“Hi,” he says.
“Hey,” I reply, awkwardly fiddling with the strap of my bag.
“Should we try our first official experiment?” He smiles and leans in, reaching forward, while maintaining eye contact. Is he going to touch me? Hugme? My breath hitches, and every nerve in my body sings with anticipation.
His arm skirts around me, carefully avoiding touching any part of me, and there’s a soft clack as he presses the buttons for each floor while carefully maintaining eye contact. The black center of his eyes expands, swallowing the rich brown, and my breath stutters in my chest.
This isn’t what it seems. He’s not interested in me. We’re just two people in a strange situation, able to do something we don’t understand, unexpectedly smashed in an elevator together. That’s all.
“Maybe it affects machines more than apples?” he muses.
“Huh?” I sound breathless, like I’ve been running a marathon. I can’t think past the heat pulsing between us and the sensations tingling across my skin.
“The experiment,” he says. “I tried affecting something natural—an apple. Now, we’ll try a machine.” He looks away, and everything goes back to how it was before. The elevator moves down, down, down to the lobby, without stopping on the other floors, and my heart sinks with it.
He’s clearly not as affected by me as I am by him. All he cares about is the experiment. He wasn’t fighting the urge to close the space between us the way I was. He just wanted to see if we could change something. That’s all this is, all I am. A research partner.
I spring out of the elevator as soon as the doors open, bumping into people in my haste. I expectCosmos to stop and look at me again, say something about how the experiment failed, but he immediately falls into step with his colleagues and disappears around the corner, leaving me standing alone, still trying to tamp down the feelings I have no right to feel and thinking way too much about how his breath felt on my neck.
Chapter Nine
“Thank you, Miss Berton.” Dr. Paatel adjusts his bow tie. This one is patterned with red toothbrushes on a lime green background. Kiara, who works as his teacher’s aide, says he’s worn a different one every day this week. “Now, who wants to give Hazel constructive feedback?”
We’re sitting on hard metal chairs in a tight circle with the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. The room is expansive, but Dr. Paatel believes in authenticity and vulnerability, which, apparently in his mind, means we have to be so close our knees could touch.
Sullivan raises his hand. Of course, he has an opinion. He has an opinion about everything. Kiara’s hand shoots up a second after his, her bracelets falling down her forearm. She gives me a smile that screams,‘I've got your back.’
Thankfully, Dr. Paatel calls on Kiara first.
“I really liked the part where she’s watching the kids on the playground. The imagery revealed her thoughts well, and your dark, moody word choices created a stark contrast to the cheerful environment.”
“It was pedantic and cliché,” Sullivan interjects without raising his hand.
“Let’s keep this constructive,” Dr. Paatel says.
“I was being constructive. You have to know what’s wrong before you can know how to fix it.” Sullivan sits up straighter in his chair, puffing out his narrow chest. “It’s clear that you aren’t passionate about this story. You’re portraying a character as you assume they would be, rather than a character you know and care about. Your main character is a forty-seven-year-old wife with three kids and a cheating husband. It’s obvious you know nothing about that, so you can’t write it with any authenticity.”
And that is why Sullivan doesn’t write about anything other than loners with disabled cats. His life experience is sorely lacking. And who is he to say I don’t know anything about a woman whose husband cheated on her? He knows nothing about my life. I gnaw on my cheek and try to control my growing anger, nails biting into the flesh of my palm.
“So, you can only write what you know personally?” Kiara asks. “That’s bullshit. You don’t write what you know, you write what you can imagine, what you fear, what you long for, what you want to explore.”
“If you want to write the kind of crap Hazel wrote this week, be my guest.” Sullivan places his elbows on his knees and leans toward Kiara.
My whole body is hot with anger, but I’m not really upset with Sullivan. I’m angry with myself. Some part of me knows he’s right, even if I don’t completely agree with him. These pages are crap. There’s no real feeling in them. I should have told Dr. Paatel I didn’t have anything to read today and taken the hit on my grade. I should have stayed at the hospital and skipped this workshop altogether. Maybe Aunt Joan was right, and I shouldn’t have ever pursued an MFA to begin with. I’m wasting what little money I have—money Mom needs. If I weren’t so close to graduation, I’d quit.
While I stew, the class erupts in a discussion about whether or not you should stick to personal experience in your writing. They discuss how far the boundaries of creative liberties can stretch as if their lives depend on it. Both sides of the argument sound right. Both sides make me angry. Both leave me feeling confused and with nothing to say. Even if I had something to say, I’d probably stay quiet.
The heat of the argument only adds to my internal overwhelm. There’s too much controversy and dissension. No matter what opinion I have, if I share it, I’ll alienate someone. I’ve been called out for my opinions, interests, and tastes too many times in my twenty-six years. What right do I have to say anything? What right do I have to write anything? I really shouldn’t be here.
“Okay. Settle down.” After letting the conversation go for a solid twenty minutes, Dr. Paatel quiets the class. I’m grateful for the hard stop. If the noiseand turmoil had lasted any longer, I might have dissolved into tears. As it is, I wipe at my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater and try to pretend they’re just itchy. I can’t lose it. Not here. Not now.
“Let’s get back to discussing Miss Berton’s pages.”
No, let’s really not.
A few other students volunteer some encouragement and share things they like, lifting me ever so slightly out of my spiral. But the consensus seems to be the same. The pages are solidly written, but they lack the ability to make the reader feel anything. They lack‘heart and soul,’as one person put it.
I know, but I don’t know how to fix it. Does every project have to be a passion project? Can’t I just write something as a way of exploring a particular idea or… for fun? Not that this book has been fun to write. It has all my blood, sweat, and tears, even if none of my heart. That should be enough. Shouldn’t it?
