40. Completely Enthralling
COMPLETELY ENTHRALLING
ANDERS
“Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice,” Dr. Keir says as soon as I step into her office.
The room smells like coffee grounds and old paper, kind of like one of those hidden gem libraries.
There are books stacked everywhere in unstable towers that somehow haven’t collapsed in the four years I’ve known her.
Her office has always looked like this. Chaotic in a very curated academic way.
Sticky notes shoved between pages. Half-dead plants on the windowsill.
A cardigan hanging off the back of her chair like she abandoned it halfway through grading papers and never remembered to pick it back up.
Outside, rain taps softly against the windows. Typical D.C. spring weather. Gross and humid and gray enough to make everyone on campus look vaguely miserable.
Dr. Keir slides her glasses out of their case and settles them onto her nose before motioning for me to sit down across from her desk.
“You’re scaring me already,” I mutter as I sink into the chair. “Be honest, Dr. Keir. Am I going to fail?”
She looks up from the stack of papers in her lap with an almost offended expression. “On the contrary.” That somehow makes me more nervous. Dr. Keir exhales slowly and reaches beside her chair for a thick manila envelope. “You’re going to hate me.”
“As long as it isn’t a bad grade, we’re still besties,” I joke weakly, leaning forward to take it from her. “And honestly, your class has been the easiest class I’ve taken in four years. I actually really liked—”
I stop. Everything inside me stops. My fingers tighten around the papers as my eyes skim the first paragraph. Then I read the line again because surely I’m misunderstanding what I’m looking at.
“Tragic, yet compelling retellings of modern-day Lolita myths that explores…”
I throw the packet down onto the desk so fast the papers slide halfway onto the floor. “What the fuck is this?”
Dr. Keir folds her hands together carefully. Too carefully. “My wife has a friend in publishing—”
“No.” The word comes out instantly. “No. Absolutely not. Not happening.” My pulse starts pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. “I wrote that two years ago.”
“Anderson—”
“No.” I shove back in my chair so abruptly the legs screech against the old hardwood.
Out of every single thing I’ve ever written…
a fucking short story I wrote freshman year while having a psychological breakdown over Parker.
Heat floods my face so violently it stings.
I snatch the packet back up and scan farther down the page.
“…explores power dynamics of homo-erotic relationships…”
“Oh my God.” I clamp my hand over my mouth.
Freshman year Anders really deserved to have his laptop confiscated forever because what the fuck was wrong with me?
I remember writing this thing at two in the morning while sitting cross-legged on the floor of my dorm room listening to Mitski and convincing myself I was processing my feelings in a healthy artistic way when really I was just turning my unresolved daddy issues into literary fiction.
And not even subtle literary fiction. Anybody with half a brain and enough context could probably figure out exactly who inspired it.
The older man. The authority figure.
“I told you I didn’t want this one published.”
“I am so, so sorry,” Dr. Keir says immediately. “It was genuinely a mistake. I left it in my office and my wife found it and—”
“Oh my God,” I repeat, squeezing my eyes shut so tightly it hurts. “This is actually my worst nightmare.”
Because it isn’t even accurate anymore. That’s the thing making this feel so horrible.
Back then Parker was this impossible thing in my head…
something I wanted so badly it curdled into resentment.
Sometimes I genuinely believed he would never love me back the same way.
So I twisted him into someone darker on the page.
Meaner. More manipulative. Easier to survive emotionally.
And now he’s my boyfriend. A real person. A good person. A man who kisses my forehead before he leaves for morning skate and makes me tea when I’m anxious and listens to me ramble about niche political theory for an hour without interrupting once and a smile on his face.
“The man I wrote about,” I say hollowly, staring down at the packet, “is literally my boyfriend now.” Dr. Keir opens her mouth, but I keep talking because once I start spiraling it’s basically impossible to stop.
“I live with him. I sleep next to him every night. What I wrote back then isn’t even remotely representative of what our relationship actually is, and if this got published people would absolutely psychoanalyze the fuck out of it and act like I’m secretly documenting some sort of grooming situation. ”
“You don’t need to explain yourself,” she says gently. “It’s fiction.”
“People don’t care if something’s fiction anymore,” I argue immediately.
