Chapter 1
I'm standing in the middle of my tiny studio apartment, surrounded by exactly thirty-two rejection letters—I've counted them twice—while holding the letter number thirty-three. The cream-colored envelope sits in my hand like a time bomb. My auburn hair, which I've been nervously twisting into knots all morning, falls in my face as I lean forward to examine the envelope more closely.
The paper is thick and expensive. Professional. I unfold it carefully, trying not to let my trembling fingers tear the edges.
Dear Ms. Charlotte Hayes,
Thank you for your submission of "Moonlight in Manhattan." While your concept is intriguing...
I stop reading there because my hazel eyes are already burning, and also because my best friend Aaron Smith—twenty-nine and looking annoyingly well-rested for someone who spent all weekend photographing a wedding—is currently sprawled across my secondhand velvet loveseat, watching me with the kind of concern usually reserved for someone about to jump off a bridge. Which, honestly, feels appropriate right now.
"Char," he says, running a hand through his perpetually messy dark hair, "maybe it's time to take a break?"
I spin around to face him, my fuzzy sock-clad feet sliding slightly on the hardwood floor. "A break? I've been writing since I was twelve, Aaron. That's sixteen years of my life. Sixteen years of filling notebooks and creating worlds and developing characters and—" I pause to wave a letter in my hand like a flag of surrender, "—and apparently still not being good enough!"
Aaron sits up, his tall frame making my loveseat look like dollhouse furniture. His green eyes—the kind of eyes that romance novelists describe as 'emerald pools' or 'forest depths'—are fixed on me with that mix of exasperation and affection that I've become all too familiar with over the years of our friendship.
"I didn't say give up," he says. "I said take a break. You know, do normal things that normal twenty-eight-year-olds do? Like going on dates, or—"
"Oh, that's rich coming from you," I interrupt, because bringing up my dating life is a low blow, and he knows it. "When was the last time you went on a date, Mr. I'm-Married-To-My-Photography-Studio?"
He ignores this, probably because we both know his last date was with Sarah Parker from the coffee shop downstairs three months ago, which is still more recent than my last disaster of a relationship with Marcus "I'm Not Ready for Anything Serious" Davidson. Eleven months, two weeks, and four days ago, but who's counting?
"All I'm saying is," Aaron continues, "maybe you should take a little vacation and relax that pretty little mind of yours.”
I collapse onto the floor, letting the rejection letters flutter around me like particularly depressing confetti. My apartment, which the real estate agent optimistically described as "cozy" (read: tiny), suddenly feels even smaller. The late afternoon sunlight streaming through my single window catches the dust motes in the air and illuminates my Wall of Dreams—a cork board covered in quotes from my favorite authors, snippets of my own writing, and a single Polaroid of thirteen-year-old me holding up my first completed manuscript, bound in a three-ring binder with a hand-drawn cover.
My phone buzzes, and I pick it up. It's a message from my boss at Power Beans, reminding me that I'm covering Monica's morning shift tomorrow. Damn it!
Aaron slides off the loveseat and sits cross-legged next to me on the floor. At six-foot-two, he manages to make even this look graceful, which is annoying. Everything about Aaron is annoyingly graceful, from the way he handles his cameras to how he can charm even the grumpiest of his photography clients. It's probably why we work so well as friends—his grace balances out my chaos.
"You know what your problem is?" he asks, picking up one of the rejection letters and folding it into what appears to be the world's saddest paper airplane.
"That I'm just a bad writer?"
"No," he says, launching the paper airplane. It makes a pathetic loop and nose-dives into my collection of succulents. "Your problem is that you don't trust your own voice. You keep second-guessing every sentence."
I sit up so fast my head spins, ready to argue, but then my phone buzzes. Marcus: Hey Char, been thinking about you. Coffee sometime?
"Oh my god," I groan, shoving my phone at Aaron's face. "Look at this. Look at this! Eleven months of radio silence, and now he wants coffee?"
Aaron reads the text, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. He's never liked Marcus, something he made abundantly clear even before the breakup. Actually, "breakup" might be too generous a term for what happened. What do you call it when your boyfriend of two years and four months tells you he's "not ready for anything serious" while simultaneously updating his relationship status with someone else on Facebook?
"Delete it," Aaron says, handing my phone back like it's contaminated. "Better yet, block him. Actually, give me your phone—I'll do it for you."
I clutch my phone to my chest. "I can handle my own ex-boyfriend drama, thank you very much."
"Can you? Because I distinctly remember having to talk you down from writing a strongly worded email to his mother about how she raised an emotionally stunted man-child."
"That would have been completely justified!"
"The email included a PowerPoint presentation."
