Page 17 of Based on You

She had real opinions, earned through actual engagement with the text. She understood why certain beats worked and had the vocabulary to diagnose why others didn't. When she disagreed, she was specific, not just "you're wrong," but "you missed this," and then she'd show me the thing I'd skated past.

We went back and forth for an hour. I conceded three more points. I held firm on one, the pacing in chapter six, and Olivia argued it from two different angles before finally muttering, "Fine, maybe."

"What did you think of the ending of chapter five?" She watched me close.

"The letter scene?"

"Yes."

"I thought it was way too long."

She glanced at the ceiling and let out a patient breath before looking back at me. "It's supposed to be too long, Simon. She can't stop writing because she doesn't want to stop having the conversation. The length is the whole point."

I weighed that, nodding. "All right."

"You keep saying 'all right' like you're conceding a legal argument in court."

"I am conceding. Gracefully."

"You're conceding badly." The corner of her mouth twitched. "You're annoyed."

"I'm not annoyed. I'm recalibrating."

"Recalibrating," she mimicked, looking back down at her phone.

At one point I tore into a sentence, complaining about how it ended on the wrong rhythmic beat, and Olivia laughed, a real sound she hadn't meant to let out, cut short by her hand clapping over her mouth. She recovered fast and shook her head.

"You're wrong about that one, too." Her eyes were dancing.

"Tell me why, then."

She walked me through her reasoning, and I listened. She was right.

I didn't stay long after that. I told her I'd catch up to her chapter count by Sunday, then headed to my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

I needed to find V.M. Ashby. Not for Devika's deck or the launch numbers, but for the argument that had just erupted in that room over nothing more than a book. I'd been killing myself trying to reach Olivia for eight months. An anonymous writer posting every Sunday at midnight had done in three weeks what I couldn't manage in all that time. I wasn't too proud to learn from it.

I pulled up the platform on my phone and went to the comment section of the latest chapter. The pinned comments were packed with wild theories about Ashby's identity. She had to be a D-list celebrity. She had an MFA. She was secretly published in literary fiction under her real name and this was a side project.

Each theory spawned nested threads, citation counts, and the frantic energy of readers so invested in an author they demanded ownership of the mystery itself.

I screenshotted the most-cited theories and forwarded them to Violet, telling her some of them might give us leads. Patterns. Backgrounds we could narrow down.

I kept scrolling until my phone rattled in my palm. Violet, telling me I couldn't trust those comment threads, that they were rampant theories and nothing more.

I pursed my lips. The comments sounded confident enough. That kind of confidence usually meant someone knew something, or at least thought they did. I didn't bother typing a reply. I tapped the call button.

It rang twice.

"Hello?" Her voice came pitched high.

"You sound sure about those comments. Do you know something about V.M. Ashby?"

A low, musical laugh drifted through the speaker. "I wish I did. Wherever she is, whoever she is, she must be doing well. These online platforms pay good money."

I doubted their pay matched the bounty my company was offering.

"Is that what the story in your notebook is for? The one I read this morning?"