Page 15 of Trip Me Up

6

NIALL

Fraud.

That was the word on the sign I imagined hanging around my neck. Each time I answered one of the students’ questions, it gained another pound, weighing down my shoulders. How could I talk to these kids about writing? After that glorious day last weekend, my muse had abandoned me.

The day before, I’d roamed, restless, through the park. The forest. The beach. The prairie. None of them inspired me. None of them whispered Lobelia’s words to me. I’d scrawled some ideas on a page of my notebook, but in the end I’d ripped it out and thrown it away. They were all terrible.

Yet, these university students expected me to tell them how to write.

How could I if I didn’t know how to do it myself?

When my talk ended and the students dispersed, I strode out of the auditorium and through the library until I reached the outside, where I gasped in the fresh air like it was a cure for my fraudulence.

I caught a flash of black in my peripheral vision, and my left index finger twitched. I scanned the library’s portico. A couple of students trudged up the steps. A gray squirrel clung to a nearby tree trunk. I shook my head. I was imagining things. I’d find a different park. Maybe Lobelia would speak to me there.

But before I could step out from under the library’s portico, a small barrier with a bounty of dark hair stepped in front of me.

“Hi, Niall, I’m Kari Singh, and I write a celebrity blog here on campus.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “I can’t tell you much about blogging, but I guess writing is writing. What are you struggling with?”

Her lip curled. “I’m good. But I have some questions for you.”

“For me?” I narrowed my eyes. “I’m no celebrity.”

“Look, you’re the closest thing we’ve had in months since one of Mark Zuckerberg’s sisters got lost and wound up on campus. This is a school for nerds. They know who you are.”

“Oh. Okay.” The Venn diagram of nerds and fantasy readers had a healthy intersection. Plus, Qiana and Gabi had prepped me for this. I was supposed to be positive but vague:Yes, the book is almost done. Yes, you’ll see all your favorite characters again. Yes, there will be some new characters and surprises. Yes, the show producers will get a copy as soon as it’s finished.

As an author, I should’ve been thrilled to be asked about a TV series based on my books. I should’ve been ecstatic to get this chance that so many other writers didn’t. But the fear that coiled inside my chest strangled my excitement. What if I couldn’t finish?

“Have you seen your father lately?”

“My…what?” I took a half-step back. No one asked me about him. Not for a long time.

She smiled, predatory. “You’re in San Francisco, and he’s just down the road in Silicon Valley. Have you seen him?”

“No.” My voice cracked like it did the last time I’d seen him at the farm, when I was twelve or so. I cleared my throat. “No, I haven’t. We aren’t close.” An understatement. He’d walked out of our lives and built a new family, a legitimate one, to go with his multibillion-dollar tech business.

Movement behind her caught my eye, but when I glanced toward it, nothing but the squirrel was there.

“And why is that, Niall?” She held out her phone to me to record my answer. It was one of his. I could tell from the silver icon of a bird in flight on the back. “Why aren’t you and Paul Swift close?”

I wasn’t about to explain to this total stranger how he’d faded out of our lives so slowly I almost hadn’t noticed. How his business trips stretched longer and longer. How, instead of showing up at Christmas like he’d promised, he’d sent a box. Inside were three brand-new, top-of-the-line Swiftphones.

One of my friends had put mine up in an online auction for me, and I’d eventually convinced Grandpa to take the money for that season’s seed. Even at twelve, I’d appreciated the irony of making my father pay for the rural life he hated.

I’d been angrier and more selfish when he’d sent the second one when I was fifteen. I’d smashed it, used my friend’s phone to snap a photo, and texted it to my father. He hadn’t sent another.

But none of that was this blogger’s business. I shrugged. “People grow apart. He’s got his life, and I’ve got mine.”

Her mouth tightened, but a gleam came into her eyes. “Are you dating Lulu Bridges?”

I took another half-step back and bumped into one of the library’s columns. It had been Gabi’s idea to be seen at a restaurant with an actress when I was down in L.A. last month. Lulu’s people had been agreeable—Qiana, Happy Troll’s publicist, had set it up—so we’d sat at an outdoor café and let the paparazzi snap pictures.

“No, I’m not seeing anyone, and Lulu is a friend.” That was a stretch. It’d been a dull two hours. She’d wanted to talk about my exercise routine, my diet, my favorite designers. And, of course, the show and whether I could get her an audition. I told her I’d put in a word for her the next time I saw the producers, and she gave me the name of her meditation guru.

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