“You don’t understand where I’m coming from yet, but you will soon enough,” Aurora says.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve only just moved in with Jackson. He has more money than most people can even dream of.”
“Yeah, so?”
“There’s no way that you’ll be able to go back to busting your butt at a job you hate for a measly forty-thousand dollars a year.”
“You don’t think so?” I ask, challenging her.
“I know so.”
I shake my head, refusing to believe her.
“How can you be so sure?”
She narrows her eyes and brings her face really close to mine.
“Harley, you don’t even know what it’s like to have the kind of money that he does. People whose spouses make two-hundred thousand a year don’t work for money. And his net worth is probably half a billion, even after he lost all that money to that fraudster.”
I hate to admit it, but this is something that has crossed my mind before.
I’ve never depended on a man before I met Jackson, and it’s still a big concern of mine going forward.
He has so much money that it makes whatever I could possibly make at a real job not noticeable at all.
So, it’s easy to say, why not just not work? But what’s going to happen in a year or two, or after a decade or more?
Do I go through my life just relying on money that’s not mine?
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says, with a little smile at the corner of her lips.
I wait for her to continue.
“His money is his now, but it won’t be after a while. If you stay together, it will be like any other relationship. What’s his becomes yours and what’s yours becomes his.”
“That’s…hard to imagine,” I admit.
“You won’t even notice it after a little bit. I mean, yeah, at first you’ll be impressed by the private plane and all the places that you can go and all the five-star accommodations, but after a bit, it will be something you expect. And that’s when it will be difficult to give up.”
I shake my head. No, that won’t happen to me, I promise myself.
“I thought that it wouldn’t happen to me either. But here I am, putting up with a terrible ex just because I’m afraid of losing what we have together.”
“You still deserve better than him and Elliot. No man should hit a woman.”
She nods her head. I know that she knows but it doesn’t feel like she knows it deep in her heart.
Neither of us says anything for a few moments and then Aurora excuses herself, disappearing into the bathroom.
I run my fingertips over the smooth marble surface and look around the room, wondering if this place will ever feel like home. Maybe Aurora is right. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Perhaps, one day all of this will just be too much to give up.
But the more I look around the room, the less enamored I get with everything that I see around me.
Why would anything in this kitchen matter to me at all? It’s just stuff. They’re just things.
They’re nice, of course, but who really cares?
While I wait for her to return, I open my laptop and read my emails for the first time since it all happened.
The third book in my series has released and the emails that have come in from readers who have pre-ordered it and bought it soon after it went live take me aback. If I were standing, then they’d bring me to my knees.
My whole body starts to shake as I read their kind words of congratulations and praise.
Just the thought that someone would take time out of their day to write to someone who they don’t know and tell them how much a book means to them takes me by surprise.
This isn’t the first time I’ve received an email like this, but the fact that people actually keep writing me just takes my breath away.
I’ve really enjoyed books in the past. I’ve read some over and over again, and yet, to look up the author’s email or to look them up on social media and send a message somehow never occurred to me.
I mean, why would they want to hear from me? They probably have a ton of fans.
But now that I am on the other end of that, things feel different.
I am grateful for each and every message that I receive because it gives what I am doing newfound meaning.
Suddenly, it’s all starting to make sense.
16
Harley
What this means to me…
Even though, growing up, I never really thought it would be possible to make money writing, somehow now that it’s actually happening, it is.
And now that I’m doing it, I realize that there’s a whole other dimension to the sales as well.
Yes, I receive about $2.74 for each book that I sell, but that money represents so much more.
That two dollars and almost seventy-five cents is also the person reading something that I have written.
Time is a precious commodity and yet these people are taking time out of their day to spend it with my books.
I carefully read each email and write back a response. It’s never one word, but it is occasionally just the phrase “thank you.”
But the more that the person writes to me, the more that she shares with me, the more I share back. It’s the least I can do.
As I write back each and every person who took the time to write me, I wonder what it is about my books that’s really striking a chord with them?
I mean, I know what I’m trying to do with my writing.
There are writers out there that want to make their sentences as fancy and highfalutin’ as possible. I don’t know why they strive for that except I suspect that they want to just show off the fact that they may own a thesaurus.
I’m not like that.
To me, the point of language is to communicate and I want my books to be written as simply and directly as possible.
And that mainly means to write just as I speak and think.
