Page 77 of Give & Take

“Anyway,” Lana continues, “I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about, and he said something like ‘They’re so easy, even you could do it’.”

I actually tense up at that. “The fuck?”

“He just meant I could do it even though I was so busy with everything else. It turned into this whole thing where I needed to show him how hard it was. Then when I actually started writing and he saw how much work I was putting into it, well…he changed the goalposts.”

“How so?”

“He bet me I’d never finish it.” She sighs, glancing at the strewn papers. “I lost that bet, clearly.”

I scratch my chin. “So you know you could just…not, right?”

“What, you mean quit?”

“Quit’s a dirty word in hustle culture. But sometimes there’s freedom in quitting.”

“So you’d just quit your PhD?”

“If it felt like I was doing it in wisdom and not fear, sure.”

She mulls this over. “So what if I had just quit my law degree?”

“Was it important to you then? Did it bring you joy or pain to think of quitting?”

She looks down. “It was everything to me, at that point in my life.”

“So you didn’t quit.”

She laughs softly. “I just…with the book, it feels like a connection I have to this other part of me I really love. Reading’s done so much for me. It saved me during my divorce, and all those years on my own after. Still, on my own,” she corrects herself, looking quickly at me.

“What is it that you want to do with that love? Ultimately, I mean. Beyond this test of yourself.”

“I want people to know it’s okay to love romance books the way I do,” she says.

She blinks, her eyes filled with surprise. “I didn’t know that until now.”

“So aren’t there other ways to do that?”

“Like work in a bookstore?”

“Sure. Or start your own bookstore. Hold romancebook clubs. Maybe for men so they clue in that they’d be doing themselves a favor by reading them.”

She frowns, but says nothing.

Maybe that was too pie-in-the-sky.

“Or don’t. Just do what makes you happy, Lana. And if it really is important toyou,finish the book. If you do andneed a beta reader, I’m here for it.”

“You?”

I clap a hand to my chest in mock insult. “Why not me?”

“Because I don’t trust you.”

Any good humor I have is stripped away, like paint thinner hitting a freshly painted wall.

Lana looks immediately regretful. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean that.”

“It’s fine,” I say, straightening up. “I deserve that.” Though I’m not sure I did.

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