This Time It’s Real

The one major downside of my plan, I quickly realize, is having to speak to Caz Song alone.

Because Caz is never alone. Like, never.

Early in the morning, I find him surrounded by at least half our year level at the lockers, all of them seemingly fascinated by the way he takes his books out of his bag. Then, during class, people keep sliding into the seat next to him and going up to him for help, despite the fact that he’s far from the best student. Even his walks to the school cafeteria are somehow a big group activity, with at least ten people trailing after him, offering to buy him lunch or describe today’s specials.

By the end of fifth-period PE class, I’m starting to feel restless.

Desperate.

So when everyone’s released early to go change, all stinking of fresh sweat and ancient gym equipment, I throw on my uniform as fast as I can, pack my stuff, and wait outside the boys’ locker rooms.

A few guys come out first, hair still dripping wet from the showers (I’ve never understood how guys can actually shower at school), and start at the sight of me. I give them an awkward wave.

“Nothing to see here,” I call cheerily, stepping aside to let them through. “Just chilling …”

To my immense relief, Caz is the next person to emerge. His hair is more damp than wet, falling in messy ink-black strands over his face, and for a moment I remember the way he’d looked on my TV screen last night. The way he’d touched that other girl’s cheek.

“Hi,” I say. My voice comes out higher and louder than I intended, bouncing off the dull tiled walls around us.

He pauses. Stares at me. “Oh, look,” he says finally, his mouth curving into something too muted to qualify as a smile. “It’s my nonfan.”

I suppress a wince and try to go on as if I haven’t heard him. “Do you—do you have a minute?”

My pulse speeds up. I’ve never done this before, never approached a boy out of nowhere, let alone a celebrity. We’re standing so close that I can smell his shampoo—a fresh, mildly sweet scent that reminds me of summer. Green apple, maybe.

Caz shrugs, looking somewhat bemused. “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

“Perfect.”

Without another word, I grab his wrist and drag him into the nearest empty room—

Which happens to be a janitor’s closet. Great.

“Uh,” Caz says as I shut the door behind us. The sharp stench of bleach and damp cloth instantly rises to my nose, and I’m acutely aware that there’s a dirty mop propped up inches away from my hair. “Why are we standing in a janitor’s closet?”

“That’s an excellent question.”

I yank open my schoolbag and fish around for my laptop before setting it up on a shelf of hand sanitizer. To be honest, I’d really been imagining this playing out a different way; there’d be a projector, for one, to bring out the high-res visuals of my slideshow, and enough space for me to make elaborate hand gestures without knocking over a giant mountain of toilet paper.

But whatever. I can be flexible.

“So. I have an idea,” I tell Caz as formally as possible while I wait for my PowerPoint to load. “And it’s going to sound a little … outlandish, maybe, but I promise it’ll be good. For both of us. Life-changing, even.”

Caz arches a dark brow. “Are you trying to recruit me for a cult, Eliza?”

“What? No, I—”

“Because I’m not allowed to join,” he continues over me, leaning back against a vacuum cleaner and somehow managing to make it look cool. “Contractually speaking, I mean. My manager doesn’t want me to join any group or organization unless it’s the next big boy band.”

I don’t even know how to respond to that.

“No …” I finally manage. Shake my head. “No, this isn’t about a cult or a—a boy band, for that matter. It’s about this.” I point to my laptop screen, where the first slide is now up and ready, the giant title glowing in the dim light of the closet.

I can sense, rather than see, Caz’s surprise.

“Before you say no or get weirded out,” I tell him, taking advantage of his silence, “just let me give you more details, okay?”

“Sure.” Now he sounds amused, which isn’t exactly what I was going for, but it’s better than impatience or outright contempt, I guess.

With a click, the PowerPoint changes to the next slide: A Very Brief Summary of My Current Predicament. Screenshots of my essay, the BuzzFeed article, and a couple of the most liked Twitter comments are pasted below.

“Are all your slides this wordy?” Caz muses.

I frown at him. “That’s obviously not the point.”

“Right,” he says. Cocks his head. “So enlighten me: What is the point here?”

Faint irritation rises inside me, like the just-audible buzzing of a fly or the itch of a new clothing tag against your skin. Still, I force myself to smile. Keep my cool. “Well, you know how I said in my essay that I’ve been dating this guy since …” I trail off when I notice the blank look on Caz’s face. “You haven’t read my essay?”

