The Write Off

1

Present Day

I didn't write West Emerson into my manuscript on purpose. It's just that when I close my eyes and try to picture an apple, I'm one of those people who sees nothing but black. I think that's the reason that writing descriptions of anything-landscapes, people, clothing-feels like death by a thousand cuts. It's slow, it's painful, and worst of all, it's boring. The number one rule of my writing has always been Don't be boring-even when it gets me into trouble.

West was sitting on his bed playing video games when it happened. It was during our junior year of college, and I was stuck on writing a description of my love interest (what do people even look like?) when I glanced up, and there he was. West Emerson had long black eyelashes and a crooked nose, and before I even gave my fingers permission, Fox Caldwell did, too.

I didn't plan to do it again, but then West and I were in the library, both of us claiming we needed to work on our Nineteenth-Century British Lit essays, both of us procrastinating. And Fox needed an eye color. Brown didn't feel right for an immortal. Blue felt like a cliché. Green felt like the color writers pick when they're trying not to pick blue. (I was twenty-one and thought I knew everything, but I still stand by this.)

I slipped my headphones off and kicked West's shin under the table.

He didn't even blink. He was in one of his trances, eyes still on his screen, pen cap hanging from his mouth, blue ink staining his lips.

"West!" I whisper-hissed, annoyed that he wasn't paying attention to me. I had a crisis on my hands. Were gray eyes pretentious or mysterious? I had to know immediately. He looked up from his laptop, his eyes landing directly on mine.

It was pretty much game over after that.

In addition to familiar lashes and a bent nose that indicates that he's been through some shit, Fox Caldwell has multicolored eyes and ink-black hair. He has charcoal stains on his skin, and when he's thinking, he drums his fingers against his thigh. He's also a five-hundred-year-old immortal faerie king.

It was those damn eyes that incriminated me, though. Ocean blue with an amber ring in the center-mentioned an embarrassing fourteen times in Torched.

What the fuck was I thinking?

Those multicolored Fox Caldwell eyes are approaching me now, and a zip of anticipation twists up my spine. If I weren't so damn needy, I'd make a hard pivot into the campus bookstore. But curiosity gets the better of me, and I drag my gaze from the T-shirt displaying Fox Caldwell's face to the woman wearing him on her chest. She has pink hair, a full tote bag slung over one shoulder, a lanyard covered in enamel pins.

We make eye contact; I hold my breath. What happens next has the power to ruin my whole life. Her brow furrows in confusion, and then her eyes widen in slow recognition. I'm rooted to the spot, waiting for an adrenaline shot of validation. Or, more likely, the other thing. I'm hardly ever recognized in my real life, but this weekend isn't real life, not anymore. This is a book festival, and experience has taught me that the type of readers who attend book festivals in faded Fox Caldwell merch are the same type of people who want me dead.

I paste on a smile and brace myself for whatever's coming. It's the oddest thing, having a rabid fan base who also hates you. I stopped attending book conferences and festivals years ago, turned off the comments on my social media profiles, and hid from the world. The Tucson Festival of Books is my first event in years, and I have no idea what to expect.

The woman grips a campus map tightly in both hands and strides toward me, eyes sparkling. That can only be a good sign-angry people don't sparkle. I reach into my own tote bag, and my fingers close around a signing pen. Brand-new. Full of ink that doesn't bleed through the page. With my free hand, I brush my fingers through my hair for when she inevitably asks for a selfie. But then she glides past me like I'm a part of the scenery-a palm tree to study under or a lecture hall constructed in the early 1900s-and throws her arms around a woman behind me.

I stand in the middle of the quad, blinking stupidly, while the excited notes of their conversation float on the early spring breeze. It's been too long! The flight was rough, the drive was good, one of them saw THE Daphne Castle drinking a smoothie (!!!), and the romantasy panel starts in five. They'd better hurry if they want seats.

My own plan to attend the fantasy romance panel evaporates, and all I'm left with is a sour burning in the pit of my stomach. Maybe she didn't recognize me, or she didn't care. And not to be a vain fucking cliché, but I hate the idea of either. I've stumbled upon the only thing worse than my fans wanting me dead: a world in which they don't care at all.

I glance through the bookstore windows toward the retractable eight-foot banner with my name and face on it. That Margot Darling is twenty-two years old, and I admit it might be time for new headshots. It's been a decade since my Central Park photo shoot, and unlike some aloof authors, with their black turtlenecks and their curated bookshelves and their I'm-smarter-than-you expressions, in my picture, optimism and enthusiasm radiate from every inch of me.

Back then, I believed that being a published author could save me and that nothing else in the world could possibly make me as happy as seeing my name on the cover of a book. I study my naive, collagen-filled face on the banner and admit that sometimes I'm still that same starry-eyed girl. So maybe I once went eleven days without washing my hair or changing my pants while I was on deadline, and maybe I've been tagged in reviews telling me that my book sucked so bad I should kill myself, but I can't escape the truth. Despite everything that has happened, I still believe books will save me-I wouldn't be here if I didn't. Nothing has ruined my life like being an author has, but when it's good, there's nothing better.

My phone buzzes with an email from my publicist. I swipe the notification away without reading it and get a glimpse of the scary countdown on my lock screen that reminds me just how little time I've got left until Shattered publishes. I feel myself tipping into an anxiety spiral when my eye catches another woman walking toward me. She's six feet tall with wavy red hair and a long floral dress that belongs on a prairie, and every inch of exposed skin below her collarbones is covered in tattoos. She looks like she could bake a killer loaf of sourdough and be a guest judge on the newest season of Ink Master. I pull out my signing pen and thrust it into her hands.

"Will you sign my book? Or better yet-my bra?" I jokingly tug on the collar of my shirt.

