We sit in silence for a moment.
“What do you want to do instead?”
“Um.” I’ve never admitted this to anyone else—but no, I told Celine, and she didn’t laugh or produce any of the other cruel and unlikely reactions my brain was convinced I would get. She just…supported me. She told me I could do anything. So before I can second-guess it, I tell Jordan, “I’ve been trying to write a book.”
“With the amount you read, that makes perfect sense.”
Hold on. “I spill my tortured forbidden guts and all you can say is it makes sense?”
Jordan bursts out laughing. “Writing a book is your most tortured and forbidden secret? I love you, man. Don’t ever change.”
“It’s ridiculous. Do you know how many copies the average book sells a year? It’s in the low hundreds, Jordan. Depressingly low.” I’m trying to avoid specificity for the sake of my nerves, but the number flashes in my brain anyway, so—
“Buddy. We talked about this. Stop memorizing sad statistics.”
I ignore him. “Do you know how many authors actually make a living writing? Thirteen point seven percent. And I’m supposed to believe I’ll be part of that thirteen point seven percent when I can’t even finish a book?”
“Well, yeah,” Jordan says, like it’s obvious. “You’re Brad Graeme.”
“Why do people keep saying that?”
“Because it’s true. But I’m sensing a little aggression here, so let’s move on.”
A laugh bubbles out of me, leeching frustration with it, and I rub a hand over my face. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay. Show me the book, and I’ll forgive you.”
I shudder. “No. It’s terrible.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you.”
This time, my laughter is bitter. “Mate. You know I always back myself. I’m not being modest here.” This is not, for once, an attack of self-consciousness. “I know what a good book is. I’ve read about seventy-five million of them. And my book? Is not a good book. It’s not even a finished book, which seems like the absolute bare minimum.”
“Okay, yeah, fair enough.” Jordan snorts. “But it’ll be good eventually, right?”
I exercise my right to remain silent.
Jordan keeps going like he’s persuading a toddler out of a tantrum. Which is starting to feel annoyingly accurate. “And at least now you know what you should be studying, right?”
“Wrong.”
“Come on, man. You want to write? Study English. Was that so hard?”
“My dad—” I want to say he’ll flip, except that’s not true. No, he’ll just be devastated and disappointed and lots of other D words I don’t like, and then there’ll be all this added pressure because if I don’t succeed, if I don’t finish the book and make it a bestseller and then somehow trap that particular lightning in a bottle all over again for the rest of my life, I’ll only be proving his disappointment right.
But what about my disappointment if I never even try?
“Your dad,” Jordan says firmly, “is living his own life. You should live yours. You haven’t finished uni applications yet and the deadline is next month. Apply to study English.”
“I—” Want to. Badly. Even though I’m scared, even though I could fail, there’s a black hole of want to want to want to sucking me in.
I didn’t think I’d be that good at camping and hiking and other disgusting outdoor crap either, but I got a 4.79. Maybe Celine was right. Maybe I can do anything.
Still. “I wouldn’t get in. I dropped English this year.”
“But you got an A plus last year.”
“Star,” I correct automatically.
“A star, whatever. You got one.”
“But—”
“But what?” Jordan demands, exasperated.
I search for another issue and come up blank. “I don’t know. My brain is an unholy shitstorm of worst-case scenarios.”
“I know. But that’s…what’s it called?”
“Intrusive thoughts,” I murmur. I’m still staring at the living room window. Mum is in there, too, and so is Mason, and they’re bouncing around in front of the TV and it looks like they’re having fun. (This is especially monumental because Mason developed an allergy to fun when he turned thirteen.)
“Exactly,” Jordan says. “They’re not yours. So they’re not the boss of you. Right?”
I told him that once. Now he’s using it against me like a demon. “Ugh. God.”
“Right.” He sounds unbearably smug. “And, hey, I bet an English degree would make your book a lot less shit.”