He jerks a shoulder. “Honestly? No.”

Okay. This is going to be even harder than I thought.

“I can check it out now, if that helps,” he offers, reaching for his phone.

The idea of him reading my essay within such close proximity of me while I stand around and wait for his reaction kind of makes me want to bolt out the closet, but I wait silently as he searches for the right link, taking what feels like all the time in the world.

His eyebrows rise when he finally finds it. His lips twitch.

Then, to my absolute horror, he starts reading my essay aloud.

“It was the kind of small, subtle moment they rarely show in the movies or include in the novels. There was no dramatic orchestra playing in the background, no fireworks, nothing but the pale summer sky simmering gently around us, the soft scratch of his sweater against—”

“Oh my god,” I say, mortified.

He keeps reading, louder. “—my cheek. I missed him. That must sound ridiculous, because he was already standing as close to me as the laws of physics would allow—”

“I hate this so much,” I tell him through gritted teeth. I can physically feel myself cringing. “Please stop.”

He flashes me a grin, and the rarity of it is enough to make me falter, if only for one second. Then he says, “Are you sure you don’t want to hear about how you let him bury his face in the crook of my neck, almost like a tired child. I tried my best to stay completely still, to just be there for him, the way—”

“Caz,” I snap.

“Eliza,” he returns, but thankfully he stops torturing me with my own writing. “You know, I hate to break it to you, but if you can’t stand the idea of me reading those few sentences, you’re really not going to like the fact that”—he consults his phone for a second—“over a million people have already read your essay.”

“That’s fine. I mean, that’s not the same thing. Those are strangers.”

I can tell he doesn’t understand my reasoning, and I’m not sure how to explain it to him, why I’d much rather show my work to random people on the internet than people who know me in real life, so I swiftly move the conversation along to more pressing issues.

“Here’s the thing, though,” I begin, gesturing back to my PowerPoint slide. “The essay you just read is … well, it’s fake.”

“Fake,” Caz repeats. His expression is unreadable. “Which part?”

“Um, pretty much all of it,” I say in a rush, as if this might make the situation less embarrassing. “I mean, I was the one who wrote it, but … there is no boyfriend. There’s not even a boy. It’s just—the personal essay assignment was due, and I didn’t know who to write about, so I kind of panicked and—”

“Made something up?” he finishes for me.

“Yeah,” I say awkwardly. “Yes.”

He nods once. Looks away. At first I’m scared I’ve upset him—maybe he’s one of those students who’s super serious about academic integrity or something, in which case I’m screwed—but then he presses one hand to his mouth, and I realize he’s trying not to laugh.

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

“It’s not funny,” I protest, crossing my arms. “This is a—a major …”

He points to the slide title. “A predicament?”

“Yes. Now stop finishing my sentences,” I tell him, annoyed. “And stop laughing at me.”

“All right, all right.” He straightens and composes his features with impressive speed, all remaining traces of humor wiped clean from his face. No wonder he’s a professional actor. “So let me get this straight: Now everyone’s rooting for you and this made-up relationship, and you want me to pretend to be the boyfriend from your essay until everything dies down. Is that it?”

I open my mouth to respond when the warning bell rings, a harsh, shrill sound that cuts through the closed door. Within seconds, loud footsteps and voices and laughter spill out into the halls, about two hundred teenagers talking at once, accompanied by the slamming of lockers, the snap and thud of books. The sound of people drawing closer. Crap. I only have ten minutes before the final bell goes off. “Look, whatever. The point is, if you agree to do this with me, you’ll be benefiting from it too. I’ll help you out with your college essays, for one—”

“Hold up.” He raises a hand, very narrowly avoiding knocking over a bottle of cleaning spray. His brows furrow, the first crack in his cavalier demeanor. His voice is careful, controlled, when he asks, “Who said I needed help with my college essays?”

“Um … You did. On the phone the other day. During the parent-teacher interviews …”

“Right,” he says dryly, though there’s an undercurrent of tension to it. Frustration. “From that private conversation you weren’t listening to.”

There’s no dignified way to reply to this, so I just give him a small, sheepish smile and pray he’ll let this particular detail drop. Of course he does not.

