Page 61 of Not a Strong Enough Word

I pause for a moment as his excitement becomes mine. I know a lot of authors get nervous about the editing process, but that has never been me. Even before Ryan was my editor, I always thought there was something magical about taking raw words that I had written just for me and polishing them, refining them, into something beautiful for the world to see. But now that Ryan is working on it, it’s even more special. It’s something beautiful we’ve made together.

“We?” I ask through a new emotion rising inside me. I can’t name it, but it feels close to fear. Trepidation. Everything unsaid between us is staring me in the face, telling me it could ruin this tenuous happiness we’ve started building again.

He goes quiet again, as if realizing what he’s said. “Sorry,” he says finally. “I got carried away.”

I clear my throat. Now is not the time. But soon. It has to be soon.

“No, not at all,” I reassure him. “It’s ours. I like that.”

He goes quiet for a minute again before cursing quietly. “Listen, I have to get going. I’ve been putting out fires all day, and another one just landed in my inbox. Dinner tonight?”

“I’d like that.”

We say our goodbyes. I sit cross-legged at my kitchen table with my laptop in front of me, staring at a blank screen for a long time. I should be writing. I want to write. But I can’t concentrate.

Maybe it’s having Ryan back in my life. Our banter, his kiss, the way his body feels against mine—it’s all so familiar. When he calls me beautiful with such ease, it’s almost as if he hasn’t missed a beat. Like there aren’t five years and a whole lot of heartbreak between us. And the way he talked about “we” and “us” and “our book” just now—that’s familiar, too. My words have always been his and his mine to the point where I’ve never been exactly sure who suggested what.

The familiarity is comforting. But it also wakes something else up inside me as I stare at the blinking cursor on my screen. The memories of what this all felt like five years ago when I was burnt out keep pestering me, almost like they’re trying to tell me not to get too comfortable. You were happy last time, too, they seem to whisper. You had everything you thought you wanted, until you realized that wasn’t what you wanted at all.

That was it, wasn’t it? It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the fame or the work that came along with it but that I simply didn’t want it. I wanted something else. The rustling of pages, the click of a keyboard, the scratch of Ryan’s pen. Not the squeals of excited readers or the voices in my head screaming that I’d never be good enough.

A quieter life. A life with Ryan.

And when I closed the book on us, I put it on the shelf and told myself I wasn’t enough for that story, either.

I truly did think I had dealt with this. That it was done, and the only thing I had left to do was conquer my fear of publishing again, and I’d be healed. All that therapy, unraveling the story piece by piece. It was almost like editing, the way it happened. Dianne would listen to my first draft, then she’d poke at it, unearthing layer after layer. She’d ask me questions and make me think. It helped, obviously, but I’ve been alone with it for so long. Like she said the other day, the true test is letting someone in.

There’s no question about what I want now. I still want that quiet life with Ryan. But there’s only one path to it. We can’t have our second chance if he doesn’t know what happened with our first.

Chapter 28

Scarlett

Five Years Ago

Tired. So, so tired. It’s the only word my overworked brain can focus on when I’m not writing or interviewing or signing. There are probably more accurate or descriptive words to express my condition—stronger words, as Ryan might demand—but I’m too tired to think of them.

Every day should feel new and exciting, but it doesn’t. If I had been asleep at all, I wake up, write, prepare for whatever event is on my calendar, write more, talk to Ryan, write even more. Eventually, someone from my team reminds me I need to get on a plane to fly to the next thing.

Four days. I’ll be home in four days. Ryan can hold me. I can eat something that isn’t in a takeout container. I can rest.

Sort of. Trina told me JMP is very interested in signing me on for more books, and I need something to show them.

I love writing. If writing were the only thing, I could probably do it forever. Maybe I’d even be able to write something that wasn’t absolute shit if I weren’t stretched so thin. Yet as I stare at my screen, trying to make sense of whatever I typed at three in the morning, that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. In a fit of desperation, I highlight the entire chapter and hover my finger over the Delete button.

My phone chirps from the nightstand in my hotel room, and I blink rapidly. Where am I? New York? A glance outside at the gorgeous view of the Empire State Building that I haven’t been able to appreciate confirms my location. In the Time Before was a book club pick for a huge daytime talk show—one of the ones where five women sit around a fake kitchen table and talk. I’m slated for an appearance with them today, then a late-night show in two days. Then home.

The chirping sounds again, and I realize that’s my ringtone. “Saved by the bell,” I tell the jumble of highlighted words on my screen as I make my way over to my phone to answer it.

Great, now I’m talking to myself.

“Hello?”

“Good morning,” Trina says rather loudly.

I pull the phone away from my ear to turn the volume down. “Hi.”

She cuts right to the chase. “Got any pages for me to look at today? JMP is very curious what you’ve got up your sleeve, and honestly, so am I.”