Are you open to your editor stopping by with more notes in the future? I can warn him to stay away if you prefer.

I don’t expect an immediate response. Her last email was final, and my question is loaded. There are a hundred reasons why she might not write back, and only half of them have to do with me making a move she’s not ready for. But I still check my email frequently throughout the rest of the day. I’m disappointed every time there’s nothing from her.

Later that night, after a lonely dinner of microwave lasagna and a cold shower that does nothing to calm my thoughts of her, I lie awake in bed, staring at the dark ceiling and kicking myself. First I show up unexpectedly at her apartment, then I ask if I can do it again? What was I thinking? I probably scared her away by being too forward. I should be handling her with kid gloves, like Casey suggested the other day.

Around midnight, as I’m just starting to drift off to sleep, my phone lights up with a text message. Groggily, I open the app without thinking, but I’m jolted awake when Scarlett’s name appears at the top of my screen. She blocked my number when she disappeared all those years ago. It’s been so long since she’s texted me that our past messages have disappeared into the ether, so just one message sits in a little gray bubble at the top. Just the sight of it has my heart swelling up with longing.

Scarlett: If you need to hand-deliver notes, I wouldn’t mind.

Chapter 10

Scarlett

For the next week, my days and nights are consumed by two things: bicycles and Ryan Whitlock. Thoughts of the two of them circle around and around, as if each occupies alternating spokes on the wheels of the very bicycle that is the object of my obsession. As they turn faster and faster, they blur into something one and the same—each inextricable from the other.

By the end of that first week, I’ve done more research on bicycles than any normal human would ever need. Everything I’ve found, no matter how seemingly unimportant, is printed and strewn about my desk and floor. Some papers have made it to my bed where they mingle with various red-inked pages of my manuscript. I make a habit of curling up there in the evenings with my research and Ryan’s notes, adding my own responses to the margins and edits between the lines before going back to my laptop and typing up a more refined version. I work well into each night, falling asleep on top of the words and awakening with the sun to start the process all over again.