Why hasn’t he stopped by again?

No. I’m not going there. And honestly, I need to eliminate all the reasons I’ve found for my mind to keep coming back to him.

I swallow hard. The last of the dry cereal scrapes against my throat. “Can you see if there’s maybe someone else who could take over edits?”

Trina pauses for a moment. “Is that really what you want?”

“It’s what I need.”

“Those are not the same thing, I take it.”

No, they are not the same at all. But boundaries are about what you need, right? And I need to separate myself from Ryan, no matter how hard it’s going to be now that I’ve seen him again.

I drag my hand through my hair. My fingers get stuck on a knot. “Everything is starting to feel really fucked up again,” I say honestly. “I’m not sure how much his involvement is tangled up in my mind, but I think removing him from the equation might be the best way to find out.”

She pauses again, then sighs. “I’ll see what I can do. But…take a break, too, okay? If he’s not working with you, I can’t guarantee the next editor will care as much about your well-being.”

When we hang up, I expect a load to be lifted off my shoulders. At the very least, I expect to feel moderately better. I’ve eaten something, resolved to step away without deleting thousands of words, and made a decision about my editorial team that I know is in my best interests.

So why do I end up curling myself in a sad little ball and falling asleep feeling worse than I did before?

Chapter 13

Ryan

“What do you mean she doesn’t want to work with me anymore?”

Trina is standing on the other side of my desk, apparently having felt it better to let me down easy in person. She didn’t bother to sit, but as a result, she’s fidgety. Her arms are folded over her chest, but she keeps twisting and untwisting one of her bracelets around her finger, and the fabric of her skirt twitches in such a way that I can tell she’s shifting her weight.

There’s something she’s not telling me, but at this point, I don’t know if it’s about me or Scarlett.

“Did I…did I do something wrong?”

Her expression softens, and she drops her hands to her sides with a slap. “You didn’t do anything but exist in her space when she wasn’t ready for you to do so. Which was partially my fault; I will own that.”

“I know this round of edits has taken a while, but I’m almost done,” I assure her. “Scarlett’s revisions were spot on, and I want to do the work this story deserves and—”