“I don’t recall mentioning anything about getting help, though,” he says, his chin jutting forward, dark eyes flashing. “That doesn’t sound like me at all.”

“Not, like, explicitly. But it seemed a pretty pressing issue and also—don’t take this the wrong way or anything—but I’ve read your usual essays for English when we’ve done those peer-evaluation things. And I’m not saying your work isn’t, um, good, but if you’re really hoping to impress the admissions team, some help definitely wouldn’t hurt.”

His voice is completely aloof when he says, “You know, for someone who claims to not be my fan, you sure know a lot about me.”

“Not by choice,” I retort. “You’re kind of everywhere.”

This comes out way more resentful than I meant, and I quickly backpedal, aware of the most basic business principle: Don’t insult the person you’re trying to loop into a deal. “Look, it’s not just the essays you’ll be getting. It’s also good publicity for you. I mean, if you look at the comments”—I nod toward the last slide—“people are already in love with you, just based on my very flattering descriptions of my supposed boyfriend. And who doesn’t love the idea of a famous, swoon-worthy actor dating a non-celebrity writer from his own year level? It’s perfect fairy-tale-slash-magazine material. Plus, after your awards ceremony scandal—”

Something flickers over his features. “How … did you know about that?”

“This is a thoroughly researched proposal,” I explain, though I feel an annoying rush of heat. Now he’s probably picturing me googling him, which can’t be good for his already-inflated ego. “And thanks to my research, I’m confident that this could help clear up the backlash. Everyone will know from my essays that you’re exactly as sweet and considerate as they’d fantasized about. So?” I stop to take a breath. “What do you think?”

He doesn’t say anything at first, just stares at me, his chin still slightly raised as if in self-defense, the lines of his body pulled taut.

Please say yes, I pray inside my head. My heart is thudding so hard against my ribs I’m scared he can hear it. Please, please say you’ll go along with this.

“Hmm” is all he says, poker face perfectly in place. “So this fake relationship—”

I glance pointedly at the PowerPoint.

“Sorry,” Caz says with a little mock bow, and reads off the first slide, “This Strategic, Mutually Beneficial and Romantically Oriented Alliance to Help Further Our Respective Careers—”

“S.M.B.R.O.A.H.F.O.R.C. for short,” I offer.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t think that’s shorter,” Caz tells me. Clears his throat. “I mean, there are definitely less letters, but. You know. Time-wise …”

“Fine.” I bite my tongue. “Just carry on with what you were saying.”

“Well, what would it … involve, exactly?”

Hope flutters in my chest. He’s considering it, then. Caz Song might actually agree to this.

“Nothing too wild,” I reassure him, my heartbeat quickening. Ma always says she feels this physical tug inside her whenever she’s about to close a deal. I never understood what she meant until now; every muscle in my body is tensed, on edge. My hands feel shaky with adrenaline.

I quickly pull up the next and final slide. There, I’ve laid out a basic timeline: six months, covering the period of my internship with Craneswift, and made to coincide perfectly with when his next drama starts airing, for maximum publicity. Then there are all the ground rules, such as no mouth-to-mouth kissing, no physical contact beyond casual shoulder-bumping and occasional hugging (only when absolutely necessary), and no elaborate romantic gestures unless there’s a substantial crowd watching. Coming up with this very specific list at around three in the morning was probably one of the lowest points of my existence so far—which is really saying something.

“No mouth-to-mouth kissing?” Caz reads, and I can tell he’s making a conscious effort not to laugh again. “As opposed to what?”

To my great annoyance, I can feel the back of my neck heating. “You know what I mean. It’s just—it’s something people say.”

“I’ve literally never heard anyone say those specific words in that order before,” he informs me, lips curving. Then, maybe catching the murderous expression on my face, he makes a half-hearted surrendering motion and says, “Okay, okay. Sure.”

“Sure?”

“I’ll do it.”

I blink, my brain lagging a little. “Wait, sorry. You’ll do … ?”

“This.” He nods at the laptop. “S.M.B.R.O.A.H.F.O.R.C. Though I really think we could come up with a better name.”

“Really?”

He pauses. Leans closer, until there is nothing between us but the dark, thin air, the green-apple scent of his shampoo. I instinctively take a step backward. “Yes, Eliza,” he says, his voice somber. “I really do think we need a better name.”

I’m so relieved—so stunned by my own victory—that I don’t even mind his joke.

