Again, But Better

by Christine Riccio

  So how does it feel to be done with this duology?

  Amazing! Scary! I never thought this would really happen and … I’m so grateful and excited for everyone to finish the story. It’s so close to my heart.

  You seemed really emotional earlier. Did you know your parents were coming tonight?

  (She laughs.) Yes! I invited them, but I wasn’t expecting a speech. We’ve gone through some stuff, and we’re closer now because of it.

  At this point she politely asked if she could run to the bathroom (she hadn’t been able to go for hours). Her boyfriend came over as she stood, kissed her, and reminded her that he made reservations somewhere. She smiled and whispered something in his ear. He was dressed all nice in a red button-up shirt to match her. He’s got ruffled light-brownish hair. Shane slipped off to the bathroom, and he sat in her seat and smiled at me.

  Him: Hi!

  Me: Hi?

  Him: I’m here to entertain you while Shane’s in the bathroom. So, you’re a blogger?

  Me: Yeah, Shane’s my favorite author! I already finished book two. I stayed up all night the day it came out.

  Him: That’s amazing. I did too when she finally let me read it.

  Me: (giggles) Are you a writer too? Did you work with her at Packed!?

  Him: No, I make music, produce it, and write stuff with new artists.

  Me: Oh! That’s cool. Does that mean, are you—? Are you obsessed with the Beatles like Ian in the book?

  Him: I mean—

  (He shrugs and pulls a weird, fat, wooden-doll version of John Lennon from his pocket, grinning like a little kid with a toy, and shakes it. It rattles like there is something inside it.)

  Him: Oh, she’s coming.

  (He grins again and stuffs the doll back in his pocket before he hops up. Shane shoots him a bemused look before sitting back in the chair. He leans against the wall, watching. I put my interview face back on.)

  Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

  Keep going no matter how dark things seem. You’ll get there!

  click to continue reading

  * * *

  “Are we there yet?” I ask again.

  “Relax, Primaveri. I’ve got you.”

  I laugh, squeezing Pilot’s arm excitedly. “Okay, I’m relaxed! Can you give me a hint…? Have you finally managed to meet Taylor Swift at work? Are we doubling with her tonight?”

  “Yep, you caught me. It’s eleven p.m. on a Wednesday night, and we’re headed to Taylor’s apartment.”

  I snort, tripping over my feet a bit. “Which reminds me, we’re having dinner with Leo and Jared next Friday.”

  “Sounds good! We have a Taboo score to settle. We shouldn’t have left things all tied up last time. Is Jared cooking again?”

  “He is. I am freaking pumped.”

  “Amazing.”

  I stumble and Pilot’s arm tightens around me. “Careful. We’re coming up on steps.” I step up. “Keep stepping,” he prompts. “Okay, stop. Now just walk.”

  A door opens, and the air warms as we step inside. Pilot lets go of me, and I tense up for a few moments.

  “Can’t see here, Pies,” I remind him.

  I feel him return to my side. “Okay,” he breathes. He loosens the blindfold, and it slides down, settling around my neck.

  I blink a few times, my eyes adjusting to the light. Lots of lights. Fairy lights, an endless array of them, are strung up everywhere. It takes me a second to see anything else. “Whoa,” I breathe.

  There’s a round table at the center of the room, with things on it. Not a room—we’re in a lobby. There are silver elevators all along the left wall and a receptionist desk on the right, with someone—

  “Ah!” I yelp, stumbling backward over my heels. Pilot steadies me from behind.

  “Shane,” he starts calmly.

  “What is she doing here? What are you doing here? Where are—?” I spin around, gaping. “This is—why are we here? What are we doing here? We’re done with you, spirit guide!” I point at her accusingly.

  She raises her hands in surrender. “Darling, you’re fine.”

  “Shane.” Pilot takes my elbows and turns me carefully to face him.

  I crane my neck, trying to keep her in view. “You don’t want to—What are we doing, Pilot?” I can’t form full sentences. I grasp at the locket around my neck.

  “Shane,” Pilot says again. I turn back to him. “Breathe, we’re okay. She’s cool.” He drops his forehand against mine. She’s cool?

  “I’m sorry. I’m really confused.” I try to keep my voice level. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute.

  “She asked me if we wanted to hold on to this”—he taps the locket—“anymore, or if she could have it back.”

  I blink. My voice drops to a whisper. “I, I don’t need, do you, do you want to keep it around?”

  Pilot smiles and shakes head. He carefully moves my hair, unclasps the necklace, and places it in my palm.

