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Back Love Lettering Save as PDF
Chapters (30)
  1. Praise
  2. Also by
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Dedication
  6. Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Chapter 3
  9. Chapter 4
  10. Chapter 5
  11. Chapter 6
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Chapter 10
  16. Chapter 11
  17. Chapter 12
  18. Chapter 13
  19. Chapter 14
  20. Chapter 15
  21. Chapter 16
  22. Chapter 17
  23. Chapter 18
  24. Chapter 19
  25. Chapter 20
  26. Chapter 21
  27. Chapter 22
  28. Epilogue
  29. Acknowledgments
  30. Teaser Chapter

But before I strip off my clothes, I pull my phone from my bag, hold it in my hand for a few minutes while I look around my room. For weeks all I’ve been able to see in it is the cramped chaos of my desk, the work I’ve been trying to do and redo as I struggle with the Make It Happyn job. The rest of it, though—sure, it’s small and it’s messy, but it’s also lovingly, carefully curated. The perfect, pale-blue down comforter with fluffy, pin-tucked-style squares. The big white pillows with a gray monogram that I designed, an indulgence after the Times article came out. The sheer pink scarf I have draped over my bedside lamp. The small, rose gold statuette Cecelia bought me for Christmas a couple years ago, a bird at rest, its rounded body perfect for cooling the palm of your hand. The silhouette I did of the Manhattan skyline—instead of lines defining the buildings, I’d done a tiny, pristine roman print, snippets of conversations I’d overheard on the subway, a simple dot separating them.

I don’t want to have to move from here right now. I don’t want another upheaval.

But I need more money—and soon—to make it work. And since I won’t have any more walks with Reid on the agenda, I guess I’ll have the time. I pick up work easily, I hear myself telling him. I’m in demand.

I swipe my thumb across the screen and navigate to my contacts.

“Cecelia,” I say, when she picks up the phone. “Do you still have that number you mentioned?”

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I don’t mean to be dramatic, but: It’s a motherfucking movie star!

I mean, it’s not like it’s Meryl Streep. But it is a person who has been in at least one movie, and it is also a movie I have seen. Said movie was called The Princess Tent, and not only did Sibby and I see it together in the theater when we were fourteen years old, we also each had our own copy, and we watched it at probably sixty percent of our sleepovers.

The Princess Tent was pretty objectively Not A Good Movie, with lines such as, “You’re a princess where it counts. On the inside,” and “My tent may have been small, but this castle is a prison!” For years afterward, Sibby and I would say these lines to each other at moments both appropriate and not, and always dissolve into laughter afterward.