She rolls her eyes, takes the pen cap off with her mouth, and signs her name on the inside of my forearm-just below my tattoo.

"Daphne Castle," I read out loud. "I know at least two people who would be extremely jealous of me right now."

"My parents?"

"Four people, then. I overheard two women fangirling over you."

"You did not," she says reflexively.

"If it'd been anyone else, I would have combusted from jealousy."

I think of the quote "comparison is the thief of joy." It's most often painted in watercolor and used as inspiration porn, just as Teddy Roosevelt intended. It might be a throwaway Pinterest cliché, but when it comes to the life of a writer, it's as true as it is irrelevant. To be a writer is to exist in a perpetual state of jealousy. Writers' conferences and authors' group chats are filled with anxious, overly caffeinated people doing career math in their heads. Advances, marketing budgets, reviews, conference invites, movie deals . . . they're all whispered metrics we use to try to objectively compare one another in a wildly subjective industry, and we all want what someone else has. My only exception is my friends. If anyone else had the year Daphne did, I'd be laid out on a gurney. But because it's Daphne, I've never been happier for anyone.

"No one needs to be jealous of me." She pretends to flip her hair over her shoulder only for it to get stuck in her big hoop earrings.

"Are you kidding? You have infinite aura points," I say. When she stares at me blankly, I add, "Did I say that right?"

"You're the one who writes for teenagers, not me," she says, shaking her head. "I don't need to have my finger on the pulse of Gen Z slang."

"Your finger is on the pulse, but only when a character's bleeding out," I concede. Daphne's career started with two historical fiction novels that didn't sell well before she pivoted to bloodier pastures. She wrote a queer thriller in a fevered daydream of a writers' retreat several years back, blew up on social media, and hit the USA Today bestseller list when it released last year. She hasn't quite come to terms with it yet, but she is publishing's new superstar, and I get to say I knew her when.

She takes a long drag of coffee before shaking the empty cup in front of me. "Do you want coffee? It's free in the authors' lounge! Oh, and I filled my bag with snacks for later." She opens her READ BANNED BOOKS tote to show me the dozen granola bars and breakfast pastries she's smuggled from the school-library-turned-authors'-lounge. "Shoot. I forgot to grab a bagel."

I shake my head. I'm already three espressos deep and should cut myself off from the caffeine IV drip. "You should set your standards higher than free campus coffee and stale granola. Didn't your publisher give you a per diem?"

"I think so, but if I don't have to spend it-"

"You should," I tell her as my phone buzzes. I need to teach Daphne how to survive these long weekends, and it starts with DoorDashing overly expensive food to her room after a long day. There's something about hotel sheets, HGTV, and a burrito the size of your face that hits the spot after socializing for twelve hours. The buzzing continues. "My publicist is calling."

"Answer it. I'll be inside stealing bagels." Daphne walks back in the direction of the authors' lounge as I answer my phone.

"Hey, Amina."

"Mars! I'm so glad you picked up. Did you see my email?"

My anxiety radar goes off. "No. I just got to the festival."

"I received an email from the director of the conference. You were copied on it, too. Did you see that one?"

My inbox is always out of control, and the closer we get to publication, the less likely I am to wander into its murky depths. "Not yet."

"I didn't think so," she mutters, her tone hesitant in a way I'm not used to hearing. When there's bad news-like the time my third book got eviscerated by The New York Times Book Review-she sends an email, and I get to cry in peace. (Which I did. For several days.) The part of me that hates crying in public more than writer's block flares to life. I duck between buildings and walk toward a quiet spot on campus. At least I'll be alone if this ends in disaster.

"What's going on, Amina?" I prompt.

"There's been a change to the general session on Sunday."

My stomach drops, but I'm not surprised. I wonder if they're rolling up the banner with my face on it as we speak. "Have I been cut?"

Daphne thinks my constant worry is unfounded, but after the shit show that's been my career over the past several years, it's hard not to feel like I'm one wrong move from losing my last chance.

"No! No, of course not, not anything like that."

The vise around my throat loosens slightly. "Then why do you sound like you'd rather give yourself a paper cut than be on this call?"

She laughs-light and airy and fake as hell. "There's been a change to the schedule-it's really not something you should worry about."

"What's the change?"

"Wendell Tyler has the flu and had to drop out this morning." I can practically hear her wince.

Wendell Tyler is one of the best YA sci-fi authors of the past decade, but it's not like authors are in short supply this weekend. "I can hold down the fort on my own, but if they want a replacement, I'm sure Daphne would be happy to step in," I say.

"Mmm." Amina clears her throat. "Well, the thing is, you know how hectic it can be to schedule these things."

I don't, actually. I spend most of my days sitting alone at a computer while made-up characters talk in my head, but it doesn't sound that complicated. "The Sunday general session is the biggest event of the weekend. Finding a conference author who wants more attention should be as easy as finding a newly released James Patterson book."

Amina laughs again, this time high-pitched and panicked. "It sounds like they've already found someone, but without Wendell, it doesn't make sense to keep the theme around YA-"

"That's fine. I can talk about anything." I once spent an entire hour talking about how to write faithful retellings (which I've never done), because someone in charge of something thought my first novel, Torched, was a retelling of Dante's Inferno. (It's not.) "What's the new topic?"

Amina is silent on the other end of the line as I walk farther from the busy festival, down a tree-lined path winding through brick buildings. I hear a quick knock knock knock that matches the pounding of my heart, followed by muffled voices, like she's covered the phone with her hand, and then she says, "Because you're a University of Arizona graduate, they thought it'd be fun to invite another former Wildcat to the panel. You two can talk about your journeys from students to authors."

Awareness prickles the back of my neck. "Who?"

The phone goes silent again until I hear a different voice. Amina has passed the phone to my editor. "Mars! How are you?" Whitney asks.