Chapter 34
It was a hot, sticky day in Milwaukee. The lake smelled especially pungent; it was like breathing in fish broth.
I marched quickly down the riverwalk, passing apartment complexes overlooking the water, stopping in front of the newest, fanciest one.
Sage’s latest home. The one she could afford because of her gigantic advance. I wondered if she wanted to meet here to rub it in my face.
“Hey.” Sage approached me from the dock that stuck out into the river right across from the apartment’s entrance. “Thanks for meeting me. I’ll try to make this fast. I’m about to go out on the lake, and I need to grab my laptop from my apartment.”
I had been shocked to receive a letter—an actual handwritten letter—from Sage two days before, asking me to meet her here at noon.
It made sense; Sage was dramatic. Of course she wouldn’t unblock me.
She’d use a one-way communication method that gave her complete control.
I almost didn’t show up, but her letter gave me hope. She said she had an opportunity for me.
“Are you going to tell the truth, finally?” I asked without preamble.
We faced each other on the dock, Sage’s pontoon bobbing in the river behind her. She was clearly about to go out for another writing and swimming session.
Sage rolled her eyes. “I told my truth. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” She paused, and then bit her lip. “I told my publisher about you.”
My jaw dropped. “You did tell the truth!”
“No, listen,” Sage said. “I told them we used to write together. Workshop our books. I proposed… Well, I proposed bringing you on as a contractor of sorts.”
My heart fell. “What do you mean?”
Sage straightened. “I’m willing to bring you on as a ghostwriter. Someone to bounce ideas off of. For Book 2. My publisher is on board with hiring someone so I pitched you.”
I glared at her. “You couldn’t do it, could you? You couldn’t come up with a good plot for the sequel because it wasn’t your idea to begin with.”
Sage spent so much time with me and my research, ideas, and notes.
She knew the book as well as I did. She just beat me to the punch with writing it.
But now, she was floundering. Sage didn’t know what happened in Book 2 because Book 1 wasn’t hers.
I knew where the series was going, but I hadn’t shared that with her because I was focused on getting the first novel done.
Sage couldn’t pick up the threads of the story alone, even though I sowed them there intentionally.
“Ghostwriter isn’t enough,” I demanded. “I want recognition. I want my name on my work. I’m not going to help you continue to steal my story.”
“You’ll be compensated.”
“As much as you? Will I be compensated for the first book?”
Sage growled. “You didn’t write the first book.”
Throughout my fury, hope still palpitated. If Sage was willing to bring me on as a ghostwriter, maybe she could be reasoned with.
“You’re a New York Times bestselling author now!” I said, cajolingly. “There’s a way we can do this so that we’re both happy. I can get representation too. Add me as cowriter. Credit me for the first book. This doesn’t have to be a scandal.”
Sage narrowed her eyes. “Tell me something, Char. Have you written anything else to completion? Ever?”
“I… Not yet, but—”
She cut me off. “No, that’s the thing, isn’t it?
You were never going to write that story.
You had a good idea, but it was wasted on you.
I had what was needed to get it done. And I did.
I’m offering you a compromise, and even that’s not good enough for you despite you having nothing else to give.
This is the deal: ghostwriter or nothing. ”
“Fuck you,” I cried. “You know that’s not enough! That book was my dream! Just because I don’t write as fast as you doesn’t mean you can take it away from me. You can do better than ghostwriter. If you don’t, I-I’ll sue. I have my notebook.”
Sage sneered. Her breath smelled like beer. “Your dateless scribbles that could have been written at any time and are direct quotes of my work and vague ideas? Yeah, that’ll hold up in court. Are you taking my offer or not?”
“Sage, don’t do this,” I begged. “Please. We were friends. And you need me. How are you going to write Book 2 without me?”
She leaned forward. “We’ll find someone else. I went to you first out of courtesy. As a respect to our former friendship. But there are hundreds of talented ghostwriters out there, and my publisher is willing to play ball after all the money they spent to get this book on the bestseller lists.”
“I’m not taking the offer,” I snapped. “I want credit. I want the truth. I will go public!”
Sage raised her brows. “This blackmail attempt is not cute. And you’re lucky I’m feeling so good after hitting the New York Times list, because blackmail is illegal. Your issues could get a lot worse if I pursue this.”
“You’re out of your mind.” I couldn’t believe she was doing this to me. Again. She wanted to steal another idea of mine. Sure, she’d be paying me, but at what cost? I wouldn’t have any of the things I really wanted or needed, and Sage was already showing I was replaceable.
“Do you know how expensive it is to sue someone?” Sage continued, glowering at me.
“Do you know how hard it is to win a copyright lawsuit, especially when you don’t have anything really written?
