2
The truth? Tess was right. I hadn’t earned a single cent from writing.
Nothing. Nada. Zero. Ever since I’d decided to become a writer—years ago now—the only thing "in the black" was my list of expenses.
Mostly reams of paper. Which I inevitably crumpled up and tossed into the trash, a trash can that had long since exceeded capacity and now resembled a mountain of paper-based frustration.
I wrote on a typewriter. Yep, an actual typewriter.
Like a real writer. The clack of the keys, the resistance of the letters beneath my fingers, the ding!
at the end of each line—it all made me feel like a pioneer of the written word.
And watching the pages pile up on my desk gave me a sense of building something solid.
Like a bricklayer, but with more caffeine and no social security.
Writing on a computer? Unthinkable. That damned blinking cursor, just sitting there, waiting for your next idea…
it felt like it was judging me. St aring.
Daring me. As if it were saying, “Well? You planning to write something brilliant, or are you just going to keep staring and hope the universe writes it for you?”
Obviously, I mailed my manuscripts the old-fashioned way.
No emails. I refused to compromise or go digital.
Only paper—real, tangible, noisy paper—was worthy of holding my words.
Once the manuscript was done, I’d photocopy it, tuck it into a chunky yellow envelope, and send it off to literary agents, one after another.
It was a ritual that blended vintage poetry with creative stubbornness.
To be fair, it wasn’t just old-school romanticism.
There was strategy behind it—questionable strategy, maybe, but strategy nonetheless.
All the agent websites said the same thing: email submissions preferred.
Which, in my mind, meant only one thing: their inboxes were overflowing with PDFs, DOCXs, pitches, synopses, and broken dreams. Millions of aspiring writers begging for attention with subject lines in ALL CAPS and way too many exclamation marks.
But me? I imagined myself as the only one crazy—or brilliant—enough to send something physical. Something that would land on their desk with a satisfying thump! A fat, yellow envelope impossible to ignore.
“What is this relic?” a secretary would say.
“Do people still use envelopes?” the agent would reply.
And then, out of pure curiosity, driven by that irrational urge that makes you open mystery packages.
.. they’d open it. They’d read the first lines.
And since my openings were, modestly speaking, brilliant, they’d keep going.
They’d read the whole manuscript. And then, moved and astonished, they’d send me a letter (typed, of course) saying they’d discovered a gem. A unique voice. A new star in the literary sky.
Spoiler: that’s not how it went.
I was collecting rejection letters. All of them identical, all politely impersonal, all clearly spat out by the same autoresponder that probably handled the emails of the poor digital hopefuls, too.
Only in my case—maybe to mock me, maybe out of artisanal solidarity—someone actually went through the trouble of printing the rejection on paper, stuffing it into a vintage yellow envelope, stamping it with the agency logo, and mailing it back to me.
A nice gesture. Really. At least my disappointment had some literal weight.
Dear Author, Thank you so much for submitting your manuscript. We are honored by the trust you’ve placed in us... blah blah blah... ...unfortunately, we don’t feel we’re the right agency to represent this project... blah blah blah... ...we wish you all the best. Kind regards. Goodbye.
I collected them. Taped them to the wall, side by side, like an artist obsessed with her own failures—or a serial killer with a flair for motivational wallpaper. Sometimes I reread them, just to fuel the fire.
I dreamed of the day someone would finally notice me, give me a chance, and my novel would become an instant bestseller.
I’d win the Pulitzer. Maybe even the Nobel.
And then, in a Vanity Fair interview, I’d talk about my “wall of shame,” and all those agencies would tear their hair out, look at each other in horror, and say: “Wait... we rejected her?!”
Still, a part of my brain—the part that could still think straight despite the sleepless nights and dangerously high caffeine levels—didn’t entirely blame those agents.
They were right to reject me. Because what I was writing now—The Real Great American Novel—made everything I’d ever written before look like warm-up scribbles.
This one had it all. Life, death, love, hate, apathy.
Even a blind dog and a twist in the second-to-last chapter.
I’d been in a state of grace through the entire draft.
All that was missing now was an ending worthy of the rest. I’d already written four or five versions, but none had fully clicked.
Then I’d remind myself that Hemingway rewrote the ending of For Whom the Bell Tolls twenty times, and I’d calm down.
There’s no rush when you’re holding the winning lottery ticket.
The anxiety fades. What remains is that rock-solid, unshakable certainty of imminent success. Maybe, just maybe, all my previous failures had led me to this exact point. To write this masterpiece.
Although—okay, yes—I was a little anxious. Because deep down, I knew: I had poured everything into this book. Every last drop.
And if even that wasn’t enough?
Well, then it was over. I’d lie down on the battlefield with my hands in the air, like, “Okay, universe, you win. Now please just erase me in peace.” I wouldn’t even have enough strength left to send a farewell tweet.
Around dinnertime, I emerged from my creative cave. Tess was curled up on the couch, grinding her teeth while watching a show about controlled demolitions of skyscrapers. She sat there like a dockworker who hadn’t been paid in three months.
“There’s a letter for you,” she said, eyes still fixed on the slow-motion collapse of a ten-story building. “ It’s on the console by the door.”