“Then I guess … I guess it’s final,” I say slowly. “We’re doing this.” I extend my hand for a proper handshake to close the deal, the same time he raises his for a high five.

Wait. Who the hell high-fives this kind of thing?

“Okay …” I say, when neither of us moves. “Um, I guess we can …”

He rolls his eyes at me, but not before amusement dances over his sharp features. Then he takes my hand in his and shakes it. His skin is warm and surprisingly smooth, soft even, save for the few calluses on his palm. And despite his casual stance, his grip is firm. Ma would approve—not that it matters.

I pull away first.

“So. Okay,” I repeat, kind of dazed. This is all happening very fast. “Good talk. I—I’ll be in touch.”

I move to open the door, to run somewhere quiet and collect my thoughts, but Caz holds out an arm in front of me. He looks like he’s debating something, but after a beat, he says, “You know you could’ve chosen a different method, right?”

I blink, uncomprehending.

“You overheard my conversation the other day,” he says slowly, like he’s surprised he has to even spell this out. “Private details about my life. And you’re a writer. A good one, with what’s now a substantial audience.”

“And … ?”

“You could’ve blackmailed me into working with you. Threatened to write up a huge piece on my struggles with school or my family relationships or whatever unless I agreed to your conditions. You didn’t have to make this a mutually beneficial arrangement.” There’s still that faint teasing edge to the way he says it, but his eyes are dark, more serious than I would’ve expected.

“That … never occurred to me,” I say in total honesty, surprised both by the idea itself and how fast his mind worked to produce it. Threats and forced deals must be the natural way of the world to him.

“It never occurred to you,” he repeats. Then his face smooths out, and he draws closer. “Well, too late to change your mind. We’re starting now, right?”

“Huh?”

“This is a good opportunity,” he says, gesturing to us, then to the dim, cramped closet and the stream of noise right outside it. Before I can fully grasp what he’s suggesting, he drags a hand through his already-messy hair, undoes one shirt button, and bites his lips until they look slightly swollen and red. As if …

As if we’ve just been making out in here.

“Well?” Caz is watching me, expectant. Completely unfazed. Almost bored.

I guess this wouldn’t be a big deal to him. Actors like him must go around pretending to kiss people all the time. In fact, he’s probably filmed scenes way more intense than mere kissing, with professional cameras trained on his lips and a whole room of people watching him too.

But the closest I’ve ever gotten to kissing a boy was that time in seventh grade, when I turned around during a frog dissection the same time my lab partner did, and our lips came about an inch short of touching. He’d freaked out and bolted to the bathroom, spitting and rubbing his mouth the whole way as if he’d been poisoned, while I shriveled up in my seat and prayed for the floor to swallow me whole.

I was pretty glad to leave that school behind a few months after the unfortunate incident.

Anyway, it’s not like I can say any of this to Caz. He’ll probably laugh at me, or worse, feel sorry for me. So I take out the tinted lip balm I always keep in my pocket and smear it around my mouth, trying not to think about how ridiculous I must look. I mean, the chances are that I now look more like a clown than someone who’s just come out of a hot make-out session. Do people even come out of make-out sessions? Or do they emerge, maybe, exit gracefully, like some kind of ethereal mermaid from the sea? No, that doesn’t sound quite right either …

Whatever.

“How’s this?” I ask Caz.

He inspects me for a second, his gaze thoughtful, and something shifts over him. Within him. Like a camera’s clicked on, and he’s sliding into a new role, a different character, the change so swift it alarms me.

Then he reaches for my ponytail. “Can I?”

I don’t really know what he means, but I smile. Nod. Resist the impulse to run.

And then Caz’s long fingers are running through my hair, tugging my ponytail loose, his movements so light and fast I barely register anything except a faint, pleasant tingling sensation over my scalp. It’s a small, casual gesture, but in the brief moment when his hands are still in my hair and his eyes are on me, I feel … something. Something like embarrassment, yet not like it at all.

Then the feeling’s gone. Caz moves away and turns toward the door, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “Are you ready?”

No. Not even remotely.

I know I can’t trust the boy standing before me—this pretty actor with his perfect hair and practiced charm and hordes of fans, the person everyone either wants or wants to be. But right now, I don’t have any better options.

“Of course,” I tell him, injecting as much enthusiasm into my voice as possible.

