“It’s not the same with non-fiction.”

He doesn’t insist.

“Maya also writes books but doesn’t have an agent yet,” says Celine.

I blush. Here he is, this successful author and I’m a nobody. And then I remember I don’t like this guy. So why would I feel embarrassed? He should be. He stole my story. I shouldn’t envy him; I should be pissed. On the inside. Because on the outside, I need to be all warm and friendly. I plaster a smile on my face.

“Maybe you can give Maya some pointers on how to go about finding the right agent,” says Celine. “You’ve been there.”

He nods. “All writers go through the same process,” he says. “You write, you edit, you write some more, you submit, you try again.”

Still fake smiling. Easy for you to say, I think.

“I don’t always have time for writing,” I say. The lamest of excuses. Everyone who’s not writing says the same thing.

“I saw a laptop on the kitchen counter. Is that yours?” he asks.

I nod.

“Why don’t you take it with you to Café Azure and when you have dead times, sit down and write? Even if it’s a hundred words. They add up.”

He turns to Celine. “Remember that’s what I did when we both worked at the café?”

“I remember,” she says. “I ended up doing most of the work, while you stared at an empty screen and said you were plotting.”

They both laugh.

“I’m more of a pen and paper type of girl,” I say.

“I see,” he says. “Even better. You can sneak that in pretty much everywhere.”

That seemed like a nice, helpful thing to say, but it almost feels like he’s doing it in a patronizing way. It’s like he’s trying too hard, instead of showing his true colors and being the difficult, uptight, and grumpy man I imagined. In reality, I bet he’s one of those people who looks down on everyone, convinced he’s better than all of us because he’s successful and thinks he’s some literary genius. Before I get my story from Alisa, which I’m sure he butchered, I should read one of his earlier books, since I paid for them, just to see how ‘genius’ they are.

“There’s this cool store on Ocean that sells fancy notebooks and pens,” says Celine.

“I saw it, it’s amazing but so expensive. I could never afford anything there,” I say.

He stares without a word and I’m so much in my head, I can’t even hide it.

I think it’s a mix of envy and hate, what I feel for Ethan Delphy. I hate him because he stole my story and had no business writing about me or that day, and envy because he knows Max, he knows what Max was thinking about that day, what he felt. I imagine them talking late into the night like I did with Alisa. And I suddenly feel exposed. He doesn’t yet know that I’m the woman in the book, but he’s going to find out, and when he does it’ll be embarrassing. He must know all about David, what he did to me; he must know about my insecurities, my feelings. I don’t like this and I don’t like him. Being this exposed in front of someone like him is the worst part because he strikes me as judgmental and I can only imagine the things he told Max. Maybe he advised him not to look for me. Oh, no, if I think that, I’ll jump at his throat right now.