“Hmm. Wonder what that could be.”
It was the usual white envelope with the agency’s stamp. Light. Thin. The exact weight of a disappointment you’ve felt before. I tore one end open without even trying to preserve it. This wasn’t a keepsake.
There it was: the classic, standardized, impersonal rejection letter.
It was like hitting a wall made of foam rubber—you bounced off, but not even hard enough to feel pain.
And honestly, who’s to say literary agents even existed?
Maybe it was all an elaborate scam. Maybe they spent their days selling off the personal info and mailing addresses of desperate hopefuls who mailed in their manuscripts from every corner of the country.
Yeah. Forget talent scouting—that would’ve been a goldmine.
Way more lucrative than trying to sell novels in a world where people don’t even read shampoo labels anymore.
I smiled at the ridiculous thought, and Tess, still not looking at me, said, “You’ll make it.”
It was her version of an apology. Subtle as a tank, but still.
“I’ve never seen anyone more tenacious than you,” she added. “People like you usually make it. Maybe when everything seems lost… but they make it.”
I crumpled the letter—there was no more room on my walls to pin them like reverse trophies—and tossed it into the trash under the sink. Then I grabbed a bottle of red wine, poured us two generous glasses, and sat down next to her on the couch.
I handed her the glass, and we toasted with a loud clink.
“I feel the same about you,” I said. “Except your defeats tend to come in the form of men with skyscraper-sized egos.”
Tess took a sip like she was swallowing a pill the size of a rock, then shook her head, disillusioned.
“To failure—yours and mine,” I said. “Character-building and all that.”
Another toast. This time she downed the whole glass like a barfly in a movie.
I got up, grabbed the bottle, and poured her another generous round. Then stayed close. I had a feeling she’d need it.
“You know what my grandma always said in moments like this?” I said, solemn. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
Tess snorted but didn’t bother to reply.
“You find someone new. Preferably hotter. Two birds, one stone: you forget him and make him jealous.”
“Impossible. The jealousy part, I mean. Forgetting him would’ve been a breeze if I’d been the one to dump him. But that ship has sailed, and we’ve been over this…”
She paused for breath and buried her face in the couch cushion like she was trying to smother her own dignity.
“As for making him jealous... nope, Bea. Chad’s ego is ridiculous. He thinks everyone around him is a low-IQ extra in the sitcom of his life. If he saw me with someone else, he’d probably just laugh and assume I hired the guy on Fiverr to make him jealous.”
“So... like a reverse paranoid?” I ventured.
“Exactly. Someone who thinks the universe revolves around him... in a good way. He genuinely believes the cosmos is conspiring to compliment him.”
“Let him choke on his own ego, that overinflated balloon. Sooner or later, all the crap he dumped on you will come back to him tenfold. That’s karma.”
“Thanks, Bea, but karma’s not exactly comforting right now.
I don’t doubt that someday he’ll get dumped hard and end up sobbing in a bathtub listening to sad songs.
.. but it’ll be over some other girl, not me.
In Chad’s mental filing cabinet, I’m stuck in the folder labeled ‘sad girls who were lucky I dated them for a bit.’ And I’ll never move from there.
Ever. I’ll never end up in the folder called ‘regrets.’”
“Tess... we’re talking about Chad. The man who made you walk three miles in heels because he refused to pay for parking ‘on principle.’”
She didn’t laugh. Not yet.
“Come on, seriously. I doubt there’s a filing system in that brain of his. At best, there’s one fly bouncing repeatedly against a glass window.”
“He may be the last of the assholes... but he still won.”
I stopped trying to talk her out of it. Every attempt only made things worse. I changed the subject, and for the rest of the evening we made small talk, but I could tell—her mind was somewhere else. Fine. She’d snap out of it.
Then again, maybe this hit had landed harder than usual.
And not because of love—Tess was never the type to sob into her pillow—but because of principle.
Chad had punched her pride right in the gut.
He’d been a thorn in her side for the entirety of their brief, questionable relationship.
.. and, apparently, he wasn’t done tormenting her even in his absence.
She didn’t mention him again that night.
At least not directly. Just a few throwaway lines here and there—or so they seemed.
At the time, I didn’t think twice. Just random chatter.
But looking back, one of those lines—delivered as casually as someone commenting on the weather—would prove crucial to Tess’s very-near future.
A commercial had just come on for Zane Ryder’s world tour.
One of those classic ads: him leaping onstage in leather pants, shirtless, long hair whipping in the wind, eyes smoldering like a sexy predator.
A sea of screaming fans reached toward him like he was a divine apparition.
Wild. Powerful. Magnetic. The biggest rock star alive.
And okay, his music wasn’t half bad, even if it wasn’t really my thing. But the man had undeniable appeal.
Tess looked at the screen, let out a small laugh, and said, “If I really wanted to make Chad jealous, I’d have to get with Zane Ryder.”
Not someone like Zane Ryder. No. Zane Ryder. And she said it like someone casually suggesting a haircut.
I didn’t think anything of it. And maybe she didn’t either.
Not yet.