Page 1 of Don’t Forget Me

one

LYSANDRA

I didn’t know if I could go through with this meeting. Perhaps I could convince Camille—my best friend and literary agent—to cancel it. I’d never been the type of person to bite my nails, yet I found myself doing so as I paced the meeting room in my publisher’s building.

I shuffled my shirt, trying to dry the sweat in my armpits. “Is it just me, or is it hot in here?”

There should be no reason for it to be so stuffy; the late August nights in Edinburgh were almost unbearable for me. Even after five years of calling this place my home. I was much more accustomed to the humid summers of the desert towns of California.

Camille’s big blue eyes stared up at me with a shimmer as she pushed a strand of her long black hair over her shoulder. “You need to relax. Everything will be okay,” she reassured me. There was nothing sharp about her words, only understanding for my anxiety.

I slid my palms over my eyes in exasperation. “You don’t seriously believe that I should do this, do you?”

My hopes of escaping were crushed when Camille sent me a knowing glance. I knew that would be my answer, but there was no harm in asking. For once, me and my literary agent had differing opinions about my career as an author. Camille had been pushing around the production world to be able to get the film rights for one of my books. This time around, it was the producers that reached out to my publisher and Camille to acquire the rights to my book So Long, Scotland.

“You want this, Lys. Don’t lie to me and act like you don’t,” Cami argued.

Perhaps she knew me better than anyone else, after all, she’d been my best friend since we were seventeen. I knew she wouldn’t let me pass up on the opportunity of a lifetime, like bringing my story to film world.

“Yes, of course I want my book to be made into a movie. It’s what every author wants, but I’m not going to have any sort of creative control with this company,” I retorted with a frown. “They’ll be calling all the shots.”

That wasn’t entirely true. The real reason why I didn’t want So Long, Scotland to be made into a movie was because I knew it would reach him, somehow. The guy that inspired the story. No one expected to hear an author deny the writer’s dream of getting their book adapted to a movie. But I didn’t know if I could bear to relive everything I wrote into that story.

The way he used me. The way I was a joke to him. The way I was ridiculed by him and his friends.

Camille remained silent, her gaze fixed on my hand pressed against the bench top, one diamond ring adorning my finger. “You don’t know that.”

She’d always been the type of person to expect the very best in everything. She had that superpower. On the other hand, I saw the deep void that was life. Being abandoned as a kid by the one person who was supposed to love me, fighting for my life ever since I was thirteen, and having my heart broken by the only other person I had ever loved more than myself did that to me.

I scoffed. “Please, it’s what every production company does to the author.”

“Not every company is like that.”

“I saw this author on Reddit talking about⁠—”

Cami pushed herself to her feet and set a hand over my shoulder, cutting me off. “First of all, you need to stop reading the rants posted on there. Second, it’s not gonna hurt to meet with them. Just hear them out,” she said. “And remember what I told you about their proposal: it’s a really good deal.”

She’d briefly mentioned how the executive who emailed the publishing house was planning on giving me a say over the script and the creative process. I refused to believe anyone could be that good out the kindness of their heart. Everyone in this world was in it for money.

I crossed my arms and sighed. I avoided her hauntingly beautiful gaze because it reminded me of him so much. Delicate, gentle, and deep.

This was my work, my novel, and my story.

A story I wished to forget. It was published last year, and its fame never died. I wrote it because I knew there were women out there who felt the same as I did when I struggled through my greatest sorrow. I wished to help my readers rather than simply entertain them, but they didn’t have to know that. They didn’t have to know that the story I wrote was a mirror of my life.

It was for those women that I had to accept this meeting. I knew it, and there was no point in arguing about it any longer.

Camille claimed that if I liked their presentation, I would accept their proposal, and then I could finally say that all my dreams had come true.

Well, except for one.

“When’s the meeting again?” I hadn’t realized that I completely blocked out that piece of information, a bad habit I couldn’t help whenever I would get lost in my own thoughts.

“At 3 p.m.,” Cami answered after a pause.

Thirty minutes. In half an hour I had to make a life-changing decision. I just knew Ezra was going to watch that movie and know that the book was about us.

My pulse only quickened as I tapped my foot against the polished floor. “I need coffee,” I croaked.