Now, when he finished the day’s entry for Thorn, though, he found himself jotting down ideas for a new section of his bullet journal on some scrap paper.

It started with doodles of flowers. Since he’d been spending so much time at Thorn, he’d begun appreciating them more. Especially since Ash kept sending him home with little bouquets. He sniffed the one Ash had made him today. It was a purple flower he always forgot the name of and some delicate Queen Anne’s lace.

He was sketching a border around the page, made of stems with the flowers exploding in the corners. Truman wasn’t the best artist, but his lines were minimal and clean, and he felt he captured the essence of whatever he was drawing. Once he’d created the floral border, he wrote: Stickers, dividers, bookmarks, printables, lists.

He stared at the list he’d just made and at the bouquet in front of him, then around Greta’s house, filled with carnivorous plants in all their strange glory.

He pulled out his phone and messaged Charlotte and Germaine.

What if I started my bullet journal Instagram with the goal of designing my own line of planner stuff?

Charlotte wrote back immediately: Yes, do it.

“Well, that was startlingly positive,” Truman muttered.

Germaine’s response didn’t disappoint: Hellllll yes you should you’d be brilliant!!!

Truman flipped back through the last eleven months of his bullet journal. There was a lot of material there. A lot of things that he could turn into pages people might like to buy and use.

He didn’t hate his job. It had a lot of advantages for him, which was great, and the work itself was okay. But the idea of doing it forever was depressing. What if this could be a way out? A way of creating a different cash flow that might eventually allow him to leave it?

He drew a bath and slid into the hot, herb-scented water. This time, it wasn’t a bath of sadness and wine but one of possibility, and he texted Ash: You should carry floral bath salts ;)

***

The invitation to dinner had been hand-delivered, slid under the front door when Truman woke up.

MAISEY AND DON OSGOOD INVITE YOU! A HOLIDAY DINNER, TONIGHT, 7:00 P.M. FESTIVE DRESS ENCOURAGED; GIFTS DISCOURAGED. WE’D LOVE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Tonight had been written in over the scratched-out date, so clearly most of the invitations had gone out earlier.

Ash was attending the dinner as well, he found out when he texted What does “festive dress” mean?, so they walked over together.

When they got to Maisey and Don’s house, it became clear that “festive dress” meant everything from Christmas sweaters to puffy-painted and bejeweled red turtlenecks, from spangled green dresses to somber tweed jackets paired with maroon ties.