I didn't allow myself to feel too deflated about the news.

Or at least, I tried not to.

But my head was all about piecing together unnecessary connections, so I found myself wondering if the end of their relationship was what threw him into his block.

I decided that I didn't really want to know.

As much as I hated the thought of ever admitting this out loud, I had liked the idea that his mega-watt smiles were reserved for me.

I hid my face under my pillow and tried to fall asleep but the events of the afternoon rotated in excruciating detail—from the clicking sound of Anna's heels that looped in my head, to the taste of orange juice, to the ride back as Miles drove me home after the reception.

Despite his best attempts at starting a conversation, the silence in the car had felt nothing like the playfulness of just a few hours earlier.

I knew I had no right to be mad, but... But what? But the thought of his eyes tracking her as she danced, as though he had been unable to look away, stung like alcohol on a fresh wound.

It was hard not to stare at her with the confidence she radiated. From the calm demeanor to the sweet tone of her voice, she showed that she knew she ruled over every element of her environment.

She was the very opposite of me from the hair color to the emotional intelligence. How was I supposed to compete with that?

Compete?

I chased away the ridiculous thought and tried to walk my mind through what it was allowed to dwell on and what was off-limits. There was no competition. I wasn't vying for Miles's attention. It didn't matter—in fact, it had nothing to do with me—that he had felt strongly enough about a girl to draw his inspiration from her. Miles was free to write about whomever he wanted. I was unaffected.

"I didn't know she would be there," I had heard him say as he pulled into the driveway of my apartment building.

"I didn't say anything."

I looked out the window to distract myself though it was too late for scenery to provide any believable escape.

The car window showed me his face instead as he watched me as if this wasn't the very thing I was trying to avoid.

"I don't have any feelings for her," he had said when I had a hand on the car door handle.

"You don't owe me any explanation, Miles."

Every oscillation of my voice was under my control, I reminded myself, as I tried to keep my voice as measured as possible.

I didn't glance back at him. I didn't want to see that his hands were still tightly holding on the steering wheel or the suit jacket resting in between us on the center console, and definitely not his face.

I could still feel a flimsy grip of control on my expressions and words, and I wanted to keep it that way. Glancing at him wouldn't help—I knew that much.

"I would hate to create a misunderstanding with you because..." Without finishing that sentence, he started another one. "Anna and I practically grew up together. She was the first one to encourage me to write. It was an instinct to make this book about her."

If Miles thought any of these words were of any comfort, he was more delusional than he seemed.

I realized then that I had taken his novel out of context and made it about me. Knowing the true inspiration behind it made it a lot harder to maintain that fantasy.

"We were on and off for most of high school and college," Miles said and continued to build a hole with more enthusiasm than the task warranted. "We broke up two years ago. It's been a while. I'm over her."

"And you haven't written a word in a year and a half. Do you really think she has nothing to do with your slump?" I wished I had put more effort into hiding the hint of bitterness that dyed my words green.

It had been a mistake to risk a glance in his direction. His fingers brushed back the strands of hair that swept against his forehead, and he gave what felt like a powerless shrug.

"I, uh, I should be going." My hand struggled to get the door to open, and he observed the clumsy movements without helping.

"I'm really glad you came," he said, and though I tried to feel neutral about the words, I forgot my resolve for a moment at the honesty I could read on his face. "You made this a whole lot easier to get through."

To calm down whatever fluttered in my gut, I revisited the memory of him holding his breath when Anna said his name.

I thought of the dismissing two-finger salute I had seen both of them do like a secret code. I was gazing into a perfect picture from the outside. He couldn't be over her. Who would be? She was the manifestation of intriguing.

As a desperate attempt to keep Miles from invading my thoughts without permission that night, I pulled up my computer and focused on writing. My fingers formed the exact words he had said tonight on the page: "I'm over her".

I stared at the individual letters. It wasn't a profession of undying devotion for me or anything, so why did it feel like someone had finally removed the building weighing down on me when he said that?