  I look from him to our spirit guide, still disoriented. She holds out her hand. I shuffle over slowly and drop the locket into it. “Um, thank you,” I whisper.

  She nods and turns away, exiting swiftly through a door behind the front desk. I pivot around to shoot Pilot a wide-eyed look.

  “Pies, what, when, what’s—”

  He comes forward and takes my hand. He leads me toward the table I saw at the center of the room. A number of items are lined up around the edge of the small circular surface. There’s a gym lock? A picture of us kissing, a key, a ceramic piece of apple pie—I shake my head and look up at him again, confused.

  He takes both of my hands in his, searching my eyes. “This is where you changed my life,” he says.

  He gestures to the pie on the table. “On our walk home that first day in London, you called me Pies and rambled something about me being … warm?” His eyes twinkle under the lights. “That’s when I first felt something shift.”

  He looks back at the table. “That lock is from the first time we spent the night together in Paris.”

  I look down at it, breathing hard now. The picture is next. Looking at it now, I see it’s the one we took on our way down the crag in Edinburgh. Pilot looks from it to me. “From the day we decided to stay.”

  I bite at my lip. “You did all this?” My voice wavers as I gesture to the lights around us.

  He points to the key sitting next to the picture. “That’s the key to our shitty studio apartment.” A tear escapes my eye. I loved our shitty studio apartment. I loved working near the window and being able to look over at him, a few feet away, playing on our bed. We moved to a bigger place last year, after my second book sold and Pilot got hired as a full-time producer at Stone Glass Records.

  I follow the curve of the table all the way around, past a small streetlight figurine, to the last item—the John Lennon Beatles nesting doll. It’s set right in front of me.

  “Oh my god, where did you find that?” I blurt, pointing to it.

  Pilot picks it up with a small smile. “I got it when I went back to the store the second time around.”

  “When you got the cards? I still can’t believe you went without me,” I scold.

  His smile slips into a smirk.

  “You’ve had this since then?” I ask in disbelief. He glances down at it before meeting my eyes again.

  “Shane, I love you. I wanted to stop in here one more time to pay my respects to the moments that brought us to where we are.”

  I huff a small laugh. “I love you.”

  He offers John Lennon to me. My brows pull together, but I reach out slowly and take it from him.

  “Open it.” He smiles. I narrow my eyes before looking down at the doll.

  I open John Lennon. Inside him, I open Paul. And then George. And then Ringo. Inside Ringo is a tiny wooden bowling pin–shaped guitar and … a ring.

  It knocks the wind out of me. I look back up at Pilot, but he’s not standing in front of me anymore.

 
He’s on his knee. My jaw drops.

  “I have no regrets. I have no interest in ever going back to before. I only want to move forward with you.”

  I shake my head in disbelief, sporting the toothiest smile of all time.

  “I, I’m just.” I carefully get down on my knees and take his chin in my hand. “Pilot Penn,” I start softly. “Screw you, I’m never going to be able to top this move.”

  Acknowledgments

  I can’t believe I’ve reached this stage of my Again, but Better book journey. I’m writing the acknowledgments for my first novel? This is surreal. I have so many people to thank. The first two have to be my parents. Thank you for letting me study abroad. Those four months forever changed me, and the paths I would choose to take.

  To my agent, JL, and my editor, Eileen, thank you for believing in this long, rambly contemporary book and continuously challenging me through the revision process. Thank you to the entire team at New Leaf and Wednesday Books.

  Thank you to my best friend, Dr. Katie McCormick-Huhn, for sitting on the phone with me, brainstorming titles and names, and helping me work through any scene at all hours of the night. Thank you for being the first person to read this story, back when it was in its most primal state. Thank you for always cheering me on. Your enthusiasm and kind words were so integral to this book.

  Thank you, Julia Friley. You’ve been reading my crap, and helping me make it better, since 2011. Thank you for constantly pushing me to cut shit out of this book, helping me with emails, and tolerating my insecure calls and texts. Thank you for picking up the phone and brainstorming major plot drama whenever I found myself in a bind. Thank you for reading Part One three separate times. This book wouldn’t be the same without you.

  Thank you, Kat O’Keeffe, for agreeing to be critique partners with me, even though I was such a noob. Your feedback and support are always spot-on.

  Thank you, Natasha Polis, for reading Draft Three and being there to discuss these characters with me whenever I needed to. Also, thanks for that time we sat around during a thunderstorm reading the chapters aloud in the dark.

  Thank you to my other best friend, Dr. Jenna Presto, for reading a huge chunk of the first draft and being my official go-to source of knowledge for all things med school.

