One

As a novelist, I know what people want to hear. They want to know about the happy things; people falling in love and getting married- period, space, end of story. They don’t want to know what happens after said couple gets together. They want to know about the excitement of the chase; how our heroes are able to fight their way past obstacles because their love is so strong it conquers all. Even when novels end in death, we are still somewhat assured that love would be able to conquer all, even if beyond the grave.

            As a real, live person, I know what really happens. I know that after the book ends, everything starts to suck. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, and it’s just so adorable you want to cry. You never want to forget the first night they fell into bed together, a tangle of sweat and limbs, and you never want to forget the first time they confessed feelings of love. That isn’t real life, though. You can’t expect your whole relationship to be like that. It’s impossible.

            The good parts don’t go away. They just seem irrelevant when you’re struggling to hold a relationship together. Your first date seems like complete crap when you can’t even have a five minute phone conversation without an awkward silence. My editor once told me that if my writing ever delved into the not-so-gooey part of relationships, my books would never sell.

            “Samantha, people don’t want to read about the hard parts.” She told me, adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses on her beakish nose. “The hard parts are what they live through every day. It’s your job to give them an escape from their cheating wife or their impotent husband. The happy ending is necessary.”

            So I wrote a happy ending. My characters, who were struggling with past relationships and overbearing families, were finally able to work everything out and be together. They pushed everything else aside and concentrated on each other. 

            The book sold like there was no tomorrow. My key demographic was young women, and I hit a gold mine among those where were in college, especially those studying at liberal universities. I knew where they were coming from; I had been an English major at Brown University not too long ago, studying on weeknights and rallying for my liberal cause of the week on my days off.

            I loved to write, and as long as I was satisfied with the outcome, I could write about whatever topic I wanted. I didn’t mind that Erin wanted me to tweak my ending so my book would sell- everyone needs to pay rent, and I was no exception. I needed the bi-weekly checks from my book sales and my short-lived book tour so the water would continue to run in my apartment and I could eat on a daily basis.

            About halfway through my second novel, which was pretty similar to the first except I threw in a car accident and a wheelchair, it started not to feel so honest. I wrote the first novel while my boyfriend and I were in our ecstatic stage of the relationship; seeing each other everyday was like a gift from above and we just couldn’t keep our hands off each other. The second book, not so much. The honey moon had ended and we were slapped in the face by my good friend reality.

            We got to the hard part; the part where we both worked and couldn’t see each other so often, the part where talking on the phone every night seemed almost chore-like, the part where it wasn’t like holding hands and skipping through a field. Not that I was big on holding hands and skipping, but you get the idea.

            It was tough. More than tough, it was hard and it sucked. Some nights I would lie in my bed, staring up at the ceiling and wonder what made me want to fight for this so badly. Why was I putting myself through this constant turmoil? I was twenty-five years old, and chances were my relationship was not going to last forever. I had my whole life ahead of me, and sometimes it was tempting to leave everything behind and start over again.

            Leaving crossed my mind a lot, especially at night. There was something about being alone at night that made everything seem worse; not that things seemed great during the day or anything. I just didn’t like the feeling of sleeping in the middle of my big bed, or not being able to sleep because I was waiting for a phone call that would never come because my boyfriend forgot.

            I didn’t live for the moments we talked or for the moments when we were together. I lived for myself, and that made me nervous. I thought I would be fine living without him, without his laugh, his smell, his touch. Honestly, I didn’t think it would make a difference to me if I never heard him say ‘I love you’ again; our relationship was just so much further past the mushy stage that it seemed almost expendable.