Chapter 156: not every story is a confession

Roxanne read the message three times on the dormitory steps, the cold seeping through her boots. I hope you know some people might recognise themselves in it. The words were polite, and that was what bothered her. A threat would have been easier to answer.

She typed: Who is this?

The reply came within a minute. I’m so sorry. That sounded far more sinister than I meant. My name is Mira Collins. I’m on the literary magazine’s editorial team. Mr. Ellery mentioned your piece when we were choosing readers for the evening, and I was curious what it was about.

Roxanne frowned at the screen. The explanation was reasonable, which did not make her like the message any better. She wrote slowly, and kept her thumbs steady.

It’s fiction.

I understand.

Then perhaps people should read it before deciding who it’s about. I don’t appreciate the assumption that my writing is a disguised account of my private life.

There was a pause. Then: You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll keep that in mind. I’m genuinely looking forward to hearing it.

Roxanne put the phone away and went inside, still faintly irritated, but with the irritation already thinning. Mira had apologised twice without grovelling, which was more than most people managed.

She told Nora about it at the workshop the next afternoon, over a plate of slightly stale biscuits Pippa had smuggled in.

"I’ve worried about that too," Nora admitted. "Everyone reading my story and deciding it’s me. Even the parts I invented feel like they’re mine, which is silly. Edda has a sister. I don’t."

"It isn’t silly. A made-up thing can still feel very personal."

"Exactly."

Mr. Ellery, who was pretending to sort papers at the next table and plainly listening, tapped his pencil against his knee. "Readers will always bring their own lives to a story. It’s what they’re for. But that does not oblige a writer to confirm or deny anything. You may smile and say, thank you for reading it."

Roxanne looked at him. "That’s all?"

"It is astonishingly effective."

She sat back, struck by an uncomfortable and slightly funny realisation. She had been bracing for the audience’s reaction for a week, and nobody had heard a word of it yet. She had been arguing with a crowd that did not exist.

The coordinator for the Winter Arts Evening held a short rehearsal on Thursday in the small auditorium, with folding chairs arranged in a loose half circle and a dozen participants clutching their pages. Roxanne waited until the fourth reader had finished a poem about frost, then stepped up to the lectern.

She read her excerpt, the shoebox and the teaspoon and the girl who was certain the box was empty. She stumbled once, on the word recipe, which she had always secretly hated. She felt the old urge to stop and start over. Instead she breathed, let the stumble go, and carried on to the end.

"Slow down in the emotional part," Nora said afterwards, from the second row. "When she remembers the tapping. You rush it, and it’s the best thing in the piece."

"A longer pause before the last paragraph," added a boy with a violin case at his feet. "Let people feel they’ve arrived somewhere."

Roxanne wrote both down. She read the passage again, and this time she let the tapping breathe, and she held the silence before the final paragraph until it felt almost too long. When she finished, she realised she had not apologised for anything. Nobody seemed to have noticed that she hadn’t, which was exactly the point.

Kai was standing outside the auditorium when she came out, a folder of papers tucked under one arm and his usual unreadable expression in place. He looked at the door, then at her.

"I’m collecting forms for the activities office," he said, before she could ask.

"I wasn’t going to."

"You were about to."

She almost smiled. "Fair."

"Are you ready for tomorrow?"

"I’m prepared. I’m not promising to enjoy standing in front of an audience."

"You don’t have to enjoy it." He shifted the folder. "You only have to decide whether the experience is worth having."

She turned that over, and found it more useful than half the advice she had received that week. It did not tell her to be brave, or calm, or confident. It only gave her a question she could answer. "That’s actually helpful."

"I try to be, occasionally." He glanced at the pages in her hand. "Are you reading the whole story?"

"Only an excerpt."

He nodded, once, and did not suggest she should do more or less. "Good luck," he said, and went off down the corridor, and she watched him go with the odd, quiet pleasure of having been understood without being managed.

That evening she and Nora sat on the floor of Nora’s room, surrounded by pages, cushions, and an alarming number of pencils. Nora’s phone buzzed, and she snatched it up, read the message, and let out a small shriek.

"The magazine confirmed it. My story is in the winter edition. It’s definitely happening." She stared at the screen for a second. "What if they spell my name wrong?"

Roxanne laughed so hard she had to put her pages down. "I’ll check it myself when it comes out. I’ll bring a red pen."

"Please don’t use a red pen on the printed magazine."

"I’ll use it very gently."

They sat quietly for a while, passing the last of the lemon biscuits back and forth. "What do you hope to feel after tomorrow?" Roxanne asked.

Nora considered. "I want to stop being embarrassed by something I worked so hard to make. Just once. Just for an evening."

"That’s a good goal."

"What’s yours?"

"To finish reading without wishing I were somewhere else."

"That’s a very modest goal."

"It’s the sort of goal I can actually reach."

Back in her own room, Roxanne laid her printed pages on the table beside her bed, squared them neatly, and found herself looking at the third paragraph. A word could be softer there. She reached for her pencil.

Then she stopped, and put the pencil down.

"You’re finally learning when to stop," Isla said from her pillow, watching with one eye open.

"I’m allowed to be proud of something without finding another flaw in it."

"I agree entirely." Isla yawned. "You should apply that principle to your entire life."

"I’m working on it."

"You’re making slow progress."

"It’s still progress."

Isla smiled into the dark and said no more, and Roxanne lay back and listened to the building settle.

Her phone buzzed just as she was drifting off.

Are you still reading tomorrow?

Yes, she typed.

Good. I’ve arranged to be there.

She smiled in the dark, and had started to type a reply when another message appeared.

And before you ask, no, I haven’t arranged a dramatic interruption. You’re welcome.

Roxanne laughed softly into her pillow and wrote back.

That was exactly what I was going to ask.