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Three
William
“How do you feel?”
“Like a gangly foal about to go run a mile in front of four hundred grownup horses?”
Marin giggles. It has an effect as soothing as petrichor rolling through the mountain air. My hands relax at my sides. “It’s imposter syndrome,” Marin says. “I get it too. Big time.”
“You? You’re great at your job. I owe you everything,” I tell her, lifting one shoulder in a humble half shrug. “If I don’t crash and burn, that is.” I smirk.
“You’re not going to crash and burn. You’ve got this, William.”
“Aw, thanks, Care-Mare.” I reach for her, instinctively drawing her to me. We’ve hugged hello and goodbye before, professional like, but this time I hold her extra close. Can’t help it. Can’t stop. I take a deep breath and then slowly release her.
But Marin doesn’t step away all the way. Tipping her head back, her blue eyes are wet, unmistakably wanting more. I don’t have to guess. She lifts up on tiptoe, closing her eyes, and I gently touch her lips with mine and the world around me spins in a kind of fast-slow, dizzying circle.
We pull away even more languidly. I lick my lips just to get another taste.
“God,” I breathe out.
“I’m proud of you, you know,” Marin says kindly, ever the consummate professional, even now. After that kiss I already know I’ll never forget. “For going through with it.”
“I wasn’t going to let you down.” I wink.
“Good. And I’ve learned a lot from you too.” She’s speaking to me in past tense, like we aren’t going to continue working together. “I just want you to know that whatever happens on that stage, you have one admirer, William. And I’m so grateful for you.”
I take her hand, pressing another fast, featherlight kiss to her forehead. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
Up until the last minute, literally, I had no idea what I was going to say to these writers. Marin and I had drafted some notes, how to read the room, some jokes I could open or close with. I thought if anything, I’d keep it technical. Talk about writing, the process. Finding an agent. Publishing.
It was all going to be very uninspiring.
But after that kiss, every locked up part of me feels somehow freed. My chest is loose. My heart, open. I can see, I can think. I can breathe.
There’s a smile on my face that won’t go away even as my name is called and I stand up and head for the stage.
“Everywhere you look, everywhere you go,” I begin, “you will be told who you are—and you who you are not—and what you can do—and what you are not capable of.”
I find Marin’s face in the audience. No, I didn’t start with a joke. But she’s smiling up at me, hanging onto every unrehearsed word. And I’ve got more.
“Usually, they are always wrong.” I grin, winning a quiet, reticent chuckle that rolls through the crowd. “Sometimes devastatingly wrong.”
I used to be a wealthy man. The ground beneath my feet shook, bent to my will, obeyed. Before I signed books, I signed multi-billion-dollar contracts. Before I built worlds in my head, I built cities in real life. In business, I was a wolf.
I was the man.
Until I wasn’t. The incident was upon me, and it would be a long and terrible story of when I was framed for the murder of a young associate at my firm. Who actually did it was a mystery that inspires some of what I write today. I learned a godawful lot more than I ever wanted to in those courtrooms, then more in prison. I was released when DNA evidence placed me elsewhere when the crime was committed, but don’t we—the society I chose to escape from—love building up gladiators and then watching them fall?
I still get hate.
Proven innocent. Doesn’t matter.
“People believe what they want to believe,” I say to the writers. Some of them aren’t happy I’m here. Some of them are as still as statues. Some of them have not looked up from where they’re writing their notes.
‘You could inspire so many other writers…’
That’s what I want to do—inspire, encourage, instill hope. I see it in every single one of their faces. They need it. They want it. They are hungry for it.
