Page 74 of Script Swap
“Then why?”Fox asked again.
It was a hard question.Not because I didn’t know, but because it was difficult to put into words.(Yes, I’m aware of the irony.) “I don’t know.At first, it was because I loved stories.I loved reading them.I wanted to tell them.I got to go on these awesome adventures with my friends, and when the books stopped, I wanted more.I knew what would happen next, and so I’d write another adventure.Then, it was other characters—my own.It was fun, writing about the exciting stuff happening to them, getting to—” I stopped because I’d never thought about it until now, when the words came to me.“Getting to live their lives.Other lives.Getting to live their adventures with them.And then it became more than that.I don’t even know how, but it did.It was where I could work out my loneliness, and figure out why I felt different from everyone around me.Some of that was me being a moody teenager—”
“Egad,” Fox murmured.
A smile touched my lips.“—and some of it was more.Being gay.Realizing that my parents weren’t like other people.Stories had always been a safe space.But they became something more.A place for me to think.To come to know myself a little better.Tobemyself.Or to become myself.I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
“Of course it does.”Fox was silent for a moment.“I remember you were particularly enthusiastic about your invention of cozy noir.”
“Yeah, well, look how that turned out.”
“Dashiell, I’ve shown a surprising amount of forbearance today, but Idohave a hat pin somewhere in this van.Don’t make me use it.”
A little laugh slipped out of me, and somehow, the words came more easily.“Yes.Yeah, cozy noir is a great example.I was so…so upset by what had happened to Vivienne and her brother and everyone else in that group of people.How hurt they’d been.And how that hurt had carried across decades.And how everything I’d thought about justice didn’t seem to apply, but that was okay, because I thought, maybe, I’d come to understand it a little better.And when I wrote, it came out even more clearly.How we’re all connected.What justice means when we’re a community.”I cleared my throat.“That’s what I was trying to do withA Work in Progress,anyway, and you can see how that worked out.”
“If writing that book was so important for you—if it did what you say it did, and it gave you a time and a place to think these things, to learn something about yourself, to make something beautiful and, for a short while, get to live there—then why does it matter if nobody wanted to publish it?”
“Well, I’ve got this crazy thing about money.”
“That’s not why you’re upset.Why are you letting these rejections upset you so much?”
“I worked hard on it.I love that book.”
Fox shook their head.“Why do you care so much that the book got rejected?”
“Because it sucks, getting rejected.It hurts.”
“Of course it does, but not like this.Why, Dash?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.Why?”
“Stop doing that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say!”
“I want you to tell me the truth!I want you to say why you care so much that your book got rejected!”
“Because if I fail, everyone will know I don’t deserve to be loved!”
My shout seemed to hang in the air.My eyes welled with tears, and I looked down at the flannel I was twisting between my hands, the pile of wet T-shirts beneath me, and the scratched-up floor of the van.The engine rumbled.Warm air hissed in the vents.The faint smell of motor oil and Dragon Musk and wet pavement mingled.
“Dash,” Fox said quietly.
I shook my head.
To my surprise, Fox pulled me into an embrace.I started to cry—only a little—but I got myself under control when they released me.
“I don’t know why I said that,” I said, the words directed at the pile of sodden clothing beneath me.“I don’t—I mean, I know that’s not—” I blew out a breath.“I don’t know what I’m saying.”
Fox nodded.“May I share something with you?”
“Do you know what would be helpful, actually?If you ran me over.I’ll lie down in the middle of the road; you can’t miss.”
Fox’s silence had a disturbingly Indira-like quality of disapproval.After a moment, I nodded.
