My stomach sours at the memory, even five years later. I take a giant bite of toast to fill the emptiness.

“This is highly emotional lit fic, Scarlett. It’s right up Casey’s alley. Not to mention that I know for a fact that they’re looking for a big name to put them on the map.” She pauses for a moment as if considering whether or not to continue. But, of course, she does. “And you need the money. Or…” She draws out the word, and I already know I’m not going to like what she’s going to say next. “We could shop it around. You’d probably get several offers. It’d go to auction…”

The very thought of this book going to the highest bidder sends a shiver down my spine. But I’m also probably about two months away from losing this apartment if something doesn’t turn around. Not that I’d be sad to move out, but lacking any friends or family left in my life, I don’t really know where I’d go.

“You can’t live with me,” Trina singsongs into the phone as if she read my mind. “I have boundaries.”

“So do I,” I fire back. “I’m not crawling back to JMP or this new imprint with my tail between my legs.”

I had signed my first deal with JMP as a starry-eyed twenty-five-year-old fresh out of my MFA program with a novel on my hard drive and ten more in my heart. They made my debut a bestseller. And my sophomore novel hit just about every list, too. But when they started asking for more faster without any regard for the sleepless nights, weeks away from home doing interviews and signings, and constant stress they were putting me under, I broke. Two years after I signed my first deal, they tried to ploy me with a better one to soothe the hurt caused by the first. The thought of even less sleep and a worse work-life balance than I already had nearly pulled me all the way under.

And when all of your relationships are tied up in an industry where image is everything, the optics of being associated with the crazed, depressed, sleep-deprived writer who is tearing up six-figure contracts on her way out the door isn’t great.

Trina knows all of this, of course. She was there. She’s maybe the only one who supported my decision when I resurfaced two years later. Which is why it surprises me that she’d even suggest going back to the place that caused this whole mess to begin with.