I erased them from the page in hopes that it would take me back to a time when I didn't know he had written an entire book about another girl, and my brain still functioned properly.

Not that I could remember the last time it did!

As I typed words that had no connection with each other for the sake of feeling like I was being productive, my phone pinged with a notification that made me forget about Miles and Anna for a second.

A good grade in Mr. Crawford's class? That didn't sound right.

It gave me renewed courage to start putting together real words for my new piece. A picture gradually emerged out of the words on the page of a perfect girl and a guy who tried to deny that he was still in love with her.

I wasn't trying to think of Miles and Anna on purpose, but the foolish attempts at convincing myself that the skeleton of the poem wasn't about them had all failed.

My mom stepped into the room in her bathrobe and red eyes that crushed whatever nerve cell was still functioning in me.

"I know you're busy," she said, a small smile bringing some life back to her face, "but you should really consider getting some sleep at some point this year. Just to be safe, you know, in case all the professional studies about the importance of sleep turn out to be valid."

"I don't think you're getting any more sleep than I am," I said as I recalled the several instances I found her bed empty early in the morning.

"I've been keeping busy," she mumbled as she dried her hair with a towel. "Your dad will be back next week."

"Is that what's been keeping you awake?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you haven't talked to Dad since you've been here. I can only assume you two had a fight."

She turned to browse through her drawers, creating more noise than necessary. "It wasn't really a fight." She didn't add anything else before sneaking back into the bathroom.

Even as my eyes focused on the page again, the words weren't coming to me anymore.

I placed my computer on my desk, thinking I was finally ready for sleep but it was just another theory hour—imaginary clips about Miles and Anna's relationship played like a movie behind my eyelids.

➷➷➷

It didn't feel like I had gotten any sleep at all when I woke up to the same thoughts I had struggled through last night.

But I was developing an immunization against them.

Seeing Mom still in her bed removed one of my concerns. It meant she wasn't locked in the bathroom, crying alone, which meant that she was going to be okay.

I waited patiently for Mr. Crawford's class to be over before I interrupted his scribbling.

"Did you even realize that you gave me an A on my poem? What, did you fall asleep grading it?" I grinned at him, using up all that was left in my energy reserve to make up for his lack of enthusiasm.

He looked up from his notebook at me with a visibly bored expression. "It was a good poem." He shrugged before returning to his task.

I hadn't expected him to throw a party for the first good grade I received in his class, but any hint that he didn't still dislike me would have been nice.

"Why was this better than my short stories?" I insisted. "Am I better at writing poems?"

"That, or beginner's luck," he said with an uninterested sigh without glancing up from his paper.

"As usual, the best thing about your class is your faith in your students."

His eyes narrowed at me as he placed his pencil down and smoothed down the paper.

"I wouldn't still be teaching if I hoped that every aspiring writer that walked through these doors was going to make it."

"Every time we talk, I feel a little bit more encouraged about my chances of succeeding."

"Joking's not going to help you now, Kelly. So I wouldn't throw a party yet if I were you," he said, nodding towards the exit. "I still expect a completed collection by the end of a semester." The same bored expression was on his face when he shifted to face me again. "Impress me."

If I hadn't already been doing my best, I'd see this as a further push to skip on sleep to work harder, but I was already doing that.

My phone rang before I could say my next comeback, and the hint of relief relaxed Mr. Crawford's face.

"Ace," I said, pressing the phone to my ear with one hand as I held the door open with the other. "Have you realized that you call me at the same time every day now? If this is about dodging Emma's rehearsals again, you better hang up and go talk things through with her."

"Actually," he said, and his side of the line went quiet for a moment, "I think you might talk to her again before I do."

My eyebrows scrunched up as I left the building. The sun welcomed me with a slap as soon as I stepped out like we had some sort of inside joke I wasn't in on.

"What do you mean?"

"Yeah, well, Emma and I sort of broke up."