Page 100 of Business or Pleasure

I grimace. That does sound like me.

“I do miss those creepy mysteries you wrote, though.” My dad takes a sip of coffee. “I have to admit, I liked them more than that water book.” It takes me a moment to realize he means Maddy DeMarco’s book. “Is there a reason you’re asking?”

“Quarter-life crisis?” I suggest, and my dad cracks a smile.

“Nah, you’re too young. By the time you’re our age, the life expectancy will probably be one hundred and fifty, at least.”

“You didn’t like working on Finnegan’s book?” my mom asks, brows creased with concern.

I liked it a little too much. I direct my gaze to my plate, hoping my face doesn’t give me away. “No—it was good. Great. Almost done with it. Anyway,” I say to my dad, desperate to change the subject, “you have a bone-density scan next week, right? I can take you. And maybe you can add me to your patient portal, just so I can check the results as soon as they come in?”

My dad coughs and my mom presses her lips together, staring pointedly at the ceiling. Oh. Maybe I’ve crossed some sort of boundary I wasn’t aware of? They’re pretty decent with technology, given their age, but surely it wouldn’t hurt for me to get more involved. Especially now that I’m back.

“We’ve been meaning to talk to you about this,” my dad says. “Your mom and I... well, we know we’re no spring chickens.”

My mom gives her hair a toss. “Speak for yourself,” she says. “What we want to say is that we don’t need you to bend over backward to help us. We got by just fine the past couple months when you were out of town.”

I swallow hard. I wasn’t prepared to hear that—that they hadn’t needed me. “I was worried, though.”

“We know you worry because you care,” my dad says. “But it’s just too much. We know you asked Noemie to check in on us a few times, and at a certain point, it felt a little like having a babysitter.”

I wince. That wasn’t what I’d wanted at all. “I’m so sorry. I guess I didn’t exactly know what to do.”

“I know there will come a time when we want your help,” my dad says. “When we need it. It might be tomorrow, but it also might be years from now.”

My mom pats my knee. “We’re just not quite ready to let you parent us yet.”

As we finish breakfast, something hits me with a striking clarity. I wonder if I haven’t only been using ghostwriting as a crutch, like Finn said. How many jobs did I never apply for because they’d have meant leaving Seattle? How many opportunities did I miss out on because I was so intent on holding myself back? I’ve been so worried about people not needing me anymore that I tethered myself to them so tightly, I could hardly untie the knots.

I thought this place and these people were my whole world, and while I don’t love them any less than I did before I took this assignment, the truth is that my world is larger than that. Again and again, I fell for new cities and new experiences—and most of all, the version of myself who could step outside her comfort zone.

Because the Chandler from back in September wouldn’t be able to read a text from Wyatt, after weeks and weeks of silence, inviting me to a holiday party he’s throwing later this month, and simply type, Sorry, can’t make it! before deleting the entire thread.

I’m avoiding the book. It’s due in three days, and I’m avoiding it.

I’ve finished watching The Nocturnals because that was easier than opening up the memoir, than confronting the end of this job and the start of something I haven’t put a name to yet. I even went to a reverse running class with Noemie yesterday, hoping the backward jogging on treadmills would get the creativity flowing... and nothing.

But if I’m being realistic, it isn’t the creativity. It’s the fear. It’s always, always the fear. Because even though we’ll go through an editing process, finishing the book feels like the end of an era.

The truth is, the idea of writing another book based on a superficial connection is enough to make me want to sign up for the reverse running boot camp the instructor talked up earlier. As soon as I got off the phone with Stella, I knew I couldn’t take that job. Maybe I’ve always known what I wanted, but I haven’t been able to trust myself, and it’s taken a while for my brain to catch up to my heart.

My new suitcase sits on the other side of my room, reminding me that this doesn’t have to be an ending.

A deep breath, and I open Finn’s book back up.

At first, I skim through everything I’ve written so far. And as I go, something strikes me—there’s a strange current of emotion running throughout the book, from his acting to his Judaism to Lord of the Rings.

It’s something like love.

I’m not sure how I missed it before when it’s so tangled up in every chapter. His childhood in Reno and the dramatic readings he staged for his mom. His ill-fated portrayal of Cogsworth. How meticulously he researched Hux’s science background for The Nocturnals, and his gradual understanding of his OCD and how to manage it.

Finnegan Walsh is earnest and good and worth every risk. And maybe we could have figured it out together, like he wanted to, but now I know I had to do it on my own first. I needed that space from him to truly see it.

I work for hours without pausing, without checking the clock or the word count. Maybe it’s not a sun-drenched café in Silver Lake, but it’s where I’ve written all my other books, and something about that brings me a comfort I’ve desperately needed since I touched down in Seattle.

I am a writer. I have always been a writer, but somewhere along the way, maybe to shield myself from the possibility of failure, I stopped writing for myself. I stopped writing for the pure love of it and let my voice disappear into someone else’s.

Not anymore.

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