In the last email that I read, a woman named Judy says:
* * *
I’m not sure if you will ever read this, but I want you to know that your writing helped me through a very dark part of my life. My husband is in and out of the hospital and I spend a lot of my time sitting by his bedside while he sleeps. That means that I spend a lot of my time reading your books on my phone. What I like best about them is how easy they are to read. No matter what I just went through, I can always pick up at seemingly any paragraph and just start and they take me away from my troubles. I can’t wait to read more! Keep them coming!
* * *
I read the email over and over again, choking back tears.
I’ve never felt this way about a writer, and I never in my life thought that anyone would feel like that about my own work.
Suddenly, I feel the full weight of responsibility on my shoulders and it gives me a newfound purpose.
What I am doing here with my writing is not just a passing fancy. I am not just indulging myself and wasting time.
No, it’s important.
I am helping people escape.
I am helping to distract people from the pressures of everyday life. If my words take a person in a difficult situation and help them through it just a little bit, well, that’s…everything. That’s all I can ever ask for.
It takes me a while to go through all the emails and write every single person back. I save Judy’s email for last and I send off my reply just as Aurora comes back into the room.
“What were you working on so hard?” she asks.
“Just writing back some of my readers.”
She looks at me with a confused expression on her face.
That’s when it occurs to me that she doesn’t really know what I do. I debate for a moment whether or not I should keep my line of work to myself, but then I decide against it.
I’ve kept my writing a secret for long enough, and it’s about time that I sta
rt putting myself out there.
“I’m actually a writer. An author. So, I was writing back some of my fans.”
“Wait, what? You’re an author?”
I nod.
“What’s the difference between the two again?”
“Well, people who write can just be writers, meaning that all they do is write. But some of them are also authors, meaning that they do all the publishing and marketing themselves. You know all that stuff that goes into making the book available to the public.”
“So, what kind of stories do you write?” Aurora asks. “And why hasn’t Jackson told me about this?”
“I always wanted to be a writer, but it wasn’t until I met Jackson and he inspired me to just go ahead and put my writing out there, publish it myself, that anything happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, before him, I was always submitting short stories and things like that to literary magazines and publishers. I submitted a chapter outline and query letter about a young adult novel to a million different agents, but never really heard back anything. And then Jackson came along. And he was like, ‘why don’t you just self-publish your stuff and see what happens?’ Well, not exactly like that. If I had just self-published, nothing probably would’ve happened.”
“So what did you do?”
“I learned a lot about digital marketing and Facebook advertising and building a brand. So, that all went into becoming an author.”
“That’s so awesome,” Aurora says, nodding her head. She seems really interested so I continue.
“I write novels. Romance novels but not really traditional romance novels. There’s one love story that goes through the whole thing but there’s also a lot of suspense and thriller elements to it.”
I don’t go so far as to mention that I basically write from real life because I’m not quite ready to share everything with Aurora quite yet.
“With sex?” Aurora asks, her eyes lighting up.
17
Harley
When I tell her…
I shrug, not sure how to answer her question.
“Oh my God! I have to read your books!”
“Do you like those kind of books?”
“Of course! Who doesn’t?”
“You’d be surprised,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when you look on Amazon and other retail sites, these types of book are so popular. And I think it’s awesome. I mean, they are really empowering to women. They have strong women characters and they’re about love conquering anything in life. And they’re all mainly written by women, making them extra special, you know?”
I can tell by the expression on her face that she doesn’t quite know what I’m getting at.
“Well, most of the authors are women and a huge majority of them are self-published. They are mothers and wives and this is what they do for a living. And some of them make a ton of money. So, it’s just really awesome for me to be involved in an industry that’s fueled by women and supported by women and created for women.”
“Yeah, that is pretty unique, huh?” Aurora nods her head. “So, do you have a lot of sales?”
“I have sales, which is pretty awesome,” I admit. “I don’t think you’d say I have a lot of sales, but I am really happy with the results. I’d like to sell even more books in the future though, don’t get me wrong.”
I laugh and then she laughs along with me. When she asks me for the names of my books, I tell her and she quickly puts them into her phone.
“Oh my God! There you are! I can’t believe it.”
I shrug my shoulders. This is the first time that anyone actually looked up my books right in front of me and I blush a bit.
“One-click. One-click. One-click!” she says excitedly.
I blush even more.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Aurora adds, nudging me with her shoulder. But I can’t help but shy away from her.
“Okay, but I have to warn you, the books are a bit…explicit.”
“You mean dirty?”
I nod.