“Everyone wants to turn everything into discourse. Especially anything involving age gaps or power dynamics or queer relationships. I’m not dealing with strangers on the internet trying to diagnose my personal life through a short story I wrote at nineteen while I was emotionally unstable and heartbroken. ”
The blizzard. It’s all coming back to me and it’s making me sick. My chest feels tight. Humiliation crawls all the way up my neck. “I’m not publishing it,” I say firmly. “Tell your wife and your wife’s friend and whoever else that the answer is no.”
“Okay,” Dr. Keir says immediately. That catches me off guard enough that I stop pacing.
She’s quiet for a moment, watching me with that same thoughtful look she always gets during office hours whenever she thinks I’m about to accidentally say something insightful.
Then she reaches for another folder. “For what it’s worth,” Dr. Keir says, “the reason she showed it to someone wasn’t because they wanted to publish it. ”
I narrow my eyes. “Then why?”
“Because they liked your writing.”
“Okay…”
“Gaten Publishing is looking for a ghostwriter.”
I blink at her. “What?”
“My wife’s friend works there,” she explains carefully. “She said your prose—your voice, Anders—was completely enthralling.”
Who the fuck even says that?
“How many people have read this thing?”
“Just us three. And the Author.”
“Fantastic.” I laugh harshly. “Only four people on Earth have read the most psychologically concerning thing I’ve ever produced. That definitely makes me feel better.”
“I didn’t ask you here to pressure you into publishing the story,” Dr. Keir says.
“I asked because opportunities like this don’t happen very often.
” She slides the folder toward me. “It’s a paid internship.
Three months in New York. You’d start in the fall.
Mostly editorial assistance for an author on deadline. ”
New York. Three months. My brain immediately starts spiraling in six directions at once.
I graduate in a week.
Dr. Markut already offered me the GTA position for Georgetown’s grad program.
It’s the exact kind of academic path I’ve been working toward since freshman year.
A future that makes sense. It’s predictable.
I’m supposed to go to Georgetown. I’m supposed to become Dr. Markut’s insufferable little protégé and spend the next six years drowning in academia until somebody eventually lets me write think-pieces about political radicalization that no one asked for.
That’s the plan. That’s always been the plan.
So why does this feel different?
The scary part isn’t that I want the publishing job. The scary part is that I don’t immediately know why I shouldn’t.
“I’m majoring in Political Science,” I mutter, rubbing my hand over my jaw. “I’m pursuing academia.” The words sound less convincing out loud than they do in my head.
Dr. Keir notices. “I know,” she says softly. “But wanting one thing at nineteen doesn’t mean you’re obligated to want it forever.”
I stare down at the manuscript again. Most of this story came straight from my therapy journals.
Entire paragraphs lifted from sessions where I was trying to untangle why loving Parker felt like the end of the world.
And now somebody thinks that voice is worth something.
That’s terrifying…the possibility that they might actually be right.
Three months away from Parker. My stomach twists immediately. I haven’t even told him I love him yet. Not in the way I keep rehearsing in my head at two in the morning when he’s asleep beside me.
“Anders.” I look up. “There’s no pressure,” Dr. Keir says gently. “I just would’ve hated myself if I didn’t tell you.” She slides the bound manuscript toward me. “The only printed copy. My wife had it bound for you.”
I grab it immediately. “Thank you.” The words come out too fast because suddenly I desperately need to leave before I fully lose my mind in front of her.
“And here.” She slides one final page toward me. “If you change your mind.” A name. A phone number. Gaten Publishing letterhead. “The author specifically requested you after reading the manuscript.”
My ears ring so loudly I barely hear the rest.
“There are people who stand to gain something from hearing your voice, Anders,” Dr. Keir says softly. “Whether it’s through academia or fiction or something else entirely.”
I stand abruptly, clutching the manuscript against my chest. “Thank you,” I repeat myself.
“Anderson.” I pause at the door. “Think very carefully about what you want your life to look like after graduation,” she says. “Not what feels safest. Not what feels expected. What you actually want.”
Two months ago, the future felt simple. I’d go to grad school, maybe do some research.
Georgetown was supposed to be my home base.
Everything was mapped out neatly enough that I never had to question it.
Now I have a manuscript tucked beneath my arm, a phone number in my pocket, and a life that suddenly seems a lot bigger than the one I’d planned.
And I’m not sure whether that terrifies me or excites me.
I nod once. But the second I step out into the hallway, all I can think about is Parker waiting for me at home and how terrifying it suddenly feels that my future no longer feels as certain.