Page 40 of Fighting Words

“The cat is both alive and dead in the box, right? I am both a great writer and a hack. I have enough money to live out the rest of my days without finishing my series. I never have to open the box.”

She stares at me with those cunning green eyes, absorbing this while I wait.

Then finally, she shakes her head again. “You’ve done a real number on yourself. Sheesh, you’ve really bought into this, haven’t you? First, you can’t write because of the expectations of your readers, the demands they’ve put on you…andthen, as if that wasn’t enough to break your spirit, you’ve decided you’re nobody without someeditor? Who cares about her?! She wasn’t with you when you wroteThe Last Exodus. Iknowshe wasn’t because you finished that book while you were still brave, still willing to try something new and go out on a limb. All of this Schrödinger’s cat nonsense—” She scoffs. “Were you always such a coward?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, surely not, right? Surely at one point you were the man willing to walk away from his PhD program to pursue a career in writing, to quite literally RISK IT ALL, but now you won’t even pick up a pen?” She shakes her head in disgust.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Give back the money,” she insists with a sharp attitude.

“What?”

“Yeah, give it all back, everything you’ve earned from the entire series and then see what happens.” She stands up and slaps her hands down on the table. “That’s part of your problem! You’ve lost the desperation, thehungeryou had as an aspiring author. The man living in a crappy apartment, worried about how he’ll manage to pay back his school loans and make rent next month.” She points an accusing finger at me. “He’snot worried about all this…thisbullshit. He just wants to create, tomake somethingthat might pull him up out of the darkness. He wants to write a book that might mean something to one person, or if not to anyone else, to himself!”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I snap, unwilling to bend even a little.

“Don’t I?” She laughs caustically. “You and I aren’t so different. You left your PhD program? I never even pursued mine. My family wanted me to go into medicine, just like them. I agreed to it, told them I’d applied and interviewed. I got accepted into every single school. Baylor, Tulane, Emory, Duke. And guess what? I changed course.” She spits out the words with venom. “I went against my family and pissed everyone off because I was sodesperateto pursue a career in writing.” She opens her arms wide. “This is all I have: this job, this assignment with you. Nobody understands it. And to top it off, there’s you! This—this closed-off jerk who only cares about himself!”

“Fuck off, Summer.”

I can’t believe I say it, but it’s out there, and Summer doesn’t wince at the words. She fights back.

“No, actually, youfuck off, Nate. God, pull your head out of your ass and wake up! Look around! You’re the only enemy you have! Whatever you’ve convinced yourself of, whatever nonsense you’ve used to build a wall around your ego…” She pauses, breathing hard. “It’s no longer serving you.”

Our eyes lock in battle. This thing between us would burn us if we tried to touch it.Fire.No…hotter. Red-hot magma.

She shakes her head like she’s through with me, and then she turns to stomp up the stairs.

“But what do I care?! Keep on living this way.” Then quieter, when she’s nearly upstairs, she mumbles to herself, “Schrödinger’s cat, my ass.”

It makes me smile despite myself.

I didn’t think Summer had it in her—fighting words. She’s so soft, feminine from her head to her toes, those delicate features and fair skin. It makes it all the more astounding to realize she’s filled with passion. Though of course she is. I wouldn’t be drawn to her otherwise.

I had to keep myself from staring at her at dinner. She enchanted us all. We listened to her talk, drawn to everything she had to say. Oliver, Mike, Freya, Alice—they weren’t shy about their infatuation with her. She blended into the group seamlessly. I was the problem, the one with the sour attitude.

I reach into my cabinet near the sink, grab ahold of an old bottle of whiskey, and take a seat in my chair in front of the fire—the one that now smells like Summer.

Dog’s gone. He wandered home just before I left for dinner, probably sensing the storm brewing in the cottage. I wish he were here now. He’d put his head on my lap and offer me some semblance of comfort, more than I have now at least, with nothing but my whiskey.

I shouldn’t drink straight from the bottle, but there are a lot of things I’m currently doing that I shouldn’t be. Namely, fantasizing about walking up those stairs and continuing this fight with Summer. Only I don’t want to keep shouting at her. I never want to shout at her. I want to apologize for my words, the ones I said in the kitchen and the ones I can’t seem to get down on paper.

I would do it for her, I realize.

Iwill.

In the morning, by the time Summer comes downstairs wearing an oversized sweater and leggings with fuzzy socks and freshly showered hair, I’m already sitting at the kitchen table.

“Coffee just finished brewing.”

She looks over at the pot with raised brows. It’s true. I even put the kitten mug out for her to use.

“Get some and come sit down.”

“Going to pick up where we left off last night?” she asks with mild sarcasm. “Because I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have the energy this morning.”

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