Her voice was low, barely above a breath. Often people in the audience had a hard time hearing Donna. She was a good writer, but the anxiety of sharing her work like this, onstage in public, vulnerable and exposed—Clare wondered if many of the listeners actually even realized how talented Donna really was, or if all they ever noticed was her shaking hands and quavering voice. Her nervousness seemed worse tonight. Clare imagined it was because of her MFA “friends” in the back.

When Donna read her last stanza, well before her six-minute limit, she bowed her head. “Thank you,” she finished and turned as the audience clapped politely.

“That was great,” Clare whispered as Donna passed by on her way to the stairs.

“It was shit,” Donna whispered back and sighed. “I’m going to get a drink.”

Clare smiled at her roommate and shook her head. Donna never thought anything she wrote was ever any good. When she’d first met her, she thought it was all just an elaborate attention-seeking act, fishing for the compliments that she must surely know she deserved. But after several tear-soaked, cheap wine–addled evenings, Clare revised her initial impression. Donna Mehan suffered from crippling self-doubt that bordered on loathing. She really and truly had no idea how good her stuff was and lived always in a self-inflicted shadow of judgment.

Clare stepped back to the microphone. “Okay, and next up is David Ramsey. He’ll be treating us to the next six minutes of his completed epic fantasy novel, Ranger’s in the Black. As with every week, he would like me to mention that should there be any agents or editors in the audience, his work is currently available and he would be happy to take business cards, or even speak with interested parties over a cocktail.”

There were never, ever, any agents or editors in the audience—but all of them dreamed of discovery anyway. David wasted no time launching back in to where he’d left off last Wednesday.

“Okay, to remind everyone, we are midway through chapter seventy-three and Rangorflet has just escaped the Hand of the Righteous and has entered the tavern at the edge of the Weir Forest.”

Clare watched Donna take her bottle of beer from Rachel behind the bar and head over to her friends’ table at the back. They were just finishing their drinks and gathering their things, leaving quickly now that they had already heard Donna read. Clare knew Donna would stay the full two hours, out of courtesy for those who had listened to her, all the time silently berating herself. Then she would head back to the apartment and sit on the fire escape, smoking and drinking wine with Sergio and Flynn if they weren’t working.

“Liz,” she whispered to the spiky blue-haired girl with her hand on the microphone plug, ready to cut David off the moment he went over his time.