"With very compelling bullet points!" I defend, but I'm laughing now, because Aaron has this way of making even my most dramatic moments seem ridiculous in hindsight. It's probably why I kept him around after we met in college, when he accidentally spilled his entire iced Americano on my laptop containing my then-work-in-progress. He not only bought me a new laptop but also spent three hours helping me reconstruct the chapter I'd lost, despite having a major photography assignment due the next day.
The memory makes me look around my apartment with fresh eyes. Aaron's influence is everywhere: the vintage camera collection displayed on my bookshelf (his graduation gift to me, because "every writer needs to learn to see the world differently"), the gallery wall of black-and-white photographs he's taken over the years (including an embarrassing number of candid shots of me hunched over my laptop at various coffee shops), and even the loveseat itself, which he helped me rescue from a sidewalk sale and reupholster in emerald velvet.
"You know what you need?" Aaron says, standing up and extending his hand to pull me to my feet. His palm is callused from handling camera equipment. "You need to get out of this apartment. We're going to Power Beans."
Power Beans. Where I work. Where I spend at least forty hours a week.
“Really? Now?”
"Yes. Come on—I'm buying, and you can tell me about your new story idea."
"I don't have a new story idea."
Aaron raises an eyebrow. "Charlotte Hayes doesn't have a story idea? The same Charlotte Hayes who once wrote an entire romance novel about a girl who falls in love with her dentist?"
"That was different! I had just had my wisdom teeth removed and was high on painkillers. And besides, that manuscript is currently sitting in rejection pile number four." I wave vaguely at the stack of letters by my desk.
"Exactly my point," Aaron says, already grabbing my coat from the vintage brass hook by the door—another one of his flea market finds. "You need inspiration. And nothing inspires like people-watching while hopped up on caffeine."
I let him drag me out of my apartment because, really, what's the alternative? Sitting here wallowing in my rejection letters while crafting increasingly venomous responses to Marcus' text? (Current top contender: Sorry, too busy living my best life and definitely not thinking about how you changed your relationship status on Facebook before actually breaking up with me!)
Power Beans sits on the corner of maple-lined Morrison Street, its brick facade covered in climbing ivy that turns brilliant red in autumn. Right now, in early spring, the ivy is just starting to show hints of green, like the first draft of a story waiting to be fleshed out. God, even my metaphors are getting desperate.
The bell above the door chimes as we enter, and I’m immediately struck by the familiar scent of freshly ground coffee beans and warm pastries. Even though I spend most of my waking hours here, there's something different about being on this side of the counter. The afternoon crowd has thinned out, leaving just a few regulars: Mr. Peterson with his dog-eared copy of the local newspaper, the group of college students who always occupy the corner table with their textbooks and laptops, and—oh no.
"Charlotte!" Monica waves from behind the counter, her silver-streaked curls bouncing. At fifty-something (though she'd never tell us the exact number), she has the energy of someone half her age. "I thought you were off today!"
"I am," I say quickly, before she can rope me into covering another shift. Don't get me wrong—I love Monica Carlson. She's been the shift supervisor at Power Beans forever and treats all of us like family. But she also has a tendency to "accidentally" schedule herself for days she wants off, knowing one of us will cover for her.
"She's here strictly as a customer," Aaron announces, steering me toward the counter. "In fact, I'm buying her the most expensive drink on the menu."
Monica's brown eyes light up with interest as they dart between Aaron and me. I know that look. It's the same look she gets every time she sees us together, like she's mentally planning our wedding. Never mind that Aaron and I have been strictly in the friend zone since college. Never mind that he's seen me ugly-cry over rejection letters and bad breakups, or that I've watched him go through his own series of failed relationships with women who were inevitably intimidated by his dedication to his art.
"The usual for both of you?" Monica asks with a knowing smile.
"Actually," Aaron says, "Char's going to try something new today. Something she wouldn't normally order."
“And what’s that?”
"Let’s see..." He turns to Monica. "She'll have the lavender honey latte with an extra shot and—" he peers at the pastry case, "—one of those chocolate croissants that she pretends not to want but always steals half of from my plate. And I’ll have the same."
"Coming right up," Monica says. She starts on our drinks while humming what sounds suspiciously like "Can You Feel the Love Tonight."
I follow Aaron to our usual spot—a worn leather armchair duo tucked into the bay window. It's my favorite spot in the café because of the perfect lighting for reading or the way you can watch the world go by outside.
"So," Aaron says, settling into his chair. He always takes the one on the left because he knows I prefer the right one with its better view of the street. "Tell me what's really going on."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I've seen you get rejected before. Many, many times—"
"Thank you for that reminder."
"—but this feels different. You're not just disappointed; you're..."
"Pathetic? Desperate? One rejection away from becoming a crazy cat lady?"
"You're scared," he says softly, and damn him for knowing me so well. "What's really bothering you, Char?"
I stare out the window, watching a couple walk by hand in hand. They're both looking at their phones, but their fingers are intertwined, and there's something about that casual intimacy that makes my chest hurt. "I just... I turned twenty-eight last month."
