didn’t have to try very hard. You dug yourself a fine little hole when you kissed a student on television. All I had to do was chase down that lead.”

“You were the one who told Dillon Norway about us,” I say. The revelation hits me like a tidal wave.

She smiles, and it’s quite reminiscent of what might happen if the Joker from Batman crossed with Pennywise from It. “I thought for sure I’d be rid of you, Mr. Ellis. But no. You couldn’t leave well enough alone. You lied your way back into the heart of Professor Norway, who thought it best to give you a second chance.” She laughs. “Only you blew it, not an hour into your time on the island. Fighting about the sleeping arrangements like a bunch of teenagers. You made it all so easy for me.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“You, my dear, are very gullible. One little presentation convinced you that social media was a must. One simple compliment, and you signed up for the Rising Star Program. All I had to do was livestream the graduation and get your family to tune in, and the house of cards crumbled in on itself, now didn’t it?”

My heart is racing. The cold air constricts my blood vessels, and I feel a scream rise in my throat. I swallow it down.

“Get her family to tune in?” Nate shouts. “What right do you have to speak to her family?”

“Well,” Devereaux smiles. “Once I saw Dillon’s speech in the graduation file, I had no choice. It all happened so organically. He felt it necessary to mention your nuptials, which meant I didn’t even have to find a way to weave that into the comments feed in the livestream. All I had to do was DM your mother and invite her, Cecily. Lovely woman,” she smirks.

I’m about to clap back when I see Dillon Norway exit the main doors of the sanctuary. He walks toward us. “You two,” he says, looking at me and Nate. “I want to see you right now. Meet me in the library of the main house in five minutes.”

“Dillon, she needs to come too,” Nate argues, pointing at Alice Devereaux.

Dillon Norway looks at Nate, then at Alice, and back at Nate again. “That won’t be necessary,” he says. He pulls up the collar on his coat and walks away.

Nate turns back to Devereaux. “You are the ugliest human soul I’ve ever met. To go after an innocent student like that—”

“Ha!” she cries. “Pot? Meet kettle.”

“You’re disgusting,” he continues. “And you’ll get yours. Maybe not today, and maybe not even from me. You know what they say.”

“Hell hath no fury?” she snickers.

“Karma’s a bitch,” Nate corrects her.

He turns to me. “Let’s go,” he says as the snowflakes gently begin to fall from the ever-darkening pink night sky.