He seems to believe me, though, because he motions me forward and pushes the door wide open.

•    •    •

For one short, blissful second after we emerge from the janitor’s closet, no one notices us.

Students continue to pack the school halls, yelling out to their friends from opposite ends of the corridors, shoving aside people’s books and bags to get to their next class. Nobody spares our messed-up hair and swollen lips a second glance, and I wonder—foolishly, naively—if maybe this won’t be as big a deal as I’d thought.

Then, in the next second, everyone notices.

The scene isn’t quite as dramatic as it would be in a movie. People don’t freeze in place or stumble down the stairs or drop their bags in shock. But there’s a noticeable dip in the volume, a pause, like a video buffering.

Whispers start fluttering around us.

Caz, to his credit, looks totally unperturbed. He’s wearing the smug, slightly sheepish expression of a guy who’s just been caught kissing a girl he likes and doesn’t mind the whole world finding out.

I, on the other hand, don’t know what to do with myself. My face feels all hot and itchy, and a few wisps of my hair have stuck to my lip balm. Now more than ever, I wish there was some sort of guide on what to do when you’re thrust from anonymity to the center of attention within two days’ time. It’s enough to give anyone whiplash.

“Oh my god,” someone standing to my left says, and it works like a trigger, setting off a round of audible reactions:

“Oh my god.”

“Are you seeing this? That’s Caz Song and—”

“Is he the one from that girl’s essay?”

“Tell Brenda. She’s going to freak, holy shit—”

I can sense more than a dozen pairs of eyes pinned on the back of my head as I walk with Caz to English, our shoulders close enough to touch.

“You good?” Caz whispers to me at the doorway, one hand resting against the frame behind my shoulder. A thousand times, in movies and music videos and real life, I’ve seen couples stand together like this. But for me, this is completely new.

Not that I can let it show.

“Yeah,” I say, doing my best to sound flippant. “Of course. Are you?”

He laughs, and only then do I realize how dumb my question must sound. Why wouldn’t he be fine? He’s an actor, a celebrity. Attention is his version of normal.

The bell rings again—a final warning. Everyone seated is staring at us.

I avert my eyes and hurry to my usual table in the middle, where I always sit alone. To my surprise, however, Caz drops into the empty seat beside me, as if he’s done this a million times before.

The staring officially turns into open gawking.

“What are you doing?” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth. Though there aren’t any formal rules about it, everyone knows the classrooms are strictly divided into different territories: the overachieving, academically gifted kids at the front, the popular and sporty kids at the back, and everyone else in the middle. Caz moving over here from the back row is like the high school equivalent of someone crossing the North Korean border.

“It’s easier this way” is all he says, tipping his chair backward.

Mr. Lee strolls into the classroom, does a small but visible double take at the sight of us sitting together, and starts handing out worksheets. Caz immediately tears off a corner of the reading activity on burial rites, scribbles something down on it, then slides the crumpled note over to me.

He does all this while keeping his eyes straight ahead, his expression bored and blank.

I can be that good an actor too. I pretend to be busy jotting down the date on my worksheet as I smooth out the note, shielding it from view with one hand.

His phone number is written across the center.

Right. I write down my own number in the space below, tear it off, and wait for the teacher to turn his head before sliding the note back.

My first time exchanging numbers with a boy, and it feels like I’m organizing a bank robbery or something. Then again, it’s probably for the best. The only way this arrangement will work is if we keep things purely professional.

•    •    •

Back in my room later that afternoon, I reply to Craneswift’s email.

It takes me a whole hour just to draft three sentences. Half that time is spent trying to figure out where to put my exclamation marks and how many I should use. In my defense, there’s a very delicate balance to strike. If I use two exclamation marks in a row, for example, I’ll risk coming across as overeager and needy. But if I use no exclamation marks, everything I say will sound strangely flat and cold. In the end, I decide to play it safe and add only one exclamation mark after the thank you.

Then I lose another half hour debating which sign-off is most appropriate (one article online recommends Sincerely, while another is morally opposed to it).

If this is what being a Working Professional is like, then honestly, no thanks.

Once the email’s sent, I change out of my uniform and plop down on my bed, not expecting to hear another word from Craneswift until at least the next morning. But then my phone dings with a new email.

Sarah Diaz wants to call.

