Chapter 3
When you write on your phone during your breaks at work, you start to associate creativity with the smell of coffee and the sound of steam wands. It’s been three days since I started my Wattpad story, and I’ve managed to write exactly one chapter between making lattes and restocking sugar packets. The good news is I actually like what I’ve written. The bad news is, I’m the only one reading it.
“You have to actually post it for people to read it,” Aaron says, sprawled across my couch on a rare Friday evening when neither of us is working. He’s editing photos from a recent engagement shoot on his laptop but keeps glancing over at me every time I make a frustrated noise at my phone.
“I know that,” I say. “I’m just... making sure it’s ready.”
“Charlotte.” He closes his laptop and gives me his full attention, which is both flattering and terrifying. “You do remember the whole point of Wattpad is to post as you write, right? It’s not supposed to be perfect.”
I throw a throw pillow at him—the emerald velvet one that matches the loveseat. “Since when are you an expert on Wattpad?”
He catches the pillow easily and tucks it behind his head. “Since I spent my lunch break yesterday googling it because I knew you’d be overthinking this. Did you know some Wattpad stories have gotten movie deals?”
“Not helping with the overthinking!”
He grins, and I have to resist the urge to throw another pillow. “Come on, let me read what you have so far.”
“No way.”
“Why not? I’ve read all your other stories.”
“Yeah, after they were rejected, and I needed someone to drink wine with while I wallowed in self-pity.” I curl deeper into my armchair. “This is different. This is... raw.”
Aaron sits up, his expression shifting from teasing to something softer. “Raw is good. Raw is honest. Raw is—”
“If you say ‘raw is what readers want,’ I’m going to ban you from my apartment.”
“No, you won’t. Who else would help you maintain your small jungle of dying plants?”
He has a point. My apartment’s collection of houseplants—most of them rescued from clearance sections or propagated from Aaron’s much healthier specimens—would probably stage a revolt without his intervention every few weeks. Even now, he’s eyeing my fiddle leaf fig with concern, probably noting how I’ve forgotten to water it. Again.
“Fine,” I say. “You can stay. But you still can’t read the story until I post it.”
“Deal.” He reopens his laptop, the soft glow illuminating his face as he returns to his editing. “But seriously, Char, you need to stop treating every sentence like it’s going to be carved in stone. The whole point of this platform is that it’s a conversation with your readers, right?”
I glance at my laptop screen, at the first chapter. The main character, Emma (because apparently, I’m not creative enough to think of a name that doesn’t sound like a Jane Austen protagonist), is about to meet the man she would fall in love with later for the first time. In my head, the scene is perfect—all witty banter and sparking chemistry and that delicious tension of two people who don’t know they’re about to change each other’s lives.
“A conversation,” I say. “But what if the readers hate it?”
Aaron looks up from his laptop again. “What if they love it?”
“They probably won’t.”
“You won’t know until you post it.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
Aaron says nothing and goes back to his editing. I stare at him for a few moments.
“Okay,” I say, sitting up straighter. “Okay. I’m going to do it. I’m going to post the first chapter.”
“That’s my girl,” Aaron says softly.
The cursor hovers over the button for one more eternal second, and then—almost like someone else is controlling my hand—I press ‘Publish.’
The world doesn’t end. My laptop doesn’t explode. Phew…
“Done,” I whisper, then louder, “It’s done. It’s published. It’s out there in the world for anyone to read and judge, and—oh god, I think I’m hyperventilating.”
Aaron is already moving toward me. He perches on the arm of my chair and peers at my laptop screen.
“The Regular,” he reads aloud. “Chapter One. The thing about working in a coffee shop is that everyone’s just passing through...”
His voice carries the words I wrote into the air between us. I want to stop him, to unpublish everything, and pretend this moment of bravery never happened. But there’s something hypnotic about hearing my words in his mouth.
“This is good, Char,” he says, pausing halfway through the first paragraph. “Like, really good.”
“You have to say that. It’s in the best friend contract.”