"I remember. I was there with the cake and the party hat you refused to wear."
"And I just keep thinking about how when I was eighteen, I thought I'd have it all figured out by now. I thought I'd be a published author, maybe working on my second or third book. I thought I’d be married and have a child or five. I thought I'd have found my person, you know? Instead, I'm serving coffee and getting rejected by every literary agent in New York, and marriage and children… Forget about it.”
Monica appears with our drinks—a lavender honey concoction in one of the cafe's signature oversized mugs, decorated with abstract swirls in shades of blue and gold, and two chocolate croissants. She sets them down in front of us.
"Thanks, Mon," Aaron says, and waits until she's out of earshot before continuing. "You know what your problem is?"
"And again with this—"
"Your problem is that you think there's some kind of timeline you have to follow,” he interrupts, breaking off a piece of the croissant. “Like if you haven't achieved everything by thirty, you've failed somehow."
I take a sip of my latte—which is annoyingly perfect, damn him for knowing my tastes better than I do—and consider his words. "Easy for you to say. Your photography business is taking off. You've got that big wedding shoot coming up next month, and that spread in Seattle Lifestyle, and—"
"And two years ago I was shooting kids' birthday parties and living in my parents' basement," he reminds me. "Success isn't linear, Char. You know who told me that? You did. When I was ready to sell all my camera equipment and apply for a job at Best Buy."
The memory hits me with surprising clarity: Aaron sprawled on this very armchair, his camera bag at his feet, looking as defeated as I feel right now. I'd bought him a triple-shot espresso and forced him to look through his portfolio with me, pointing out all the moments of pure magic he'd captured. Two weeks later, he booked his first major client.
"That was different," I say.
"Why? Because it's easier to believe in other people than in yourself?"
Before I can answer, the bell above the door chimes, and a group of teenage girls tumbles in, all carrying phones and talking rapidly about something called Wattpad. They crowd around the counter, and I catch snippets of their conversation—something about chapters and updates and readers and comments.
"What's Wattpad?" I ask, more to change the subject than out of genuine curiosity.
Aaron shrugs. "Some kind of writing app, I think? Anna likes it a lot. Apparently, you can post stories chapter by chapter, and people can read them for free and leave comments."
"That's..." I pause, watching as the girls pull up something on their phones, laughing and pointing at the screen. They look so excited, so invested in whatever they're reading. "...actually kind of interesting."
"See? That's the look you get when you're about to start a new story."
"What look?"
"That one," he says, pointing at my face with half a chocolate croissant. "Your eyes go all distant, like you're already writing in your head. I've seen it enough times to know."
He's right, of course. Ideas are already forming, possibilities spinning out in my mind like threads waiting to be woven into a story. What if... What if I start posting on Wattpad?
The girls are chattering by the counter, and I catch another snippet: "...and then in the next chapter, she finally realizes he's been in love with her the whole time!"
"You're doing it again," Aaron says, grinning.
"Doing what?"
"That thing where you pretend you're not already plotting out Chapter 1 in your head."
I take another sip of my latte to hide my smile, but it's too late. Aaron knows me too well. He grabs my phone, those photographer's fingers flying across the screen.
“Hey!” I yell. “What are you doing?”
"Here," he says, sliding the phone across the small table between us. "I just downloaded the app for you. Consider it my contribution to your creative renaissance."
"My creative renaissance?" I laugh and pick up the phone. The interface is clean, simple, and inviting. Stories upon stories, waiting to be read. Waiting to be written. "I haven't even said I'm going to write anything."
"Please," he scoffs, finally finishing his half of the croissant. "I know that look in your eyes. It's the same one you had when you wrote that story about the girl who falls in love with her best friend's ghost."
"That was a metaphor for grief and moving on!"
"It was a romance novel with a literal ghost as the love interest, and you know it."
He's right again. I hate when he's right. I scroll through the app, something warm and dangerous like hope building in my chest. There are romance novels, sure, but also fantasy, mystery, and thriller—entire worlds being built chapter by chapter, story by story. No gatekeepers, no rejection letters. Just writers and readers, finding each other in this digital space.
The group of teenagers finally leaves, clutching their iced caramel macchiatos and still discussing their favorite stories. Through the window, I watch them huddle on the sidewalk, phones out, probably pulling up the next chapter of whatever has them so enthralled.
“Maybe… Maybe I could try Wattpad.”
“Why not? You should try. You never know.”
“Yeah…”
I sign up under the name "CharlotteWritesRomance" and press "Create New Story." The cursor blinks at me expectantly. Outside, the sun is setting, turning the ivy on the brick walls to gold, and Monica has switched from "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" to "A Whole New World."
I catch Aaron's eye, and he gives me an encouraging nod. Then, taking a deep breath, I begin to type.
ns 15.158.61.42da2
