Willa & the Extraordinary Internship

CH. 36

Willa didn't talk about what happened with Nate. And to his credit, he didn't push her on it. He seemed to instinctively know when she wanted him to be her safe harbor and when she wanted him to just let her sail in her own stormy seas.

She couldn't get Maryam's heartbroken face out of her mind. Willa almost felt guilty, except when she remembered that Maryam had made it all about herself and hadn't actually made anything better. Then, she was filled with self-righteous anger. Well, who needed Maryam, anyway?

The other option, of course, was being friendless for the rest of her life. She had her parents, she supposed. And Nate. Jackie, at a pinch. And maybe Nate's cat. The furry little dude had grown on her.

And maybe not even Jackie for much longer.

"What do you mean," the agent enunciated in a slow, measured voice, "the book's not ready."

"I'm sorry," Willa apologized, staring at Jackie's rigid face on her computer screen.

The older woman's face froze on the screen, no words coming out of her mouth.

"Jackie?" Willa leaned forward. "I think Skype froze."

"No." Only the woman's lips were moving. "It didn't. I'm just processing this."

Willa winced. "Oh. Okay. Sure."

"So let me get this straight." Still, Jackie's face looked tense and wooden. "You scrapped your book because you want to write a new one?" Her voice turned scathing. "I gave you all this time to edit, Willa. Not to have an existential crisis. You have to give me this book. Not a new one. This one. It could be the next The Fault In Our Stars!"

Guilt and awkwardness welled up in her chest and Willa was silent for a long moment before she finally said, "Jackie, I can't do that."

"Yeah, well maybe I can't work with someone who's such a flake!" The dam had burst and the agent was huffing and puffing like she wanted to blow Willa's house down.

"I thought you were a professional, Willa," Jackie continued, furious. Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline and her mouth turned sour and twisted. "For Christ's sake, I really put a lot on the line when I took a chance on you. I was trusting you not to screw me."

"You'll still have a manuscript, Jackie!"

Jackie banged her fist on the table so hard that her laptop camera wobbled. "You're not hearing me. I wanted that manuscript."

Willa stared at the woman's angry, red face. "I'm sorry."

"Ridiculous," Jackie muttered, and a second later, she disconnected the video chat.

In stunned silence, Willa sat. Waited for Jackie to initiative a call-back. After five minutes passed, she realized it wasn't going to happen.

"I give up," Willa said, standing. Her chair scraped away from the kitchen table. "I'm going to do what I want." A smile played on her lips. "And I should probably cut down on talking to myself."

So she made herself an enormous pot of coffee, poured it in a tall thermos to keep it warm, and settled back down at the table to write.

Four hours later, eyes burning and pink-rimmed, she finally closed the lid of her MacBook and sighed. The first one-fourth of the story, completed. Writing was a soul-sucking process even on the best of days but even more so when you it was your own personal soul being sucked. There was more realness in the Word document on the screen than Willa had acknowledged in the last four years.

Every slight, every hurt feeling, every sense of being left out. All of it. Nothing held back. It was cathartic, something she never experienced before, and more importantly, it was some damn good writing.

"Was that really how it was?" Nate asked, creeping up behind her with a fat paperback.

He'd arrived an hour ago, and rather than disturb Willa from her typing frenzy, he'd grabbed a book off her bookshelf and let her work in solitude until she decided to stop.

"Hundred percent real," Willa affirmed. "Minus some small details." She scrolled up to the top of the second page.

The dedication read: Names have been changed to protect the innocent (namely, me).

"Clever," he congratulated, grabbing her thermos and taking a sip, only to make a face. "It's cold."

Willa took it out of his hands and brought it to her lips, finishing it off. "When it comes to java, I'm not fussy."

"So did you pitch this story to Jackie?"

"Not exactly."

"Oh." Nate's brow furrowed and he took the seat next to her, his knobby knees bumping against Willa's under the table. "What does that mean?"

"She's pretty pissed." Willa exhaled heavily. "Like, she disconnected Skype. I get the feeling it's her way or the highway."

"Her loss," said Nate promptly, bringing a smile to Willa's face.

It faded at her next words. "It's my loss," she said with a tired sigh. "It's not like there's any shortage of writers out there with great books. It's considerably harder to find a reputable agent willing to represent you."

She waited for his reassurance that Jackie would come around, but he didn't say anything, just fiddled with her paperback. It was only then that she got a proper look at it. It was the first Simeon Lee novel.

"You okay?" she asked.

Nate shrugged. "I guess." Glumness lined his features as he stared down at the cover of the book. The bottom corner was bent and the pages were dog-eared. In short, it was a well-loved book.

"Would we be together now if I hadn't helped you prove Paige's theft?"

"Plagiarism," he corrected.

Willa didn't know what made her ask him that, but she did notice how he evaded the question. "Would we?" she pressed.

"I don't know."

She studied him. "Or do you just not want to say?" she guessed.

"How can we ever know?" Nate gave a philosophical shrug of his shoulders. "I mean, it's the road not taken, isn't it?"

"Yeah, the road not taken," Willa repeated, the words ringing hollow in her ears.

"Sorry. That was a shitty answer. I just don't have one to give you."

She shook her head. "Don't be. I kinda threw it at you."

"Yeah, but I"-Nate looked chagrined-"It's just been a while since I've been a boyfriend. There's a learning curve."

"You're doing fine."

"Fine?" Nate's eyes grew twinkly. "Mighty low praise to give the guy who came over here tonight to make you dinner."

"Dinner?" Willa was skeptic. "You can cook?"

"As long as the recipe doesn't require more than ten steps, yup!" He grinned. "I brought some groceries over."

Willa smiled and leaned forward, closing the gap between them and capturing his lips with her own. Nibbling sweetly on his lower lip, she added, "I hope there'll be room for desert."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading, everyone! I appreciate your support and I would love to hear a word from you if you'd like to leave me a comment ;)