Begin Again
: Chapter 24

Between the two of us, there are probably ten shades of nail polish bottles on the floor. I am opting for rainbow, with a different color on each finger overlaid with sparkles. Shay is going for a moody purple with crescent moon stickers, claiming she needs the witchy energy after all the happenings today.

“You’re right,” Shay says to me. “Like, looking back—I really think that was Val on the radio show.”

I wince, smudging my bright purple pinky nail. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have a full hand of smudged nails to match—I’m too preoccupied to focus. “I wish I could go back in time. Answer her differently.”

Shay shakes her head. “She’s still hung up on him. I mean, that’s what she said to me on the dock.”

We’ve been over this a few times now—once when we were eating our grilled cheese, another time when we were eating the emergency stash of Twix bars under my bed (to be clear, most days are “emergencies”), and now in the aftermath, cultivating our nails so that we might move on from the embarrassment of this day: Shay for being politely rejected by Val, and me for becoming a swamp monster.

But the more I try to dissect this entire situation, the less sense it makes.

“I mean, on the list of things that concern me about the whole thing, the fact that Val might still like this guy who put her through the wringer is pretty close to the top,” I say, my brow furrowed.

Shay shakes her head. “I don’t think she does at all. I just think she’s still really hurt by the whole thing.” Her eyes sweep the floor. “And considering everything he put her through, I don’t blame her.”

I set the purple polish down, staring at the same spot on the carpet like it’s going to clarify anything. “Yeah. She was pretty upset when we met. Whoever this loser is . . .” I let the words hang in the air, only because we’ve said some variation of them a dozen times already tonight. “And she didn’t say anything else while you guys got coffee after?” I ask.

“No. It was pretty normal. I mean . . .” Shay sighs. “It’s gonna hurt for a long time, I think. But I’m glad we can be friends in the meantime. It would have really fucking sucked otherwise.”

Despite myself, the smallest of smiles tugs at my lips. I’ve had this sense that though our little friend group may be new, it has a strong foundation. Today might not have shaken out the way we wanted, but it still proves it. That no matter what rocks us—crushes or feelings or falling face-first into a frozen lake—we’ve still got one another’s backs.

“Thank you, though.” When I look up, Shay’s brown eyes are warm on mine. “For your help with this.”

There’s a warmth in my chest that feels entirely different from the relief I used to get from a successful fix-it. One that burrows deeper and takes a stronger hold. This is the kind of friendship that doesn’t come with conditions; the kind so solid that you never have to wonder if you’re enough. We’ll ride out our problems together, one at a time, and be grateful we’re there to see each other through them whether we can fix them or not.

Shay stretches her leg out to knock her foot into mine. “At the very least, the whole drama with the literary magazine is over. Val’s writing again. Even going back to her sister’s place tomorrow to try to work on her ending.” She starts collecting the nail polishes off the floor. “And I’ve learned my lesson. No more shouting about other people’s work without their permission.”

And only then does something in my brain finally click. I slam my hand on the carpet between our beds.

“Shay.”

“Hmm?”

It feels like there’s glitter in my veins, and it’s shooting straight up to my brain. “Switch your major to marketing.”

“Ah, yes. Because I don’t deal with enough entitled frat boys on this campus as it is.”

I leap up on my freshly painted feet, yanking my idea board for Shay’s major out from under my bed in a dramatic swoop. It’s a heck of a lot messier now, given all the things we’ve tried and rejected. It’s also a little useless, given the fact that the answer isn’t on the board, but basically screaming all over the room.

“We dismissed publishing way too fast.”

“I told you. I only read the books I want to read.”

“Exactly. And then you shout about them. Like with Valeria. And all over your Instagram.” I gesture at her bookshelves so wildly that Shay takes a cautious step back.

“If bookstagramming were a full-time job, trust me, I would not be here,” she says, continuing to calmly put the nail polish away even as I am having what could arguably be my most important revelation of the semester. “You’d have some bushy-tailed Southern belle for a roommate and I’d be reading on a beach.”

“I don’t know about the beach, but Shay. If you only read books you want to read, and then you’re championing them as aggressively as you have for years—I mean, couldn’t you try being an agent? Or someone on a book marketing team? Someone who gets paid to shout about books?”

Shay blinks at me, half of her considering my words and half of her clearly trying to reject them. “I do this because I love it. The whole idea seems . . . sellout-y. I don’t like the idea of having to champion books I don’t connect with, and that’s the whole point of the Bookstagram—to be able to talk about queer stories and Black stories and stories that deserve a whole lot more attention than they’re getting. To have some control over the narrative.”

I seize on this so fast that even Shay, who is more than used to my theatrics by now, raises her eyebrows in mild alarm.

“Agents get to pick and choose who they represent. So you’d get to champion stories like that right from the start, right?” I ask. “And as for marketing, if you don’t like the idea of not getting to pick what you read—go to a smaller imprint. One where you’ll know you actually like the books they publish, and you’ll have a hand in helping put them on the map before they’re even released.” At the beginning of the semester I didn’t know enough to even give her this advice, but after overhearing Shay and Val’s conversations about the book world, there are weeks of publishing knowledge rattling in my brain. “You’d have to find the just right opportunities, and it might be hard, but it’d also be you.”

I know I’ve reached the “aha!” part of Shay’s brain because she hasn’t even attempted to take a breath to talk me out of it. Instead she’s chewing on her bottom lip, her eyes skimming the bookshelf in all its color-coded, overly stuffed, cozy glory.

“Maybe” is all she says in the end.

And maybe we’ve made some progress, opened a potential door. Maybe we’re right back to square one. But where there might have been a fix-it urge before, there’s just a respect that life isn’t that simple—that the things that matter most take time. And as we go to bed with our nails a lot more colorful and our hearts a little fuller, I’m grateful that Shay and I have plenty of it between us.

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