That’s the final nail in the coffin of my law career. Because I’ve been thinking of this all wrong, haven’t I? Thinking I need to be good enough to study. But maybe studying is what’s supposed to make me good enough. I wouldn’t try to join Dad in court without passing the bar.
Maybe there’s nothing wrong with your first book being terrible when you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Or maybe it’s terrible because you’re terrible and no amount of education or practice will change that.
I take a deep breath, put up a shiny shield around my budding new hope, and watch the bullshit bounce right off of it.
“Jordan,” I say, “I think you might be a genius.”
“What do you mean think?”
We talk for another ten or fifteen minutes, long enough for the tension of the day to uncoil itself from around my spine. By the time I get out of the car and unlock the front door, I almost feel optimistic. I’ve made a decision. I’m happy with it, even though I’m nervous. Nothing can stop me now.
Except I’ve got to find a way to tell my parents.
I remember the last time I mentioned to my dad that maybe I didn’t care about law. Remember the way his face fell, the way he was concerned, like I must’ve lost my mind, and dread thuds in my stomach—but I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s really no guarantee an English course would accept me in the first place. So maybe…I should take this one step at a time? Apply first, then worry about the rest?
I don’t know…
The house is warm and noisy. Mum pops out of the living room as I put my shoes away, all wrapped up in one of her woolly blue cardigans because she feels the cold every winter, even with the heat on. “Hey, baby!” She’s shoved her long, dark curls up into an enormous bun, but it’s slipping down as we speak. “We’re playing some game on your brother’s Switch. Come and join us.”
I swallow my apprehension. “Okay.”
“How was the meeting? How were your friends?”
“Friends are good. Me and Celine had chocolate orange cookie dough.” And then I put my tongue in her mouth and broke my own heart, but I keep that part to myself as we walk into the living room. “The meeting went well.”
Our Christmas tree is huge and sparkly in the corner, the main lights turned off, so all focus is on the TV screen. Dad and Mason are running on the spot in front of it, but Dad still manages to grin over his shoulder. “That’s my boy! You got that scholarship in the bag.”
“Maybe.”
Mum laughs and puts an arm around my shoulders, kissing my cheek. “Cheer up, Eeyore. It doesn’t matter if you get the scholarship or not. Student loans never killed anybody.”
This is the part where I joke, “No, but law might,” and it is so smooth and charming everyone’s too busy laughing to freak out over my sudden and abrupt change of life plan. Except I clearly don’t have the guts God gave an eel because instead, I smile and hug Mum back and decide I’ll mention it later.
Later, as in months from now when (if) I get acceptance letters. Time fixes everything, right?
I’m halfway to the sofa when I freeze, that last thought bouncing around the walls of my brain like a squash ball. Time fixes everything.
“Brad?” Mum says. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply. I’m not. I’m having a holy-shit, jump-out-of-the-bath epiphany. If time fixes everything, it could fix me and Celine.
All I have to do is be patient, right? She thinks I’m gonna leave, so I won’t. She thinks nobody stays, so I will. It’s really that simple. I won’t tell her I’m trustworthy, I’ll prove it.
The storm cloud above my head drifts away in the face of this genius plan. I sink into the sofa, my mood officially transformed, and announce, “I’ll play Mason next.”
“I’m gonna obliterate you,” my little brother pants.
I grin. “Bring it on.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CELINE
SUNDAY, 6:56 P.M.
Minnie: soooo I got into Edge Lake
Celine: WHAT???
Celine: I KNEW IT!!!
Minnie:
Celine: A SWAN, MICHAELA. YOU ARE AN EDGE LAKE SWAN
Minnie: thank u babe
Celine: pizza party when I get back
Minnie: well, who am i to decline pizza
Minnie: but in the meantime
Minnie: are you gonna be okay spending the week alone w ur new boyf?
Celine: we won’t be alone
Celine: + why wouldn’t I be okay???
Minnie: idk your animal lust might bubble over and you could lose your v card in the woods