Page 28 of The Rom-Commers

“I’m not a failed screenwriter!”

“Which part of your failed career gave you that idea?”

Whoa.

How to even respond? Finally I mustered a gritted “Itakemy careerseriously.”

“Do you?” Charlie challenged. “Because the Warner Bros. internship isn’t something that writers just ignore.”

“Logan told you about that?”

“Do you have any idea how prestigious that internship is? How much it could have changed your life? It’s unfathomable that you had that chance and didn’t take it.”

“I know exactly how prestigious it is, and I—”

But Charlie kept going. “Logan thought I’d be impressed that you won. But the fact that you turned it down tells me everything I need to know.”

“Look, there were circumstances—”

“Fuck circumstances! That’s what I’m saying. If you want to do this life, you have to eat it and drink it and sleep it, and it has to come before everything else. Family—friends—sex! Anything else is second best. Anything else isnot taking it seriously.”

Turning down that internship had been the most agonizing sacrifice out of all my agonizing sacrifices. But if this guy really thought that my own personal writing goals should truly come before everything else, including my family—including mydad—then there was no use in trying to explain.

We’d reached Charlie’s house. He swung us into the driveway, cut the engine, and stomped the parking brake.

“Is that whatyou’vedone?” I asked then, quietly. “Sacrificed everything?”

“How do you think I wound up all alone in this giant mansion?”

Was he saying that like it was a good thing? There was bitterness inhis voice, and probably a whole story to excavate. But I had my own bitterness to cope with.

I’d already lost this fight, anyway.

I let out a long breath. “You must be right, then,” I said. “By your definition, I guess I don’t take it seriously.”

“Thank you,” he said, like he’d won.

“Pro tip, though,” I said now, at the end of this endless day, not even able to disguise the exhaustion in my voice. “In general, if you have to add the words ‘no offense’ to something you’re saying… it’s probably offensive.”

Charlie frowned at that. Like it registered. Like once the frenzy of trying to make his point had abated, he could suddenly see the wreckage he’d left behind.

“I’ll find a plane ticket home,” I said then, in defeat, hearing a threat of tears in my voice, “for first thing in the morning.”

Then I pulled the door handle to get out.

But the door didn’t budge.

“Oh—” Charlie said, remembering. “It’s broken.” At that, he leapt out and came around to my side. “I have to get it from here.”

He opened the door, and I swung my legs out, fully intending to grab my bags, march inside, fire up the internet, buy a plane ticket, and then defiantly ignore Charlie Yates for the rest of my life.

But instead?

Instead, I fainted.

Seven

DID NOT SEEthat coming.

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