Chapter 4 Now #2
We’ve had an unspoken rule for years: Off the record means no judgment, no follow-ups, and definitely no circling back.
It started freshman year, a few months into school, when I told Lucas that I thought the guy in our psych class was cute.
Then almost immediately after that, I admitted I wasn’t sure I wanted to be with my high school boyfriend anymore.
I felt awful saying it, but Lucas didn’t flinch.
He just looked at me and said, “Off the record?”
Since then, it’s been our way of saying the things we’re not totally ready to deal with. The almost feelings. The half decisions. The stuff you don’t want to carry alone but aren’t quite ready to say out loud to anyone else.
I’m the one who uses it more, especially now.
Lucas, even with me, has grown into a bit of a closed book.
He will say something off the record here and there—things like Off the record, I’ve been thinking about growing a beard or Off the record, I don’t think Taylor Swift’s Karma album exists.
Once he even admitted, Off the record, I kind of like the taste of airplane coffee, and another time it was Off the record, I think socks are optional in sneakers.
But definitely not as often as I do. He usually just waits things out, hoping someone else will fill the silence for him or work it out.
Or forget there was a problem in the first place.
He nods. “Always.”
I take a breath and then let it out. “I don’t feel like myself. Just a month ago, I was a different person. I was in a relationship. I had friends—”
“You still have friends,” he says gently.
“I mean more than just you.” I let out a short laugh, even though it’s not funny.
“So much has changed in such a short amount of time, and I’m trying to process it all and create a new normal, but it’s really hard to do that while I’m on a book tour.
Which is this great accomplishment, by the way, and I’m supposed to be enjoying it, but instead I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to make it through every event.
It’s like I’m wishing away this dream I once had. It’s all just like so fucked up.”
Lucas nods again, his eyes on me, but he doesn’t say anything.
I turn my attention to a pair of college students near the door, arguing over music through a single pair of earbuds.
A flash of nostalgia flows through me, and I can’t help but wish my problems were still that simple.
When I glance back at him, he’s watching me with this calm and steady look.
The kind that says I’m listening, not judging. So I keep going.
“And the worst part is that I’m terrified I can’t do it again.
Book three is due in a few months, and I can’t write.
I’ve opened a blank document a dozen times and just stared at it like it’s daring me to try.
And you want to know the most pathetic part?
When I did finally actually write something, it was about him.
It was our meet-cute, but it didn’t feel like a love story at all.
It just feels like it hurts, and I don’t know if I have another story in me at all. And if I don’t…then what?”
Lucas shifts beside me, leaning forward slightly with his forearms on his knees. “You have another story, you do. You’re just still in it. You haven’t had enough distance to see what the story is yet.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want this to be the story.”
He hesitates, then says, “Maybe you need to write the heartbreak out of you first. It’s all so bottled up right now, it’s clouding everything else. You just need to get it out so you can believe in love again.”
“That sounds like something someone’s mom cross-stitched on a pillow.”
He laughs under his breath. “Fine, maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“I’m serious, Lucas. I don’t want to write about Cole. I want to move on, not relive it in eighty thousand words.”
“I didn’t say it had to be about him.”
“But it would be about him though!” I snap, the words coming faster now.
“He’s all I think about when I sit down to write, and I hate that.
I don’t want him in my head. I don’t want him in my next book.
I want to write something new. Something light and funny and totally disconnected from all this. ”
“Okay,” he replies, his voice quieter now. “I get that.”
I nod, staring at the floor between my sneakers. My chest is still tight, like admitting all that to him didn’t actually make anything better.
The train jerks to a stop, and the doors slide open.
The crowd shifts around us, flooding out into the station.
We step off and head up the stairs toward the street.
Neither of us says anything. The city opens up in front of us—brick buildings, honking cars, a woman on a bike weaving between traffic. We walk the rest of the way in silence.
* * *
Back in my hotel room, I kick off my shoes and collapse onto the bed, still in my airplane clothes, which some people would consider a sin. My plan is to take a quick nap, but my brain has other ideas.
Lucas’s words keep replaying in my head: You haven’t had enough distance to see what the story is yet. Maybe you need to write the heartbreak out of you…so you can believe in love again.
God, he’s annoying. What’s worse is that he might just be right.
I roll over and bury my face in the pillow, but the silence makes everything louder. My thoughts spiral the way they always do lately, a loop of what-ifs and what-nows. I turn back over and stare at the ceiling for a while, like it might give me a better idea.
I don’t want to write about Cole, but he keeps showing up anyway. In half thoughts. In the spaces between what I’m trying to say and what actually ends up on the page. In the quiet moments, like this one, when I’m alone and there’s no one else to distract me.
I sit up slowly, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and reach for my laptop.
Then I open a blank document—not because I’m ready or know where to start but because avoiding it isn’t working either.
At the very least, I can treat it the way I did our meet-cute in my notes app: just start writing and see where it takes me.