“Don’t worry about me. I like my books really dirty. The dirtier the better.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. God help me. Is this really happening? Is Jackson’s ex-wife really going to read my books?
To calm my nerves, I walk over to the faucet and pour myself a glass of water. It feels cold and smooth against the back of my throat and I relish the moment.
“So, what about you?” I ask, finishing the glass and pouring myself another. “Was there anything you ever wanted to do since you were a little girl?”
“Um…” she says, without taking her eyes off her phone. I assume that she’s texting someone, so I wait. But instead of typing anything, she just scrolls down with her thumb.
“What are you doing?” I ask. She doesn’t reply. Instead, she just keeps reading.
I walk over and grab the phone out of her hand.
“Hey!” she yells as I look at the screen. She’s at the end of the first chapter of my first book.
“You’re reading my book?”
“You said I could.”
“I didn’t mean now. In front of me!”
“Why not?” She looks at me, innocently.
“Because…because….”
I don’t know how to answer her. There isn’t really a good answer. I’m just suddenly so overwhelmed by the prospect of her reading about my life.
While it can be a lot easier to just write exactly what has happened to you instead of making things up, when someone you know reads the words and knows the truth, everything suddenly becomes so much more complicated.
“You’re good,” Aurora says, taking her phone out of my hand.
“Thank you. But that doesn’t mean that you can read this book right now.”
“Okay, fine,” she says, putting the phone on the counter. “I won’t. I promise.”
I feel satisfied, but I know that this feeling is fleeting.
I see the way that she’s looking at me, with this newfound curiosity.
My throat closes up and my hands get clammy.
In a few hours, Aurora is going to know all of my deepest and darkest thoughts because I was stupid enough to not just write them down but also to tell her about the existence of this book.
“Look, you don’t have to worry, okay,” Aurora says, putting her hand on mine as if she can read my mind. “I know that everything in that book is fiction. I mean, that’s what writers do, right? Make things up?”
I wish, I want to say. But instead, I nod and say, “Of course.”
Probably sensing my uneasiness, Aurora answers the question that I asked her earlier.
“I’ve always wanted to own a boutique,” she says. I stare at her trying to figure out what she’s talking about.
“You asked me what I wanted to do as a girl and that’s what I wanted to do. Curate a boutique. You know, pick out all the stuff for the store. Not just the clothes and the shoes and the accessories but all the other things as well. Journals. Cups. Paperclips.”
“Your boutique would sell paper clips?” I ask. She furrows her brow and I realize how judgmental my question comes off.
“I really didn’t mean it like that. I’m just imagining those packs of paper clips from Staples…“ I explain. She laughs.
“No, nothing like that. I thought I would sell one big paper clip at a time, but it would have funny designs on it or funny or inspirational sayings. You know like Boss Babe or It’s Monday! Let’s get stuff done! Something like that.”
“I really like that,” I say after a moment. “You mean something like Francesca’s?”
“Oh, that’s one of my favorites!”
“Me, too!” I smile.
“Like Francesca’s but also more my style.”
“So, Aurora’s?” I joke. She nods and laughs as well.
18
Harley
When we ge
t to know each other…
Much to what seems like both mine and Aurora’s surprise, we end up talking well into the evening.
We order food and eat together, get to know each other without really putting in much effort.
We both come from very different places and yet when we talk to one another the conversation just flows.
If a lull does form, one of us is quick to fill it in before it becomes too big.
“I’ve never really had a girlfriend before,” Aurora says. “Is this what it feels like?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know, with your girlfriends, do you just sit around like this and bullshit all night long?”
“I’ve only really had one good friend who was a girl and yes that’s exactly what we did,” I say slowly.
“What happened?”
I shrug.
I don’t really want to go into it.
I’m cautious.
Just because I connected with her over the last few hours doesn’t mean that she is someone I can actually trust.
But then I turn to her and see her big wide eyes waiting for me to answer and the words come to the tip of my tongue.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says quietly. “I mean, I know that we don’t know each other very well.”
I think about that for a moment.
She’s right, of course.
But why the hell not? I have this tendency to take everything inside of me and keep it there.
And while this feels protective and safe, I’m not really sure that it is. What happened between Julie and me isn’t a secret, so why treat it that way?
Unsure as to where to start, I start at the beginning. I tell her about Martin being my bodyguard and his relationship with my roommate.
And then I tell her about his death.
It feels good to talk about it again. Especially with someone who isn’t so intimately connected to the whole thing.
Tangled up in Love Page 6