Chapter 9 Rowan

NEIL'S CARE PACKAGEgets there at the perfect time, right after I've gotten feedback on my next creative writing assignment and am in desperate need of a distraction. The best part: that the striped scarf, the one I've seen him wear on Seattle's coldest days back when my feelings were wrapped in animosity, still smells like him.

"Eventually you'll have a whole outfit and won't even need me," Neil says over video chat. We've been attempting to study together, but the amount of studying we've done so far is questionable, especially because he's wearing one of my favorite shirts: the black one with QUIDQUID LATINE DICTUM, ALTUM VIDETUR printed on it.

Also questionable: the way Paulina breezed out of the room once again when I said I was about to video chat with my boyfriend, as though interpreting it as me telling her to leave—which I wasn't. I'd be more offended if I had a sense of what I'd done wrong. I haven't touched her succulent again, and when I found one of her penguin-patterned socks under my bed, I put it in her hamper. I'm trying to be a decent roommate, but she's barely giving me anything to work with.

"Yes, I have all your clothes laid out on my bed and I cuddle with them whenever I'm lonely." I angle the camera toward my bed where, incidentally, I tossed Neil's hoodie earlier. And because the heat in here is garbage, I grab it and zip it up. It's the softest thing I semi-own, and I hope he's prepared to never get it back. "Seriously. Thank you. I swear the temperature dropped about thirty degrees in the past week—I've already been worrying that I might not survive the winter. Eighteen years in Seattle did not adequately prepare me for seasons."

"Our poor, weak Pacific Northwest bodies." Then he thinks for a moment, seems to type something. "Friolero—I knew there was a word for it. That's Spanish for someone who's very sensitive to the cold."

"Friolero. I love that. I am that. Or friolera, actually. Don't need my Spanish class for that, at least." I hug his hoodie tighter. "Almost as good as the real thing."

We go back to studying, Neil placing meticulous sticky notes in his linguistics book while I make Spanish vocab flash cards.

"Are you getting much done?" he asks after ten minutes.

"Tons. You?"

He gives me a hard, penetrating look I feel the weight of even through the camera. "Incredibly productive. Especially when you glance up at me every two minutes."

"How would you know unless you're also staring at me?"

"My peripheral vision is excellent," he says, though I can tell he's trying not to laugh. "Okay, okay. Let's go for twenty more minutes, no distractions."

Three minutes later, he glances up again. "You're still looking at me!"

"I'm sorry! You're very cute when you're concentrating!"

By mid-October, I've gotten two more assignments back from Professor Everett. Her critiques are all extremely kind, just as warm as she is, but I'm someone who thrived on straight A's and 4.0's in high school. Even if they're graded more on participation than content, it still feels like a pat on the head and a sorry, you're not good enough.

I'd love for you to dig a little deeper here.

Could we play with more sensory details?

I want to hear yourvoice, she wrote in her most recent feedback on a piece about a pivotal childhood memory. I wrote a solidly lackluster eight hundred words about watching a World War II documentary with my grandpa, hoping to turn that experience into a larger commentary about my own Holocaust education and how I can't recall the exact moment I learned about it.

Rereading it now, I can see it's heavy-handed, completely surface. Not what I wanted to communicate with it at all.

If Professor Everett were cruel or arrogant, then maybe I wouldn't want to impress her as much as I do. Surely, in four years at Westview, I turned in work that wasn't my best. But my teachers knew me, and they weren't about to judge based on one off assignment.

To Professor Everett, I am a blank page.

Our next piece of writing is focused on genre, combining one we're unfamiliar with and one we love. The goal is to demonstrate how so much writing cannot be confined to a single genre. My short story is science fiction about a lonely girl who falls in love with a boy via anonymous messages they send on the computers in their spaceship—only what she doesn't know is that he's actually her best friend.

I'm not taking any chances this time, approaching my creative block as logically as I can. Because it's not technically writer's block—I've been writing, just not well. So I'll simply rule out each element that isn't working until I isolate the problem.

