Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [70]
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I muttered. “I have only ever been friendly with Michael.”
“It would be courteous for you to work on being a little less friendly.”
“You think I want to be with Michael?” I laughed. “Michael. Who thinks New England is a country.”
I turned my back and wiped down the counter. Zoë dropped the pans in the sink one at a time, louder with each pan.
“What I don’t understand,” she said as if we hadn’t paused at all, “is how you make all these resolutions but never get around to fulfilling them. That’s what your lists are. Unfulfilled resolutions.”
“Name one.”
“Writing,” she answered immediately. “You move the television and promise you’re going to devote yourself to writing, but you spend more time pitching fits about writer’s block than fighting it. If you spent half the time at your laptop you spend complaining to your mom and brother about teaching, you’d have an epic novel by now.”
“I write.”
“When?”
“When I get the inspiration.”
“When is that?”
“I can’t schedule inspiration,” I said. “There’s something you failed to mention in your little article: I never make checklists for writing.”
We locked eyes.
“Except to catalogue rejections for stories you know aren’t good anymore.”
I really hated her for those two seconds.
“That’s different.”
“Your work hasn’t moved on since graduate school.” She said it gently, but the kindness in her voice was condescending.
“You can’t just sit down and write a novel like it’s a nine-tofive job.”
“You can’t sit on the couch eating bon-bons and waiting for a story to hit you over the head either. You have to exercise talent if you want it to work for you.”
“So, what, you think I’m a waste of talent?”
“No.” She paused. “I think you’re a flirt, Amy. I think you’re a hypocrite.”
We were both surprised at what she’d said. I walked out, because I knew I would say something I’d regret if I stayed. I sat on my bed. Zoë slammed a cupboard door three times until the latch finally caught. Dishes rattled. I stood back up, paced, tripped on a T-shirt left in a pile on the floor. I tried kicking the shirt away with my sprained ankle, only to get it wrapped around the brace.
With the T-shirt still tangled on my foot, I crawled into bed and buried my face into my pillow. I didn’t know which was worse: that Zoë might actually believe I was a hypocrite or that she would say such a thing just to hurt me.
Eli was in the kitchen, carefully balancing his burnt toast on the windowsill to cool off. He wanted to know where Zoë was. He’d never seen dirty dishes left overnight; he feared imminent disaster.
“She left.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. I added three heaping tablespoons of sugar and a generous pour of cream.
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Michael’s, I think.”
I took three gulps of the coffee, carried the rest to my room. Kneeling down, I pulled the stacks of manuscripts I kept in a box under the bed. I dumped its contents, loose-leaf paper, stapled manuscripts, the dozens of workshop critiques from friends I’d highlighted and annotated.
Eli came in the room. “What’s going on?”
“We fought.”
“About … ?”
“The article—the fact that I’m a frantic, compulsive overachiever. Everything.”
“The article?”
“You haven’t read it?”
I yanked the UrbanStyle magazine off my desk and tossed it at him.
“It’s about me,” I explained. “And it’s humiliating.”
He sat on my bed, opened to the article and read. I was reminded of what a terribly slow reader he was. Before he could turn to the last page, I closed the magazine shut on his hand.
“You get the idea.”
He opened the magazine again. He tapped the picture. “So this is you?”
I covered my eyes with my hands. “I alphabetize my checklists.”
“So.”
“I have a list of every book I’ve ever written.” “Not a big deal.”
I dropped my hands in my lap. “I have one of every boy I’ve ever kissed.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Written?”
I nodded.
“Well.