It’s not worth it. My lawyers would bury you.
I’ll ask you one more time: Do you accept my offer or not? ”
I couldn’t see. Red and black striped my vision, and my heart was thundering so painfully in my chest I wondered if I was about to have a panic attack. The words came out of my mouth from far away. “No. I don’t accept.”
“Then,” Sage said, shaking her head as if I failed her and not the other way around. “We have nothing more to talk about. It’s over. Good luck, Char.”
I reeled away from her, leaning against the wooden railing of the dock.
Sage skirted around me, swishing her hips as she walked back to her apartment building to get her laptop.
She was going to continue on with her day, typing away, telling her publishers to move forward with a different ghostwriter. Nothing would change for her.
But I had glimpsed justice. I had smelled hope. And then it was all wrenched away, leaving me feeling worse than before.
I slumped against the rough railing, looking blankly at the familiar boat floating on the river. The boat I spent hours on dreaming up my novel.
Before I knew what was happening, I was walking over to the vessel.
The name Persephone was stenciled on the side in italics. Seeing it shot another bolt of rage through my torso. Sage’s boat used to be called Sea It to Believe It. She changed it after getting her book deal. After stealing my Persephone and Hades retelling.
I approached the boat, my footsteps thudding heavily on the dock as I glanced around. It was always busy on the riverwalk in the summer, but for the moment, no one else was around. Without thinking, I stepped onboard.
The white leather interior seats were strewn with belongings I recognized as Sage’s. There were three six-packs from Lakefront Brewery waiting for her—Sage’s process of drinking and drafting was still going strong. I wrinkled my nose and glanced around, my eyes landing on a familiar phone case.
Sage, without a care in the world, left her phone sitting out in the sun on the passenger’s seat near the front of the boat.
The phone she took notes on while she was stealing my novel.
The phone on which she received the call when her agent told her the good news about the bidding war over ASOSAS.
The phone that was constantly blowing up with notifications about reviews, book boxes, movie deals, foreign rights sales, and social media accolades.
As I stared at Sage’s phone, everything I had been through in the past year bubbled up violently. The echo of Sage’s voice rang in my head, images of her face flickering before my eyes.
“It’s over.”
“Like hell,” I whispered.
I took the phone. I slipped it into the pocket of my athletic shorts.
I turned to leave before I got caught. Sage was so cavalier with her belongings; she probably wouldn’t even notice the phone was missing for hours.
And that’s all I was going to do. Steal her phone, drop it in the lake somewhere, maybe, make her go through the hassle of having to get a new one.
But I stopped when I saw the anchor.
It was lying there in a puddle of chains, off to the side, old beer cans standing sentinel around it.
My rage wasn’t quieting. Instead, it was building. I looked around again to make sure no one was watching, and then kneeled down, running a finger over the pronged silver anchor. It was attached to a length of chunky chain by a larger link with a threaded screw going through a galvanized shackle.
Slowly, I unscrewed the shackle, removing the small piece of metal that kept the link bolted to the anchor. Then, I dropped the untethered chain to the floor next to the anchor.
She would see it, I knew.
Sage would notice the anchor was suddenly not attached to the chain when she went to toss it overboard after she got out to her usual swimming spot out on Lake Michigan.
She would fix it, anchor the boat, and move on with her day.
Except that’s not what happened.
It was supposed to be a prank. A petty, small piece of revenge by the scorned best friend.
The Milwaukee Journal speculated that Sage had been too tipsy to realize the anchor was separated from its chain before she tossed it in the water.
Boozy, carefree, never worrying about what might happen if Persephone drifted while she was so far from shore, Sage jumped in.
She was drunk, after all. Her judgment was hazy.
Sage could have turned around, found a safer area to swim.
But she didn’t. And when the wind picked up and she realized Persephone was floating away from her, fast, Sage must have tried to swim after it.
Only the pontoon was far, and Sage hadn’t bothered to put on a life jacket because we never did when we swam.
Sage wasn’t a mermaid. She wasn’t like the characters in my book.
If she hadn’t been fogged by booze and our fight, would Sage have thought twice about swimming without an anchor on a windy, late summer day?
No one knew if Sage realized the anchor was disconnected when she threw it in. Either she did, and didn’t care, or she was too drunk to notice to begin with.
In the end, it didn’t matter because it amounted to the same thing.
When I heard the news, when I realized what I had done, I turned off Sage’s phone so it couldn’t be tracked, buried it in my closet, and left the truth there with it.
I erased it from my mind. I erased it from my body. But the soul remembers.
I hadn’t meant it. And Sage played a role in her death too—she wasn’t wearing a life jacket; she might have shrugged off the missing anchor. But it didn’t matter.
Because it was my fault. I killed her.