Issue number one: my dorm room isn't exactly shimmering with inspiration, so I'm working in the campus library, headphones on, a soup bowl–size hazelnut latte with extra whipped cream in front of me (solving potential problem number two, no creativity on an empty stomach). I choose a seat near the window for prime natural lighting (potential problem number three), and I'm wearing the kind of chunky cable-knit sweater that I'm convinced was made for writers. Wardrobe isn't one of my potential problems, but dressing the part surely can't hurt.

The spaceship is

Shit. What does a spaceship look like?

Ten minutes of Google Image–searching later, I return to my Word document.

The spaceship is sleek and stark, its control panels emitting a soft blue glow.

No, no. I should start with character, not setting. Romance is all about the characters, and that's why I love it so much.

Unless I should start with setting because I'm writing outside my usual genre?

For Amara, the spaceship had always been home. She didn't know what most of the buttons or dials or levers could do, but

Wait. Is it anti-feminist of me if she doesn't know how to operate the spaceship?

Amara knew every button and dial and lever like she'd been operating the spaceship for years—because she had.

I yank off my headphones, because maybe I'm no longer someone who writes to music, but I overhear too many hushed conversations to keep focused. And despite my proximity to a window, the lighting isn't the best, so I switch tables. Then I switch floors, sloshing some of my soup-latte on my jeans and scrubbing at the stain for five minutes before giving up. It's not procrastination; I'm merely trying to eliminate distractions.

Even in a galaxy of brilliant stars, Amara was lonely

Amara couldn't really open up to anyone except her best friend

Amara and everyone on board her fucking spaceship should die in a fiery explosion

Amara and her best friend arrrrrrrrasdfgladhfliasfasfharogrgirg

I push my hands into my forehead, urging myself to take deep breaths. I've had bouts with perfectionism before, but this should be easy. My favorite thing about Professor Everett's class is that genre fiction is not only accepted but encouraged, which I know isn't the case in all writing programs. I've read several hundred romance novels and written my own. I'm in a relationship with someone I love. If anyone should be able to write romance right now, it should be me.

Unless.

A strange, uncomfortable revelation whispers at the back of my mind.

I've never written while in love.

Sure, I've been in relationships—but never love, the overwhelming, belly-swoop, stars-in-my-eyes feeling I have with Neil. It doesn't make sense that I wouldn't be able to write about it now that I know what it feels like. I should be more inspired, the words spilling out too quickly for me to catch them all. My hands should be tripping over themselves on the keyboard.

Yet at the end of an hour, I've somehow only written a single paragraph, and I detest Amara with every fiber of my being.

A shadow pauses in front of my table, an immediate relief washing over me.

"Hey! Rowan," says Kait, and when a few people shush her, a whispered: "Hey." She's in an almost identical sweater, which confirms my theory.

"Hey. I'm actually working on Professor Everett's short story right now."

"Ooh, I just finished. Need a reader?"

I shut my laptop a little too quickly, reluctant to admit how much it's putting me through the wringer. Ugh. Now I'm even thinking in clichés. "It's not ready yet."

"I get it. Some things need longer to cook than others."

"How's the class going for you so far?" I ask. "I loved what you read last week about collecting seashells in Maine." Sharing work in class: something else I don't have the courage for yet.

A blush tinges her cheeks. Kait doesn't often get embarrassed, but when she does, it's usually because someone's paying her a compliment. "Thanks. The class isn't as challenging as I thought it would be. Everett was a little intimidating at first, but I think she's a secret softie."

"I wish I could say the same." Isn't as challenging as I thought. I used to be that person. "I don't know if I'm exactly thriving."

"Well, if you let me read something of yours, maybe I could help you out."

I give her this grimace as I slurp the last of my latte.

"I hear you. Fan fiction probably made that part easier, even if I wasn't using my real name online," she says, sliding into the chair across from me.

"It's never a struggle for you?"

A shrug. "Sometimes."

"But… you like it. Right?"

"I like having written," she says. "No, no, I do love it. It's just not always one hundred percent love, right? There're some negative emotions in there too. The ‘Is this actually good enough, or am I wasting my time?' or ‘Am I kidding myself thinking I'll ever be published someday?'?" Then she lets out a sigh and drops her head to the table, short blond hair fanning out across it. "Or maybe I'm just grouchy today. Gabriel was going to visit for Thanksgiving, but turns out he didn't book the flight when I asked him to. Now it's too expensive and the trains are completely sold out. So it's not happening."

