My phone buzzes while I'm staring at the contract again, as if it might change if I glare hard enough. Josh is in the other room, typing too fast, too loud, like joy needs witnesses. I stay where I am. I let the phone buzz a second longer than necessary.
Alice.
I step into the hallway and answer before I can think my way out of it.
"So," she says immediately, sharp and alert, like she has been waiting for this moment all day. "You finally let someone put a price tag on you."
"I signed," I say.
"I know." A pause, then a quick inhale. "Congratulations. Now tell me the advance."
I do.
She makes a sound that sits somewhere between approval and disappointment. Alice has never believed in pure praise.
"Timeline?"
"Eight months. Maybe longer with revisions."
"Rights?" she asks. "Translation? Audio?"
"I kept translation and audio. Film is undecided."
"Good," she says without hesitation. "That means they think you are controllable, but expandable."
The sentence stays with me longer than it should.
She does not ask how I feel. She does not ask what the book is about. Alice has always been like this. She does not fall in love with stories. She studies leverage.
"So," she says, "how does it feel?"
I lean against the wall and look at the scuffed paint, the crack running down the corner like someone once tried to leave and failed.
"Strange," I say. "Quiet. I thought it would feel bigger."
"It never does," she replies. "If it feels big, it is usually a lie."
I hear typing on her end. Multitasking, as always.
"Are you happy?" she asks suddenly.
The question arrives late, almost casually, and still manages to land.
"I don't know," I admit. "I don't think I like them."
"The publishers?"
"Yes."
She laughs, short and dry. "Nobody likes their publishers. That part is normal."
"It's not that," I say. "They talk about the book like it is a product that just happens to sound like me."
Alice hums, thoughtful. "Because that is exactly what it is to them."
Silence follows. Not awkward. Measured.
"I hate my job," she says abruptly.
That catches me off guard.
"What?"
"My corporate job," she clarifies. "The one that pays well and eats my brain. I sit in glass rooms all day talking about brands that do not need stories, just better fonts."
I picture her there. Perfectly put together. Trapped in a place that smells like recycled air and ambition.
"It's safe," she continues. "And I think I'm done with safe."
I feel the direction of the conversation shift before she finishes the thought.
"I don't think I want this book," I say quietly.
She stops.
"Say that again?"
"I want it," I correct. "I just don't think it's the right one. They like it because it does not scare them."
"And does it scare you?" she asks.
I don't answer.
Josh believes in art. In bleeding onto the page until something true crawls out.
Alice believes in momentum. In moving forward before doubt can catch up.
And me?
I believe in restraint. In locking doors and finding my soul in the dark.
"I have ideas," Alice says finally. Her voice changes now. Energized. Alive. "If you are uneasy and I am restless, that is not coincidence. That is an opening."
"You are already planning," I say.
"Always," she replies. "This book is a step, Ash. Not the destination. Do not confuse the two."
Josh laughs in the other room, loud and unselfconscious, probably at something he just wrote. The city hums outside the window. Somewhere, a version of my life accelerates without asking whether I am ready.
"This is going to get complicated," I say.
Alice smiles through the phone. I can hear it.
"It always does," she says. "That is how you know it matters."
The call ends.
I stay where I am, phone in my hand, heart steady but uneasy.
Alice believes in momentum.
Josh believes in art.
I believe in restraint.
Sooner or later, one of those beliefs is going to break.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
It is past midnight when the apartment settles into a quieter version of itself. The city never sleeps, but it lowers its voice. Sirens fade. Footsteps thin. Josh's typing slows, then stops.
I sit at my desk with my laptop open, the screen washing the room in dull blue light. I tell myself I am checking email one last time. I tell myself a lot of things that are not true.
The file explorer is already open.
I do not remember clicking it.
Folders line the screen in neat rows. Work. Submissions. Notes. Old drafts.
And then the one I never renamed, never archived, never deleted.
LENA.
No date. No explanation. Just her name, as if that was enough.
My hand hovers over the trackpad. For a moment, I almost laugh. This again. Like curiosity has not already ruined me once.
I click.
The folder opens instantly. No warning. No resistance.
Files spill onto the screen. Some named after places. Some after sentences that no longer make sense. Some just numbered, like I ran out of ways to pretend these were anything other than confessions.
I open one at random.
The words hit immediately.
Not gently. Not carefully.
They hit like they were written by someone who did not care whether they survived.
The sentences are uneven. Too long. Too sharp. Metaphors pile up like I was afraid silence might slip through if I paused. There is no restraint here. No audience. No sense of what should remain private.
It is uncontained.
It is alive.
I read one paragraph.
It is about her hands. About the way she used to tap her fingers when she was nervous, like she was counting exits even when she planned to stay. I wrote about memorizing that rhythm. About knowing when she was lying because it changed.
My breath stutters. Not pain. Pressure. Something pushing outward from inside my chest.
This is not the voice they praised.
This is not controlled.
This is not clean.
This is not marketable.
This is dangerous.
I snap the laptop shut before I can read another line. The sound cracks through the quiet room, louder than it should be. I sit there, palms flat on the desk, breathing shallowly, like I might tip over if I move.
I should not have opened it. I know that with the kind of certainty that does not ask for justification.
Behind me, a chair creaks.
Josh stands near the kitchen, half-asleep, rubbing his face. He squints toward me, then toward the desk.
"What was that?" he asks.
"Nothing," I say too fast.
His eyes flick to the laptop. Not the screen. The angle. The way I am sitting too still.
He does not ask again.
He nods once, slow and unreadable.
"Do not stay up too late," he says lightly.
"I won't."
He turns back toward the couch, already disengaging on the surface. But I know my brother. He saw the folder name before the screen went dark. He saw enough.
He says nothing.
That somehow feels worse than if he had.
I wait until his breathing evens out again before I open the laptop once more. I do not reopen the folder. I do not look at it. I shut the computer down properly this time, slow and deliberate.
In the dark, her name still burns behind my eyes.
Those pages were never meant to be read. Not by editors. Not by readers. Not by Josh.
They were written back when I believed some truths could live safely if I kept them hidden.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, my heart steady but wrong, like it is keeping time for a life I am not ready to live.
The folder remains.
Waiting.
I am not sure how much longer I will be able to pretend it does not exist.