Like, right now.

“Oh my god,” I say, shooting to my feet. My heart is already racing in a mad staccato. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

She’s attached her number in the email. I enter it carefully into my phone, double-checking every digit, then press the call button with trembling hands. While the call dial plays, I stare at the blank whiteness of my bedroom wall and try to focus on my breathing.

Sarah picks up on the third ring.

“Hello?” My voice sounds way too high and shaky. I sound like a seven-year-old. I clear my throat. “Can you hear me?” No, now it’s too low.

Before I can remember how to speak properly, Sarah Diaz says, “Hi, Eliza, I can hear you,” in this smooth, crisp, super-professional tone I’ve heard Ma adopt whenever she’s speaking to clients.

“Hello,” I repeat, for literally no reason. Get a grip on yourself. “Ms. Diaz. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Oh, you can just call me Sarah.” Then, maybe because she can sense my nerves and raw awe through the phone, she lets out a small laugh. “Sorry to schedule a call so soon. I hope you’re not too busy—”

“Oh, no, not at all,” I hurry to respond. “I had no plans whatsoever. I’m, like, super free. I’m always free.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” she says, and she sounds like she means it. There’s the low hum of a printer in the background and the clack of keyboards, and I imagine her seated behind a sleek black office desk with a clear view of the city below, a steaming cappuccino and glossy magazines spread over a coffee table. What must it be like, to live a life like that? To be someone like her? “I guess I wanted to first tell you how much I enjoyed your essay, and how glad I am that you’ve agreed to our internship offer. As you might already know, we’re really hoping to expand our readership and attract the younger demographic, and we think you’d be the perfect person to help us achieve this. Your writing has this really authentic, youthful energy to it that’ll be sure to resonate with teens, while also having the depth that appeals to our older, existing readers …”

Okay, listen to this, I tell myself, pressing the phone as close to my ear as possible, the screen warm against my skin. Really listen. Memorize every word. You’re not going to have the chance to be praised by someone like Sarah Diaz again.

But I’m so focused on reminding myself to listen to Sarah talk and marveling over how strange it is that I’m on the phone with her that I don’t actually process a single thing she says.

Next thing I know, she’s asking, “Does that all sound good with you, Eliza?”

“Um …” I try not to panic as my own confused silence fills the line with static. Either I just say yes and find out later what I’ve agreed to, or I ask her to repeat everything she said in the past five minutes and risk looking like an idiot. Crap. What would Ma do? “Sorry, um, could you just clarify that last part? I want to make sure I fully understand everything before deciding to proceed.”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” Sarah says, still maintaining that same pleasant, professional tone. “So right now we’re looking at a weekly blog post on our site, in the Love and Relationships category: Think of it as a sort of follow-up or update on your relationship, what you’ve been doing together, where you’ve been going out on dates. The more details the better, really; we want our readers to feel like they’re really on this journey with you. And it’d be great to cross-post on social media too—preferably on Twitter, since that’s where your following seems to be growing the fastest, but it’s up to you. Altogether, it shouldn’t take more than a time commitment of fifteen hours per week. Oh, and toward the end of the six-month period, we’d love for you to write a longer article on any topic of your choosing; we’ll print it in our spring edition. What do you think, Eliza?”

“Okay,” I agree slowly, as if I could possibly say no to her. “That sounds good.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Somehow, I can almost hear her beaming. “And you’re sure your boyfriend won’t mind? I understand that it’s a lot of publicity, especially given that you’re both still quite young …”

From the sound of it, she doesn’t know about Caz yet. I’m tempted to tell her right now—she’ll probably be ecstatic; after all, what’s more newsworthy than dating a semi-celebrity?—but I make myself wait. It’s better if she finds out through some secondary source. It’ll be more convincing that way.

“I don’t think he’ll mind at all,” I reassure her. “Publicity is, like, his thing.”

She laughs out loud, probably thinking I’m joking.

After we confirm the internship contract details and I hang up in a daze, I check my email, still half-convinced I’m hallucinating about all this. But there it is—the contract she promised, with my name written at the top. It’s real. Craneswift. My favorite publication wants me to work for them.

I stare and stare at the email until my eyes blur and my heart threatens to burst. Then I collapse back onto my bed with a soft, strangled laugh.

“What even is life,” I whisper out loud to myself.