"Oh no. I'm sorry," I say, meaning it.

She pulls herself back up, props her elbow on her chin. "It's fine. I mean, it's not fine, but it will be. We'll see each other in December anyway, but still. It's not easy."

"It's like everything the world told us about long-distance relationships was right."

"Hate it when that happens."

I glance down at my phone, realizing I don't know what Neil's up to tonight. Of course we can't know what the other is doing all the time, and it's not that I'm worried—I'm not. It's just that even after my trip, I can't always visualize how he's spending his time, and that makes him feel farther away.

"As thrilling as the library is on a Friday night," Kait says, "Tegan texted me that a bunch of them are going to meet up in the Common for a little… what did they call it?" She swipes at her phone. "Ah. ‘A drunken trip down literary memory lane,' aka sharing some of our old writing. Sounds amazing and horrifying. I just don't know if I should bring the Chronicles of Narniaself-insert I very clearly plagiarized or the Sherlock slash fics. Ooh, or maybe the semi-satanic poetry?"

Kait has layers, I'm learning.

"Oh God, I have too much to choose from," I say. "All of it's way too embarrassing."

"That's the point," Kait says in a singsong voice, nudging the arm of my sweater with hers. "Laugh at ourselves. Blow off some steam." She lifts an eyebrow. "And maybe it'll help you get out of your head with what you're working on."

My shut laptop and that single paragraph aren't exactly beckoning me to continue.

"Count me in," I say, looping Neil's scarf around my neck and following her out of the library.

This time of night, Boston Common isn't empty, but it's pretty close. A handful of nighttime joggers, college kids probably on their way to parties. Tegan's text, which after checking my phone I realized I'd received too—I'd put it on do not disturb in an attempt to focus—instructed everyone to meet at the gazebo.

Seattle has some great parks, but the Common and Public Garden are on another level. Sweeping patches of green, autumn foliage out in full force, a symphony of brick red and tangerine and goldenrod. During the day, sometimes I have to pause and remind myself to properly take it all in. There's something special about being surrounded by these buildings and this history. That obscure thing you learned about in APUSH? Here's where it happened.

The gazebo is unlit, both of us using our phone screens and a few lighters to illuminate the path. It's a white domed structure, quaint during the day if not slightly creepy at ten o'clock at night. The kind of place where I could imagine someone proposing.

My romance-writer brain stutters over that thought. Is it corny or sweet? Romantic or cliché?

God, maybe I really am broken.

"Kait! Rowan!" Tegan whisper-shouts, beckoning us forward, and I'm shocked they can tell it's us in the dark. We hurry up the gazebo steps.

There are eight of us total, most of the class. This late at night, in the nearly deserted park, it feels like we're about to have a séance, not read the contents of our middle-school diaries. The fact that we're sitting in a circle only adds to it.

Sierra passes me a bottle of wine. "It's not very good, but it'll do the job," she says. Her writing is some of the most literary in class, to the point where I'm not sure I fully understand what it means. Like, I'm pretty sure it's beautiful, but I also never know what's going on.

"Can't say no to a little liquid courage." I pour some into a plastic cup and then hand the bottle to Kait, who does the same with a bit more generous of a pour.

She lifts the cup to the group. "Cheers."

Some of my old writing is stuffed in notebooks under my bed back home, but I have plenty of it on my computer, single chapters of books I abandoned when I got bored, lovesick poetry, lists of names I like.

Most of it, no one's ever read before.

That changes tonight. If I'm brave enough.

"Fellow Emersonians," Tegan says in a serious voice, and all the chattering stops. They're wearing a dark trench coat, the light from their phone illuminating both their nose ring and the determined gleam in their eyes. "We are gathered here tonight to indulge in a time-honored tradition, one perhaps just as storied as the Boston Tea Party or the midnight ride of Paul Revere: mocking our preteen ideas of literary genius."

We all bow our heads solemnly.

"It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway—this is a safe space. What happens in the gazebo stays in the gazebo. Don't read something you wouldn't want someone else to laugh at, but also don't be an asshole, okay? We were all gentle souls with big dreams at one point," Tegan says. "Quiet applause after each piece only, please. We don't want to disturb anyone." They demonstrate this with a silent clapping of their hands. A devious grin. "Now. Who's our first victim?"

