Where had everyone gone? She dropped her bag on the chair next to the dining table and pulled out her phone.
Cleo: You home?
Molly’s phone chimed somewhere in the belly of the apartment, so Cleo followed the sound. She found her friend cross-legged on the bed, reading the Lucy Score novel Lincoln had given to Cleo as a gift.
“Thought you didn’t believe in all that love shit.” Cleo folded her arms and leaned on the doorframe. When Molly didn’t reply, she crossed the room and flopped onto the bed in front of her. “What is it, Mol? Why’d you run out on me earlier?”
“You know you’re my ride-or-die, girl, but I can’t keep quiet on this. I’m sorry. Usually I’m one hundred percent in your corner, no matter who you’re facing but with this… with Linc…”
Cleo plucked at some non-existent lint on Molly’s comforter. “With Linc… what?” Her voice was raspy, coated with guilt, and her shoulders, heavy.
Molly sighed. She set the book over her thigh, saving her page. “I can’t stand quietly by and watch you make the biggest mistake of your life.”
“You think breaking up with Linc is the biggest mistake of my life?”
“No, that’s the second biggest mistake of your life.”
“I’m confused, Mol. What’s the first?”
Molly lifted her head to meet Cleo’s eyes. “He’s right, Cho-Cho. You’re killing yourself in school, working every hour of the damn day, spending more time in the library than in your own home, and for what? Your mom? I love your mom, girl, you know I do, but these are her dreams, and fears, not yours. On one hand, you’re telling Linc he needs to let the world see his art. You told him he shouldn’t care so much about what his father thinks, be your best self, rah, rah and all that other don’t hide under a bushel shit. And on the other you’re doing the exact thing you’re telling him he shouldn’t. You’re living your life based on what your mom wants for you. Firstly, that’s kinda hypocritical.”
WTF? I’m not a hypocrite.Cleo opened her mouth to defend herself, but Molly didn’t stop.
“Secondly, you need to live a little and have fun, figure out what the hell you want from life for yourself. If you end up busting your ass so much with school and working at the coffee house that you keel over and die before graduation, what’s it all for anyway?”
She shifted her weight on the bed. “I don’t want you to get so far down a path in something you convince yourself you love, that when you realize you’re miserable living up to someone else’s expectations, it’s too late to change.”
Emotion swirled in her stomach as she blinked back tears. How could her best friend be saying all these things to her?
Molly reached over and plucked Cleo’s hand off the bed and squeezed it between her palms. “I know this is a lot, and I know you probably feel betrayed, or ganged up on, or, I dunno, something else. I’ve had your back from day one, Cleo. I said nothing last year. I’d hoped when you met Linc this year, you’d watch him transform into his artistic, butterfly self and you’d realize this pressure you carry over you like a cartoon anvil wasn’t your own.”
Too many words jammed in Cleo’s throat, but none broke free of the plug of emotion lodged there. Her eyes dropped to the bed again and she shifted her position again, bunching up the blankets underneath. “What else?”
“What makes you think there’s more?”
“I know you, too, Molly Morrison. What else? Spit it out.”
“I found your stories.”
Cleo arched an eyebrow. Her spine tingled like a blast of frigid air through an open door in a winter storm swept up her back. “You… did?” She folded her arms. “What were you doing under my bed?”
“I was borrowing your hockey sweater.”
Cleo snorted. “Under my bed?”
“Fine. I was looking for batteries. My favorite USB vibrator broke, my back up needed charging, and my back up back up needed new batteries. I happened upon your shoebox full of stories and got distracted reading them. I think you should have them edited and published.”
The laugh that burst from Cleo sounded something close to the bray of a donkey. “You’re shitting me, right? There’s no way they’re good enough. My mom said—”
Molly cut her off with a shake of her head and a widened palm over her face. “Shh. This isn’t about your mom. So you don’t write literary enough shit for her, who cares? There are plenty of self-published authors out there who write damn good fiction and make a shit ton of money from doing something they love.”
Cleo’s heart fluttered and her stomach clenched. Could she really publish her stories? Did she want to? She hadn’t given them much thought other than getting them out onto the notebooks she’d expertly hidden under her bed. Did she want to do more with them?
A rush of excitement spread through her, as though she’d stepped outside into a summer day. Heat prickled over her skin. When an idea for a story came to her, she couldn’t sleep until she’d given it a voice and written it down. It was as though her entire life’s purpose was to say what the characters needed to say.
Was there a chance she could make a living at doing something that came as naturally to her as breathing?
Cleo narrowed her gaze. “How do you know what self-published authors do?”