  Thanks to Tiernan Bertrand-Essington and Christina Marie for providing me with thoughtful, valuable feedback when I needed it most.

  Thank you to my cousin Holly Springhorn for being the first person under twenty to read a chunk of the draft. Thank you for sending me so much love.

  Jesse George, Kat O’Keeffe, Larry Lane, Sasha Alsberg, Kristina Marjieh, and Allison Gottlieb, thank you for your endless support throughout this process.

  To my siblings, Olivia and Paul: If you made it to the end of this book, thank you for reading it—it means a lot. Olivia, I’m honored to have written the second book you’ve ever voluntarily read. I hope you’re not reading this before you actually finish the book.

  Thank you, Juan, for the endless encouragement in the final stages of the publishing process.

  To my whole Booktube, Bookternet family, ALL OF YOU: Thank you for being the best, kindest, most welcoming, most understanding, most supportive, gorgeous friends a girl could ask for.

  To my subscribers/viewers: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are a perpetual source of happiness for me. You have enriched my life in every way. I hope you enjoyed my first book. I hope it made you happy in some way or another. I hope you laughed. I hope it made you want to face your fears. *AGGRESSIVELY HUGS YOU* *APOLOGIZES*

  Nana, thank you for blessing me with your passion for reading. Mrs. Gearing, thank you for reading aloud to us in class and enforcing DEAR time in fourth grade. J. K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer, thank you for the stories that made me fall in love with books.

  Dearest reader, thank you for picking this up and supporting my writing endeavors. I hope Again, but Better brought you joy! If you’re not a big reader, I hope this made you want to read more! If it didn’t, please hit me up on YouTube at http://youtube.com/polandbananasBOOKS so I can try to turn you via video.

  xoxo

  2018

  About the Author

  Christine Riccio’s polandbananasBOOKS YouTube channel has more than 400,000 book-loving subscribers. She makes comedic book reviews, vlogs, sketches, and writing videos chronicling the creation of her own novel. She’s also one of the three YouTubers behind BOOKSPLOSION, YouTube’s longest-running book club. For the past four years Christine has been collaborating with publishing companies and authors and traveling across the United States to speak on book-related panels to further spread the reading love. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  AGAIN, BUT BETTER. Copyright © 2019 by Christine Riccio. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.wednesdaybooks.com

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design by Kerri Resnick

  Cover illustration by Jeff Östberg

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Riccio, Christine, 1990– author.

  Title: Again, but better / Christine Riccio.

  Description: New York: Wednesday Books, [2019]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019002944 | ISBN 9781250299253 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250299277 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PS3618.I279 A74 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002944

  eISBN 9781250299277

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: May 2019

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Part 1: 2011

  1. Take a Chance

  2. Make a Change

  3. Breathe, Just Breathe

  4. I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here

  5. Open Your Eyes and See

  6. Nothing’s Standing in My Way

  7. Never Mind

  8. I Want to Be the Rainstorm, Not the House of Cards

  9. Maybe We Can See the World Together

  10. Rome Ma-Ma

  11. What Comes Next?

  12. Has He Heard?

  13. Here Goes Nothing

  14. Sail?

  15. Fail

  16. A Million Little Shining Stars

  17. Such a Breakable Thread

  18. I Can Learn to Do It

  19. Drifting

  20. Spinning

  21. Ticking Away

  22. I Must Dream of the Things I Am Seeking

  23. Thunderbolt and Lightning

  24. Broken Dreams

  25. One Last Time

  26. Bye Bye Bye

  Part 2: 2017

  27. What Page Are You On?

  28. More Than You Bargained For

  1. Helpless

  2. Somebody Catch My Breath

  3. I Thought Time Was an Hourglass Glued to the Table

  4. I’m the First in Line

  5. Reaching in the Dark

  6. What a Lovely Night

  7. There’s a Glow Off the Pavement

  8. Where Do We Go From Here?

  9. Might as Well Embrace It

  10. The Green Light, I Want It

  11. Come Together

  12. The Rush at the Beginning

  13. Close


  14. Don’t Stop Me Now

  15. Don’t, Don’t Know What It Is

  16. I’m a Goner

  17. Shining

  18. Break Your Walls

  19. Heavy as the Setting Sun

  20. Waves Come After Midnight

  21. Ford Every Stream

  22. Going for the Knockout

  23. I Have Confidence in Me

  24. Through Accepting Limits

  25. Twice as Hard, Half as Liked

  26. The Fear of Falling Apart

  27. Marching On

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright