Chapter 61 Correspondence
Subject: feeling inspired the sequel
I finished a book!
Thought you should be the first one to read it since you’re the coauthor. Feel free to make any edits or changes you see fit.
x Derek
Message in a Bottle. D1 Full Manuscript.docx
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Effervescent delight fizzles through me as I stare at my phone screen. I feel like a Nintendo character who just swallowed a star. My family doesn’t register the change, so I must not be a fluorescent flashing blob.
I tilt my head back toward the celling of our hotel room.
I’m up all night reading Reed’s book.
Our book.
He’s gone over the front half, smoothing it out, fitting it into a more classic story structure.
A month into his version of the story, while the couple temporarily both live in New York, Renee is called to her new job in LA.
They break up, and it’s gut wrenching. But in time, they go on to date other people, and the two of them fall in love with two separate people who aren’t each other.
We jump five years, and they’re both married—to those people they fell in love with. Derek’s on Broadway. He’s been in a slew of extremely successful movies, but his true love is theater, and he’s playing Hamilton.
Renee has spearheaded four successful three-plus season shows.
She’s still in LA. When she travels to New York for work, Renee goes to see Derek in Hamilton.
She imagines that he can see her from the stage.
It feels like he’s looking right at her, but she doesn’t text him, and he doesn’t get in contact with her.
She goes to see the show three more times before flying back to LA.
Derek religiously watches everything Renee makes.
I’m sobbing.
We jump another five years. Renee’s divorced. She’s forty. She’s alone in a beautiful house with her dog, making dinner when her phone pings.
It’s Derek Roosevelt out of the blue . . . sharing his location.
We jump to Derek. He’s on a plane. He’s been divorced for a year and a half, and he’s decided that the joys of Broadway are no longer a good enough reason to keep him in New York. He’s moving back to California. When he’s an hour out from LAX, he shares his location with Renee.
It’s stupid. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, but he’s doing it because what does he have to lose?
Renee hasn’t heard from Derek in ten years. But his location reads that he’s in Vegas? She realizes his dot is moving. He’s on a plane.
Renee doesn’t think. She just grabs her jacket. From experience, she knows he flies United. Only Alaska and United fly direct out of EWR, and that’s his airport of choice. She googles the flights out of EWR to LAX from the two airlines and confirms that a United flight is landing in an hour at LAX.
Renee’s at baggage claim when the flight lands.
She’s waiting at the foot of the escalator when Derek comes down.
Their eyes meet, and they smile at each other.
It’s been ten years, but at the same time, it’s only been ten years.
They have so much to catch up on. So much that they’ve missed.
They’ve led so many different lives since they last spoke, but there’s still so much life they could do together.
They start dating again.
They fall in love like they never fell out of it.
Because maybe they never did.
I finish at noon on January 1. Whitney is still asleep, and my mom is just getting up to shower. I feel like I just lived a whole microcosm life in between last night and today.
I spend three weeks editing the book after work hours.
We’re outlining the last two episodes for season one of Love Today, and the writing room’s been extra chaotic.
I’m preparing to launch my spin-off of the Love Today podcast: Chaotic, Stupid, Love with Rose Thyme.
The name’s still a pop-culture reference: Crazy, Stupid, Love is a rom-com classic.
I’ve spent the last three months prepping the Love Today listeners for the shift.
The empty Chaotic, Stupid, Love feed already has fifty thousand subscribers, and our socials have been growing steadily since my announcement.
I’m bringing Victor with me, which is fantastic, so the show will basically be the same, operating under a different name, free of the strings that came along with corporate management.
Victor’s been prepping the back end of things, creating a new website, a blog to be our version of the Love Today column, and hiring a team for our socials.
The relationship therapist on the Love Today TV adaptation has an LMFT podcast that’s also called Chaotic, Stupid, Love, so the two will feed in and out of each other nicely once the show eventually comes out (fingers crossed) over Christmas.
All that to say.
It takes me a while to get back to Reed. But I do.
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Subject: Re: feeling inspired the sequel
Rikki Romona January 22
This is so beautiful. Congratulations, Reed, I have no words.
Well, I did an editing pass of the manuscript and it’s attached here. But I have no words for the way you shaped our nonsense into art. I love it.
Thank you for sharing with me. I’m so proud of you. Please don’t worry about giving me an author credit. This is your baby! Air quotes author my ass.
I feel like I see you all over the place these days. You’re killing it. I hope all is well!
x Renee
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Subject: re: re: feeling inspired the sequel
Reed Tyler February 5
Your edits were inspired. Thank you so much for taking the time to read it. I’m doing one more pass, and I’ll be going on submission with it in March.
x Derek
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Subject: Re: re: re: re: feeling inspired the sequel
Rikki Romona February 18
That’s so exciting! Good luck! I know it’s going to get snatched up. Who will you submit as? Derek? Rome? New pen name for this one?
x Renee
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Subject: re: re: re: re: re: re: feeling inspired the sequel
Reed Tyler February 19
I’m thinking Reed Tyler.
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Subject: Re: re: re: re: feeling inspired the sequel
Rikki Romona February 19
It’s a great name for a writer.