Verity(16)

I look around the room, slightly overwhelmed, but I’m not sure if it’s because Jeremy is standing here or because of the chaos I’m about to have to sort through. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you get to that.” Jeremy points to the office door. “I should probably go check on Crew. Make yourself at home. Food…drinks…the house is yours.”

“Thank you.”

Jeremy closes the door, and I settle in at Verity’s desk. Her desk chair alone probably cost more than a month’s rent in my apartment. I wonder how much easier writing is for someone who has money to burn on things I’ve always dreamt of having at my disposal while I write. Comfortable furniture, enough money to have an on-call masseuse, more than one computer. I imagine it would make the writing process a lot easier and a lot less stressful. I have a laptop with a missing key and Wi-Fi when a neighbor forgets to password protect theirs. I sit on an old dining room table chair at a makeshift desk that’s really just a plastic folding table I ordered from Amazon for twenty-five bucks.

Most of the time, I don’t even have enough money for printer ink and computer paper.

I guess being here in her office for a few days will be one way to test my theory. The richer you are, the more creative you’re able to be.

I take the second book of the series off the shelf. I open it, only intending to glance at it. See how she picked up from where book one left off.

I end up reading for three hours straight.

I haven’t moved from my spot, not even once. Chapter after chapter of intrigue and fucked up characters. Really fucked up characters. It’s going to take me time to work myself into that mindset while writing. No wonder Jeremy doesn’t read her work. All her books are from the villain’s point of view, so that’s new to me. I really should have read all these books before arriving.

I stand up to stretch out my spine, but it doesn’t even really hurt; the desk chair I’ve been sitting in is the most comfortable piece of furniture my ass has ever pressed against.

I look around, wondering if I should go through computer files next or printed files.

I decide to check out her desktop. I browse several files in Microsoft Word, which seems to be the program she prefers. All the files I find are related to books she’s already written. I’m not too worried about those yet. I want to find any plans she had for the books yet to be written. Most of the files on her laptop are the same as the files on her desktop.

Maybe Verity was the type of author who hand-wrote her outlines. I turn my attention to the stacks of boxes on the back wall, near a closet. A thin layer of dust coats the tops of them. I go through several boxes, pulling out versions of manuscripts at various stages in the writing process, but they’re all versions of books in her series that she’s already written. Nothing hinting at what she planned to write next.

I’m on the sixth box, rummaging through the contents, when I find something with an unfamiliar title. This one is called So Be It.

I flip through the first few pages, hoping I’ll get lucky and find that it’s an outline for the seventh book in the series. Almost immediately, I can tell that it isn’t. This seems…personal. I flip back to the first page of chapter one and read the first line.

I sometimes think back on the night I met Jeremy and wonder, had we not made eye contact, would my life still end the same?

As soon as I see Jeremy’s name mentioned, I scan a little more of the page. It’s an autobiography.

It’s not at all what I’m searching for. An autobiography isn’t what the publishers are paying me to turn in, so I should just move on. But I look over my shoulder to make sure the door is shut because I’m curious. Besides, reading some of this is research. I need to see how Verity’s mind works to understand her as a writer. That’s my excuse, anyway.

I carry the manuscript to the couch, make myself comfortable, and begin reading.





So Be It


by


Verity Crawford


Author’s note: The thing I abhor most about autobiographies are the counterfeit thoughts draped over every sentence. A writer should never have the audacity to write about themselves unless they’re willing to separate every layer of protection between the author’s soul and their book. The words should come directly from the center of the gut, tearing through flesh and bone as they break free. Ugly and honest and bloody and a little bit terrifying, but completely exposed. An autobiography encouraging the reader to like the author is not a true autobiography. No one is likable from the inside out. One should only walk away from an autobiography with, at best, an uncomfortable distaste for its author.

I will deliver.

What you read will taste so bad at times, you’ll want to spit it out, but you’ll swallow these words and they will become part of you, part of your gut, and you will hurt because of them.

Yet…even with my generous warning…you’re going to continue to ingest my words, because here you are.

Human.

Curious.

Carry on.





“Find what you love and let it kill you.” - Charles Bukowski


I sometimes think back on the night I met Jeremy and wonder, had we not made eye contact, would my life still end the same? Was it my destiny from the beginning to suffer such a tragic end? Or is my tragic end a result of poor choices rather than fate?