“Actually, the best friend contract requires brutal honesty about bad haircuts and questionable dating choices. Nowhere does it mention lying about writing quality.” He shifts his weight, and the armchair creaks beneath us. “I especially like how you described the morning rush—’a symphony of sleep-deprived hopes and caffeinated dreams.’“
I groan and bury my face in my hands. “Oh god, that line is so cheesy. I should delete it. I should delete the whole thing. I should—”
“Stop,” Aaron says. “No deleting. No editing. Just... let it exist for a while.”
I peek at my laptop screen, where the view count sits stubbornly at one. And that view is from me. Of course it does—I just posted it two minutes ago. What was I expecting? An instant flood of readers? A publishing contract sliding into my DMs?
“How long do you think it takes?” I ask, trying not to sound as anxious as I feel. “For people to find it, I mean?”
Aaron shrugs. “Does it matter? It’s out there. That’s what counts.”
“I should probably add more tags,” I say, already clicking the edit button. “Maybe something about coffee shops, or romance, or—”
“Charlotte. Step away from the tags. Go write Chapter 2 instead.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“That’s my ‘I know you’ll drive yourself crazy checking the stats all night if you don’t channel this energy into something productive’ opinion.”
“Yeah, maybe you are right,” I say, then yawn.
“You should get some sleep,” Aaron says. “Early shift tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, already opening a new document for Chapter 2. “The Saturday morning rush waits for no barista.”
“And the Anderson-Liu engagement shoot waits for no photographer,” he adds, stretching his arms toward my water-stained ceiling. “Golden hour comes early.”
I watch as he packs up his laptop, wrapping the charger cord with the careful precision of someone who treats all his equipment like it’s precious. It’s the same way he handles his cameras, his lenses, and the vintage photography books he sometimes brings me from flea markets.
“Text me when you get home?” I say, following him to the door. It’s our ritual, this careful dance of goodbye, even though he only lives four blocks away.
“Always do.” He pauses at the door, hand on the brass knob that needs WD-40 but that I’ll probably never get around to fixing. “Hey, Char?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m proud of you. For posting the story. For... taking the leap.”
“It’s just Wattpad,” I say, but we both know it’s more than that. It’s the first time I’ve shared my writing without perfecting it first, without running it through seventeen drafts and three beta readers and a professional editing service that cost more than my monthly rent.
“Yeah,” he says, with that soft smile that makes him look younger, more like the boy who spilled coffee on my laptop in college and less like the successful photographer he’s becoming. “Just Wattpad. Just like Power Beans is just a coffee shop.”
He leaves before I can figure out what to say to that. I lean against the door for a moment, listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway, then slide down to sit on my welcome mat—a novelty item that reads “There’s a strong chance this is coffee” that Aaron found at a thrift store last Christmas.
After a few minutes, I stand up and go to my laptop. Still one view, zero votes, zero comments. But somehow, it doesn’t feel as devastating as it did ten minutes ago. Maybe because now it feels less like shouting into the void and more like... planting a seed. Like those succulents Aaron keeps bringing me, insisting that “even you can’t kill these, Char.” (He’s wrong—I’ve killed three, but he keeps trying.)
I settle back into my armchair. Chapter 2 begins to take shape in my mind. My fingers start flying across the keyboard, the words coming easier now that I’m not thinking about who might read them. Outside, the city hums its nighttime symphony—car horns and distant sirens and the rattle of the ancient radiator in the corner that sounds like it’s harboring vengeful spirits. My phone buzzes, but I don’t check the message.
I write until my eyes burn and my neck aches and my coffee has gone cold in its “World’s Okayest Barista” mug (another Aaron find). When I finally look up, I’ve written three thousand words.
Damn.
I check my phone.
Aaron: Home safe.
Me: Great.
I press send. At 3 AM. Damn. I need to get some sleep.
I check the stats one last time. Two views. Someone out there is reading my story at 3 AM, just like I’m writing it. I smile, close the screen, and head to bed. Tomorrow’s customers need their barista sharp.
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