Kait's hand shoots up. "I feel God in this gazebo tonight," she says. "I'll go. And I'm going to preface this by saying that I was a very weird kid." Another sip of wine. "This is a poem called ‘Toil and Trouble.'?"

A few hoots. Kait swipes around on her phone and makes a dramatic show of clearing her throat.

"Double, double, toil and trouble

Yet I'm the one who's troubled

Every time you look my way

So I'll steal a lock of your hair

And one of your toenails

And your shirt from yesterday

I know the spell

Will make you fall

When you sip my witch's brew

I'll add some broth

And stir the cauldron

And feed it back to you."

The laughter comes easily, buoyed by the alcohol.

Kait slides her phone into her pocket and takes a little bow as we show our appreciation with a round of silent applause. "Thank you."

"You have a gift," Tegan declares.

"The gift of really freaking out my parents."

"I'm confused," I say. "Is it a love potion or poison?"

"Unclear."

"I wonder if there's some hidden meaning there," says Sierra, ever the literary analyst. "Why go for the toenail when a fingernail would ostensibly be much easier to acquire?"

Felix volunteers, sharing a heartfelt ode to his childhood dog that makes a few of us tear up. Then Owen, who wore the bowler hat on the first day of classes, pulls out a battered notebook and reads a snippet of a short story in which everyone is possessed by alien life-forms except for him.

"Who's next?" Tegan asks.

I chew on the inside of my cheek. Part of me wants to push myself, but I'm not sure I'm ready quite yet.

I think back to Bernadette's, the club in Seattle where I read a piece of my work during that open mic night in June. Romance author Delilah Park had been in the audience. Listened to me. Somehow, I'd gotten onstage on wobbly legs and the words had spilled out.

Of course—Neil was there. At the time, that had made it seem all the more frightening, but maybe the truth was that his presence was a unique kind of comfort.

One that I don't have here in Boston.

Unless I create it for myself.

So I lift my arm, a little shyly at first, and then stretch upward with more conviction. Maybe it's the cheap wine or maybe it's the literary camaraderie, but this is fun. "I'll read. For context, this is a story I never finished about a girl who finds a lamp with a hot genie inside and falls in love with him, naturally. This is a scene where they're arguing."

"What more do you want from me, Belinda?" Axel threw up his hands exasperatedly.

I felt myself blushing, whether out of rage or lust, I couldn't decide. What I said next was probably the most unpredictable thing I had ever said or ever would say.

"Damn it, Axel! I wish you would just kiss me."

Suddenly, his whole facial expression softened. I was more than a bit taken aback when he spoke. I thought maybe he'd get up and leave, or turn me into a toad or something. But what he did was as far from turning someone into a toad as you can get.

"You don't need to wish for that," he murmured, and then he leaned in.

It was so easy to write back then, wasn't it? Alone in my room, no pressure from anyone except myself—and that was barely pressure. I was writing purely for the love of it. Even if I can laugh at it, that girl was so carefree about it all. She kept it from people, sure, but when it was just her and the blank page… there was magic.

The night devolves into chaos, my head spinning delightfully and the laughter flowing more freely than the teen angst. We talk about the class, our pasts, our loftiest dreams for our writing.

"National Book Award or bust," Tegan says, and we cheers to that.

Felix: "New York Times or bust."

"I just want one person to tell me something I wrote made an impact on them," Noor says, and all of us murmur that yes, we'd love that too.

Suddenly a too-bright light sweeps across the gazebo, one that isn't coming from any of our phones.

"Hello? Who's out there?" a gruff voice calls.

"Shit. Cops." Sierra shoves the wine into a bag while Tegan rushes to collect the cups.

We've been caught.

"Because I'd really hate to find some alcohol in possession of anyone who isn't twenty-one," the voice continues.

A shriek, and then someone yells out, "Run!"

We thunderbolt into the night, feet pounding the grass and then the pavement, no pausing to catch our breaths. We don't stop running until we're safely in the lobby of our dorm, where all Kait and I have to do is look at each other before we burst into laughter.

If I was ever uncertain before, now I'm positive: this is where I belong.