Page 23 of I'm Not Done with You Yet

Taylor smiles kindly. “Doing a reading is a harrowing experience, isn’t it? Especially when it’s a reading of your own work. I don’t think I’ve quite managed to overcome that horrid sensation myself. But it’s a vital skill for authors to have. So Jane, please. The stage is yours.”

There is no stage, but still, everyone’s eyes are on me. I can’t bear to look at them. I don’t dare even glance in Thalia’s direction because I have no clue what expression she’d be wearing. Encouraging? Pitying? Bored? I don’t know which is worse. With shaking hands, I take out my laptop and call up the file, every passing second incredibly, painfully slow. I can hear every single noise in the room—the subtle throat clearing, the rustle of clothes as someone shifts in their seat, the scratching of a pen’s nib across paper. Everyone is waiting to hear me read out myscene of rage. I might as well be undressing in front of them. I look at Taylor again, my eyes beseeching, but she only gives me what she probably thinks is an encouraging nod. And so, with one last swallow, I begin to read.

We meet in the middle of a bustling city and all at once I know I will be the most important person in her life. Not her boyfriend, nor her parents or her siblings, but me. A total stranger. I shall be the defining moment in her entire life, the point around which everything will curve, because I, a total stranger, will be the one who ends it.

Despite everything, the more I read, the less aware I am of everyone else in the room. Everyone, that is, except for Thalia. Everyone else ceases to exist; even the tables and chairs between us melt away, leaving us floating in empty space, just her and me. Her eyes are on mine, and I can feel the weight of her gaze, but still I dare not look at her. What must she be thinking? Is she repulsed? Fearful? Angry?

I come to the end of the passage and there’s silence. Then someone says, “That was amazing.”

And that someone was Thalia.

Things have changed for me. Ever since the day that Taylor made me read out the dark spaces in my mind, everyone’s been looking at me differently. With fear, one might guess, but no. It’s respect I see in their eyes. Somehow, revealing what a fucked-up mind I have has elevated me in their eyes. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

You don’t want to know what people really think of you, do you,dear?Mom whispers. It’s one of her favorite things to say. She would never tell me outright that people think I’m weird or crazy or unlikable; no, that would be too easy. She preferred to coax me gently into thinking that myself, so that when I asked her point-blank if people disliked me, she could widen her eyes with surprise and say, “Why would you think that, Jane?”

So I try not to dwell on it. It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t care. See, the thing is, I won her over. Thalia.

Immediately after classes ended that day, Thalia had come to me and said, “We’re going for lunch together.” And that was that.

That was two weeks ago, two incredible weeks that I spent with Thalia. And Ani, our barnacle. I bet she doesn’t think of herself as that, though. Ani probably thinks she’s the main character in our story, and I want to scream at her and tell her that she isn’t, she’s the villain, the whiny bitch nobody loves. But it’s okay. I am willing to suffer through countless hours of Ani if it means that I can be with Thalia. And I am. We’re traversing Oxford together, and it’s wonderful and amazing and so much more than I could have predicted, than I’d dared to hope.

In the mornings, we have greasy mushrooms and rubbery scrambled eggs at Haygrove, followed by classes where I get to sit and marvel at the words Thalia spins like gold thread. She’s by far the most gifted writer in our program, and everyone has accepted it. She’s always called on to read her scenes out loud, which I love and hate, because I love watching her, but I hate having to share her with others. How dare they watch her like that, their lust so open and so lascivious?

For lunch, we meet up with Ani, who is surprisingly studious. My first impression of Ani had been that of a spoiled brat who couldn’t care less about school, but she’s the opposite. Apparently,she’s top of her class, and Thalia tells me that Ani often comes back from a night of partying to study until the following morning. Ani is powered by Red Bull and anger at the world, and she is exhausting to be around because she never stops. I have lost count of the number of times we meet up with Ani only to find her just finishing up a meeting with someone else—a Rhodes scholar, a professor, a fellow business school student. She’s always making connections, such a busy butterfly. The complete opposite of me. But with Thalia as a buffer between us, I find it bearable. Each day, the three of us walk around the city and try out a different restaurant for lunch. I know Ani doesn’t think much of me, just as I don’t regard her as anything other than a benign tumor that has attached itself to the entity that is Thalia and me, but for Thalia’s sake, we tolerate each other.

After our afternoon classes, Thalia and I go to the Bodleian Library and lose ourselves in the hushed halls, surrounded by centuries-old tomes, and there we sit and write. I steal glances at her as I type on my keyboard, and just the nearness of her is enough to transport me to that place that writers aim for. Her presence propels me through the doorway, letting the rest of the world melt away. Never before have I come up with such passionate prose, such dark, enchanting words. In class, our teachers and fellow students swoon over my compositions, marveling at the way I’ve managed to cut through the flowery words that writers often fall prey to and go straight to the harsh bones of human emotion. It’s all thanks to Thalia, I want to say, but I keep it to myself. I don’t want to share my muse with anyone.

For a few weeks, it really does feel like I’ve finally found my place. Something special that I never thought I could get, and I would give anything to keep this friendship with Thalia going. Anything.

Part Two

12

Nine Years Ago

Oxford, England

The trouble begins about three weeks into the course. We’re at the Eagle and Child, leaning back in our seats with apple and pear ciders sweating in pint glasses, waiting for our food to arrive. (British pub food—steak pies, bangers and mash—because we’re doing this whole English thing right.) Ani says, “What are we doing this weekend, ladies? Don’t tell me we’re staying in this tired old town again. I am DYING here. Literally dying.”

I look at her and daydream about her literally dying, blood splashed across her skin in a fetching pattern. Ani would look good bathed in red.

Thalia smiles tenderly at her, and my heart bites at my rib cage, a petty little Jack Russell terrier.

“I’ve been studying way too hard,” Ani grumbles.

“Yeah, you have. Why do you study so hard, anyway?”

Ani takes a sip of her pear cider. “If you had a brother andparents like mine, you’d understand why I need to excel at this stupid course. Anyway, shall we party this weekend? I’ve been dying to do London! I didn’t come here to spend my time wasting away in this shithole.”

“Oxford isn’t a shithole,” I mutter. I wonder what she’d call Oakland, if a city as beautiful as Oxford is considered a shithole.

Ani rolls her eyes and Thalia laughs. At me? With me? With Ani?

“You’ll have to excuse Ani, Jane,” Thalia says, leaning close enough to me to make breathing suddenly a challenge. “She’s a spoiled, rich, big-city brat.”

The left corner of Ani’s mouth slices upward into a lazy smirk. I expect her to counter it and say something like, “No, I’m not that rich; don’t be silly.” But she doesn’t. She knows what she is and she’s not afraid to admit it.

Later on, after Ani leaves us to go to her afternoon classes at the Saïd Business School, Thalia tells me that Ani’s family are billionaires.

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