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Eight long hours later, my hair still clings wet and tangled in a tight bun on the top of my head. Not the cute kind of bun. Not the oh-look-at-me-in-my-slouchy-sweater-and-ballet-flats-while-carrying-a-coffee kind of bun. The other kind. The I-was-locked-into-a-small-wet-hole-and-stared-into-the-abyss-for-an-eternity kind. And for the record, the answer is no. No, I never actually relaxed. Not for one millisecond.

I spent the bulk of the time thinking about my manuscript. And the more I thought about the manuscript, the more I itched to retrieve it. And the more I itched to retrieve it, the more anxious I felt about turning it in.

What if the banquet this evening takes so long it goes past midnight? What if everyone gets really excitable and talks on for ages, and I’m expected to just sit there, playing the good host? What if after the banquet Oswald says he wants to go over some concerns about his newest work-in-progress, and I come to find out I’m trapped with a regular Vladimir Nabokov insomniac, brainstorming with him in his hotel room while he taps feverishly on his computer keys until dawn? And most important of all, What if I never get out of this tank?!

I did get out of the tank.

I did make it back to the banquet with Oswald (where a meal has never tasted so good in my life).

I did drop him off at his hotel and manage some parting encouragement about tomorrow’s signing to a man who looked like he needed another hit in the sensory-deprivation tank just thinking about the chaos of the day to come.

And I have managed to sneak back in before the doors are locked up at Pennington for the night.

China clatters downstairs as I wind around the last of the staircase and stride down the hall. There’s no need for pretense this time. The only people in the building are the caterers packing up what’s left of the welcome banquet hours prior and Robby, Pennington’s long-serving janitor, vacuuming somewhere on the second floor. I take solace in the humming below and push open the door to the ARC room, my steps determined. It’s darker than usual as I pull on each lightbulb chain, blazing the path with light until I reach the metal filing cabinet on the other side. Once I’ve ducked inside, I push the door open.

A crescent moon shines through the stained-glass window, the sparrow looking as though it’s balancing the moon on its pointed yellow beak. I smile to myself and feel myself exhale, as if for the first time that day. My stomach is pleasantly stuffed. Oswald is safely tucked into his hotel room. And here, at 10:30 p.m., I still have a full hour and a half to turn my manuscript in. I’m exhausted but finally ready to release it.

My fingers tighten around the string connecting to the lightbulb as I droopily look down at the floor.

I pause.

Squint.

And just as my heart starts to punch at my rib cage, I pull the cord.

Light floods the small room, and with it confirmation.

Because there, in the middle of the old Persian rug, is my manuscript, the papers no longer scattered and disarrayed, the corners of each page no longer folded in wonky discordancy.

No.

My manuscript. Sitting in a crisp, neat pile. A rubber band snapped around the middle. And worst of all—in bold black ink—are words. Dozens of fresh handwritten words, scribbled down the margins.

Words that are not mine.

Chapter 4

By the time I reach the pristine welcome mat of my apartment door (did Olivia really just clean it again?), I’m exhausted. Head-to-the-squashed-toes-I-limped-home-on exhausted. The wicked heels I spent the day in poke out from the thin leather of my laptop bag where I thrust them the second I managed to snatch my tennis shoes from my lower desk drawer on my way out of Pennington.

Eleven p.m.

With the busyness of toting Oswald around all day and the whole issue of stashing, then retrieving, my manuscript, I’m left with only one measly hour to look over my final edits and send it in. And then, of course, there is the whole issue of what to do about the scribbling all along my beloved manuscript’s margins.

Despite how much my heart is racing me forward, I pause. Press my ear close to the door. Listen.

There is the whizzing of one Peloton bike inside. Just one. Not two. I exhale.

But then I check my step tracker and see the number there: 6670. I feel my rib cage compressing again.

Perfect.

I can only hope she’s so engrossed she doesn’t notice me.

My key slides into the lock, and as quietly as possible, I inch the door open. Directly across the room Olivia cycles on her bike beside the second, currently unoccupied one, sweat beading on her model-high cheekbones, a book propped on the handlebars that looks thick enough to hold open a bank vault. She’s so deep into it she doesn’t look up. Good.

I haven’t always lived with my sister. No, for over six years Lyla and I shared a tiny garage apartment. We’d scored it from my mother’s Belmont colleague, who was on the hunt for a pair of bright young students who prized the peaceful solitude of historic little homes over, say, belching contests in the hallways. And we did love it. Loved it with every fiber of our being. Until they sold the house. And with it, our garage-apartment bungalow. Which for Lyla worked out seamlessly, as she married her college sweetheart just three months after we got the boot. But as for me, it left me dangling.

And looking at house ads after splitting $550-a-month all-inclusive rent for six years was, let me say, the worst reality check.