Trying

Chapter Seven

I met a very smiley Iain at the library the next day.

"You're being weird," I said as I approached the worn wooden table where he was sitting.

"Smiling is weird?" he asked, widening his smile just to prove my point. "I just brought a little something to celebrate our new partnership."

"It's not alcohol, is it?" Sarcasm is my soulmate.

"Yep. Tons," Iain smirked, then found whatever he was looking for in his backpack.

"I remember you told me you liked Miss Marvel, so I bought a copy." I already had the issue he handed out to me, but I matched his excitement level out of sympathy.

"I see we aren't past the 'bribe my friendship with comics' stage," I replied, taking a seat across from him and opening my writing notebook to the character development planning I had done that day in creative writing class.

"I suppose not. I hardly have any good qualities to acquire your companionship, obviously, so I need to spend my limited money to buy you gifts and make you happy. What a stable foundation we've built for our relationship." I allowed a smile his way before looking back to the lined page before me. A lot of the planning for the story had happened during the forty-minute class period, so we really only needed to develop writing styles.

I would be writing from the point of view as Noam, a zookeeper's daughter. Iain decided to write as artistic, tree-bark-eyed Leo. The two would meet at the zoo and fall in love and all that crap. I was still bitter over the heterosexuality of the characters. Iain wanted to write as someone relatable to him, and apparently his masculinity is in his list of most important qualities. (Yes, he has a list. It's utterly ridiculous.)

"So, we're writing intro scenes today," Iain said, biting his pen cap a bit as he finished. This was his focusing habit. He had different habits for different feelings, so I'd started categorizing them, like a scientist keeping inventory.

"Will it start with the day they meet, then have mini flashbacks to life before? Or will it start a week or two before they meet, show their lives, which then turn into focus on each other upon meeting."

I sighed internally, but I guess Iain could hear it, because he asked, "What?"

With some deliberation, I answered him with my honest opinion. "I don't think love at first sight is a thing."

Iain's face seemed to say, "?". Of course he would overcomplicate thins.

"I just mean that you need to really know someone to fall for them. A person can't tell whether another person is compatible for them if they don't know them. Therefore, people can't fall in love at first sight. Or at least, I don't." I cringe at that last sentence, my quirky eyebrow raise causing Iain to half-smirk in amusement. He just enjoys the debate, I have to tell myself that.

"I think, if it's the perfect circumstances, two compatible people will find each other and it will he irresistible. Like a universal pull, to a stranger, and the stranger would feel it, too. I guess I'm kind of a hopeless sappy romantic about this stuff. But I think a lot of writers are." Now Iain was running his hand through his hair, his nervous habit. I'd only seen this once before, after he'd dropped my hand at the mall. Now I could identify in the blink of an eye, and I hated seeing him suffer like that.

"I suppose, in ideal conditions, it's possible," I offer, and the corners of his lips turn up in appreciation. He is so readable to me now. It makes conversation with him easier than it is with most people. I'd say we are finally actual friends. I miss having an actual friend.

"Have you ever been in love?" Iain asks, cautiously. I almost don't hear him say it, because he's lowered his voice two octaves and he's speaking at his shoes.

I press my lips together in a line, thinking over my answer to that. I don't let myself focus on specifics. I won't break down in front of Iain again. It's unfair to him. But now I have to decide whether I trust him well enough to tell him about my pain, or not.

And I can't stop thinking about his sweaty hand slid across mine in protection, and I take that as my sign. I will trust Iain, because he's comforting and honest and my best friend.

"I was, um, still am, I think," I mutter back. I glance nervously at Iain's reaction, but he's turned away, thrumming the pen absentmindedly against his knee. I know he's reducing the pressure on purpose, and it pushes me to go on. "I had a friend. We grew up together. We did everything together, even though we were separated into two different social groups in middle school. But I started to fall, and I couldn't stop myself because I was a stupid little girl, and now I'm stuck on my best friend, who I have to watch love someone else."

"You can't blame your mind for what your heart does," Iain replies quickly, and I'm thankful he's ignoring my cracking voice as I speak. His advice, though it's coming from the right place, doesn't do anything to kill the overwhelming sadness I'm trying to fight off.

"Emily," Iain says, making eye contact now. "You are heartbroken, and you are struggling, and you hurt like hell. Yet you've survived thus far. You can make it a few more years, I promise. And by then, all of this will just be a part of your life. A valley amongst mountains. Humans, we need the valleys to see the mountains. Life as a plateau would be too flat to go sledding on."

"That's such a stupid quote," I manage, yet I'm laughing through my tears. It's the first time I've genuinely wanted to do something besides cry. I'm disappointed in myself for making Iain suffer through my problems. I'm mature enough to handle this on my own, so I let one last tear thud gently upon the library table, then wipe my eyes and stop.

It's quiet in the library, so I can hear my recovery; my breathing slows down and it gets less ragged. I can even feel my heartbeat slowing and the heat of my face diminishing. Iain is wearing this encouraging face as he continues on with the novel plan, pushing the conversation in a different direction so that I don't have time to dwell on what I've said. I manage to dwell a little more before I focus in on the plot.

The intro scene. My character Noam would be feeding the elephants on a rainy day while Iain's character Leo sketched on the side. His sketchbook would spill into a puddle across the fence, and Noam would have to fetch it away from the elephants before they ingested it and got sick. Most of the sketches would be ruined, so Noam would have to let him into the indoor elephant habitat, because he had an art project that had to be done by the next day, and his eyes were kind of cute. I thought it was fairly boring, but Iain ran with it.

"What if Leo ends up drawing Noam instead? Or is that too cheesy?"

"That's actually pretty adorable, I think. Then Noam could blush and be all flustered when she finds out. We could discuss the accuracy of images in comparison to their real counterparts, and the human tendency to glorify simple things."

"Or it could just be a nice sketch?" Iain suggested, then ran his tongue across his teeth. The 'amused' habit. "Not everyone will want to read a huge metaphor, no matter how marvelously constructed it is."

"It's just a class project."

"Really? I thought we were aiming to get published." I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not, but Iain's normally not sarcastic.

I squint at him. He looked so enthusiastic, I didn't have the heart to turn him down. I suppose it makes up for all of the times he's been there for me.

"Do you have a certain company in mind?"

"My dad's college friend owns a rising publishing company. Wimbledon Print or something like that. It's a small business, mostly catering to nonfiction, but they're expanding. I've kind of already contacted the CEO. He's interested."

"Oh," I say, completely shellshocked. I don't think I'm ready for publication. My writing feels like just a blend of a ton of different authors' styles, and I haven't found my own voice yet. Publishing a book written like the ones already out there feels like plagiarism.

But Iain's running his hand through his hair and biting his lip waiting for my answer, and that's a double nervous habit. God, he's making it so difficult to refuse.

"I don't even know if our styles will gel, Iain," I say as my excuse, and Iain's face drops a bit before he forces a neutral expression.

"Okay. Maybe. But you owe me another comic book."