Page 21 of What If It's You?

Though…Drew didn’t need to plan anymoregrand gestures for the morning. I was already feeling mostly like myself. Physically speaking.

TO: Drew

In fact I’m already starting to feel better

Thinking about heading to a café to get some writing done

After all, now that I knew I had my dream job, I was itching to actuallydoit. Was I working on a romance novel, or something more literary? So many other things had changed in this life, it certainly seemed possible.

FROM: Drew

If you really think that’s smart

But don’t push yourself. It’s not like you have a due date

I smiled, tenderness warming my chest. Obviously Drew and I had changed in this life—exhibit A: IRS-certifiedwriting job—but his fundamental thoughtfulness when it came to the people he cared about was clearly intact across universes. And his giving me permission to take it easy, and knowing that Ineededthat—permission—showed how well he knew my inveterate gold-star-kid self, that he cared enough to indulge it.

I texted back a thumbs-up emoji, then scooped up the laptop and deposited it in my tote, quickly got dressed, and headed out before I could get sucked back in by the mystery of what my life looked like here. I might not have an official deadline, but I had no idea how long I might get to experience this world, this life. If I’d managed to find a way to write, my dream for as long as I could remember, I wasn’t going to waste it.

I made my way to the café Google told me was my local, relieved that the barista clearly recognized me and knew my “usual” order. An oat milk latte and avocado toast weresomuch more joyful than the virtuous cereal at the house (though after all that fresh-baked challah, I opted to skip the toast). Plus, I had always done well with routines. Even if I didn’t remember coming here…well,ever,this version of me, with her chic black bob and her elegant, well-curated life, would probably get into the writing groove way more quickly with the lubricant of her “usual” drink.

I pulled out my laptop and opened Microsoft Word. There, in the recent files, satcity mouse book. Oooh, intriguing.

Pressing my lips together to quell the blend of anxiety and excitement flowing through me, I opened the document.

There was…nothing.

Notnothing-nothing. I had about…five pages written, then a handful of bullet points beneath that. But it was far from the thousands and thousands of words I’d been expecting, the masterwork that I would be able to lightly edit over the course of the morning and, ideally, sell in the afternoon.

Swallowing hard, I dragged the cursor up to the beginning and began to read.

It wasn’t…terrible. It certainly wasn’t exceptional, but I wasn’t cringing in shame. But there was solittleof it.

I started skimming the remaining pages. It seemed like I was going for a “high-powered working woman is pushed past her limits” setup, presumably so I could send her off to a small town to rebuild her life and coincidentally find love? Which I didn’t hate—Iread tons of those books, knew their rhythms so well half my pleasure in reading them now came from calling each plot twist as far in advance, and as specifically, as possible—That tractor is Chekhov’s gun, by act three it is going to explode into sex somehow.

So…why did I only have five pages and a list of bullet points, the most helpful of which was “sex in a barn? Too dirty?”

Thiscouldn’tbe all that I’d done in the last year and a half.

I took a sip of the latte, shuddering slightly as it hit the acid churn in my stomach. Maybe this was something I’d just started?

That had to be it, I probably had another book—maybe multiple other books—finished. I was probably shopping them around to agents, or editors. Which meant that my working on anything new was frankly heroic, proof that I was taking this seriously, treating it like a real job, pushing myself to develop apracticeof writing, well before the inevitable demands of publishing schedules and book tours would make it a necessity.

I opened my files and started scrolling. In no time I foundwork rivals bookandcooking competition book.See, Laurel? You were catastrophizing again.

But when I openedwork rivals,I saw that it petered out around page sixty—apparently I’d managed to force my work rivals into a closet, where things had almost turned steamy, and then hadn’t, and then…they were still locked in there and trying to make keys out of paperclips? How had I spent eight pages on the key-making process?

Cooking competition bookmanaged to sneak past the hundred-page mark, by which point my main character was on her way home to her mother’s funeral. Which I couldn’t besurewas out of left field, at least not without reading the pages more closely, but the chapter just before had ended in “paprika sabotage,” so it seemed like maybe it wasn’t the most logical next stop?

Based on the last-opened dates, I’d clearly determined that these books weren’t just heading in the wrong direction, they were unsalvageable. And now I had all of five pages of my latest attempt, most of them detailing an actual client presentation, and a road map that at itsbestpointed to maybe-barn-sex.

Dear god, what was Idoing?

“Need a refill, Laurel?” I startled to find the barista barely a foot away, wiping down the end of the long countertop that dominated the center of the coffee shop. She was probably in her midtwenties, with dark roots encroaching on her faded pink hair, a baggyGremlinsT-shirt knotted just above the waistband of her jeans. She looked like someone Ollie and I would know, one of the countless acquaintances he’d made through the music scene, who I’d then cultivated at shows and backyard barbecues, always the extrovert for the both of us. Somehow her easy smile just made me feel more embarrassed—could she tell that I was a total fraud? I shook my head, forcing a weak smile.

“Uhh…no, thanks. I’m starting to hear colors, I’m so caffeinated right now.”

“Oooh, lucky you.” She widened her eyes and moved on to another table, leaving me alone with my bafflement and vague sense of failure.

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