Page 96 of Rewriting the Story

In my mind, Amelia has always been right for me. She’s always beentheone, but this time, she has to prove it. I don’t know how it happened, but we’ve switched places. Back in college, I was the one chasing her. Now, it’s the opposite. I hate that it feels good to be wanted again, and I’m trying my hardest to keep my walls up when it comes to her, but it’s been difficult keeping her at an arm's length.

As if she can sense I’m thinking about her, she suddenly appears in front of me, a small smile on her face as she gets up to my table.

“Hi,” is all she says. “Can you make them out to Mills, please?”

I smile, aware of what she’s doing, but as I open the book and try to get to the title page, my eyes catch on the small scribbles in the margins of my debut—the original cover. Actually, as I sift through the pile she brought, I realize she has every single edition, foreign and domestic, of my books, all of them with scribbles in the margins.

I look back up to her, my mouth slack. Even while we were apart, Amelia still read my books. Amelia Ellis has read both of my books, and she even has multiple copies of them.

Surprise doesn't even begin to cover what I’m feeling.

“The second one was my favorite, but I was also a huge fan of the way you showed the relationship throughout the first one. It was…complicated, messy, and all too familiar.”

“Is that your review?” I ask, a small smile overtaking my face.

“No,” she says as I sign her books. “But I always knew you would make it as a writer, Henry. I’m still mad you wouldn't let me read your fantasy project when we were in college.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” I remind her.

“The first ten chapters of a first draft fantasy novel don’t count. It was all world building.”

I laugh as I sign the nickname I gave her way back when, and I can’t help as my heart starts to beat faster in my chest. Some strange hit of déjà vu overwhelms me, even though Amelia and I have never been in this situation before. “These books seem well loved.”

Her hand drags over the tattered cover of my debut novel, and I can tell by the way the spine is cracked that she’s read it more than once. She still uses different colored pens when she rereads. Whenever Amelia rereads a book, she uses a different colored pen than the time before, so she can tell how her opinions or feelings have changed.

There’s a rainbow of colors throughout my books, and I wish I had more time to ask her about them. I want to know every single thought she had; talking with her about music and novels used to be my favorite thing to do. Her eyes always lit up when she got in the zone, and I want to see that happen when she’s talking about the words I wrote.

As I sign her last book, she smiles at me as she looks at the inscription.

For Mills, my first reader, my favorite chapter, and the best plot twist.

She was always the person who wanted to listen to me talk about my ideas, no matter how fleshed out they were. We would take turns, in away. One night, she would talk to me about an album or lyrics, and other times, she would let me rattle on about my ideas.

She was the first person I felt comfortable enough to share my ideas with, and I’ll never forget that. She was with me before I ever became somebody.

“I’ll always be your biggest fan, Hen,” she whispers to me. “Now, I won’t hold up the line.” She grabs her books from the table, and my hand grazes hers as she does.

“Thank you for coming,” I say, grasping her hand. “It means a lot.”

She smiles at me, her cheeks growing pink as she looks around. “I’m going to browse a little bit. I’m going to wait until you're done, if that’s okay with you?”

“That’s perfectly fine with me,” I say as I press my glasses up onto my nose, the next person coming up to the table and holding her books out to me. As Amelia moves to my peripheral, I let my smile take over my face, unable to hold it back any longer.

Thesigningonlytooka few hours, but with how late it is, I’m surprised to still see Amelia roaming the aisles of the bookstore, a few more books in her hands.

When she realizes I’m near, her head turns to me, and she looks down at her basket of books, a tote bag I assumed she borrowed from Paige hanging from her shoulder.

“I swear, I only meant to browse,” she laughs. “But you know how it is.”

“Browsing always turns into buying, Mills. As a fellow book lover, you should know that.”

“Guilty,” she says as she holds the basket up, the two of us browsing before we come up on the shelf that holds mine. “I know him,” she says as she points at my books.

“Amelia…” I can feel my face get bright red as she says that.

“Come on,” she says, grabbing one off the shelf and handing it to me. “Hold it up for me. I want to take a picture of you with your debut novel that got you on all those lists you used to dream about being on.”

I can feel my smile sparkle. “You remembered?”

---