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The line was quiet for a few moments.
“Is everything all right?” Lina finally asked, and gone was her teasing and lighthearted tone. “I was joking about the calls, you know? You can always call me. As many times as you need.”
“I know,” I told her, because I did know that. “But—”
“You won’t burst my bubble,” she finished for me, reminding me why she was such an essential and important person in my life. She knew me inside out. And that was why she knew what to say next to appease me. “I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in my entire life and talking about whatever is going on with you won’t change that.”
I let that sink in, and I didn’t feel jealousy this time, even if healthy, but pure unfiltered joy for her. For them. Aaron and Lina deserved nothing but happiness.
“Actually,” she continued. “It’s you thinking that you can’t count on me that’s breaking my poor, fragile heart. I—”
“Okay, okay.” I breathed out. “You can stop the emotional blackmail. It’s not like I don’t want to talk about it with you. I just…”
“Don’t want to bother me while I’m on my honeymoon with my swoon-worthy husband, I know. But we’ve established that you’re not doing that. So, start talking, bestie.”
Start talking.
There was so much I needed to tell her. To confess, really. Starting with the fact that my apartment was out of commission for the time being. And that I was sharing her studio with her cousin. And that I’d harbored an online crush on said cousin and spending time with him wasn’t making it any better.
And yet, what came out of my mouth was, “I think I might have made a terrible mistake.”
“Okay.” Her tone was careful. “Was that an ‘I added salt to the batter instead of sugar’ mistake, or a ‘honey, remember the zinc phosphide we got for the rat infestation problem, well I’d stop chewing if I were you’ mistake?”
I closed my eyes. “The second one?” I thought about it a little better. “Maybe not exactly the second one but something close to it.Minus the accidental poisoning of my family. Let’s say I was the only one poisoned. And I kind of did it to myself. Let’s say—”
“Rosie?” She stopped me.
“Yeah?”
“I think we took the metaphor too far, and now I don’t know what we’re talking about.”
I released a deep breath. “Quitting my job at InTech. That was the mistake, Lina.”
“What?”She gasped with what I knew was honest shock. “Why would you think that? You’re living your best writer’s life now, no distractions and a book deal in the bag.”
“Yes, only I’m not living my best writer’s life.” I looked up at the ceiling, bringing my fingers to my temples. “I haven’t been writing. I’m less than eight weeks away from my deadline and I’m… I’m nowhere. I’ve been stuck for a long time, and now, I don’t think I’ll make it. I’ve got nothing, Lina. Nota single thing.”
There was silence, and then my best friend said, “Oh, Rosie.”
A tremor rocked my lower lip, the lock on the gates that had busted open less than twenty-four hours ago rattling again. “So there’s that,” I blurted in a strange-sounding voice. “I’m a failure. I haven’t even had my dream yet and I’m already a failure. Do you… Do you think that Aaron will take me back if I ask for my old job?”
“No.”
“Okay, well. I get it. I guess someone else—”
“No,” she repeated. “You’re not asking Aaron for your job.”
“Lina—”
“Shut up and listen. And listen carefully.” My mouth snapped closed, my eyes growing more watery by the moment even though my best friend’s tone was harsh. “You, Rosalyn Graham, are aboss-lady.”
I let out a sound I refused to acknowledge as a hiccup.
“You have an engineering degree. You were promoted to team leader in a top-tier tech company in goddamn New York City.” She paused, letting all that sink in. “You wrote a book—in your free time. A good freaking book, Rosie. A beautiful and epic love story abouta war veteran that travels through time and fights to find a place, his place, beside the woman he so helplessly loves in the present day. Do you know that Charo is still calling him ‘My Officer’? The woman has claimed that fictional man as hers and she genuinely gets pissed at people if they so much as mention him.” I knew that. Lina had sent me screenshots from more than a few aggressively enthusiastic messages. “The day she finds out that you aretheRosalyn Sage, she’s going to flip and pester you for the rest of your life.” A pause. “And that’s only because you smashed it. You knocked it out of the park.”
“I didn’t really smash it, Lina. I—”
“That publishing house didn’t offer a deal because of your pretty face.”
