Page 41 of The Perfect Rom-Com

“What? No—”

“Nobody goes to Beaufort. Key West is the place to go. Key West is the destination where people want to plop down in their beach chairs and read something fun. Beach reads are for beachy places with white sand and dolphins and sunshine, not slimy seaweed and alligators. It’s a marketing thing,” Amelia says with a wave of her hand, as if I would never get it.

I bite my bottom lip. This is why I try not to tell her anything about the book for as long as humanly possible. Preferably until it has already gone to print.

I can’t just “change” it to Key West. Key West is pretty, but Beaufort has the vibrant Gullah culture sitting side by side with modernized Simple Living–style farmhouses. Beaufort has the low country. Beaufort has the culture of a little Charleston in its downtown bayside living without giving up the history of generations of people who still live there. Beaufort has Spanish moss draped over live oak trees. Beaufort, more specifically St. Helena Island, has the kind of quiet the boys need from my story.

Uh-oh. I’ve done it again.

I can feel the rising mother bear inside me longing to throw myself over my story, protect it feverishly from anyone who dares to take my cub from me.

I love my story.

I love the vibrant green of the black gum trees outside James’s window and the symbolism of their color drifting to wildfire orange in fall.

I love the sound of the gravel as Theo’s mom’s truck crunches down the long residential driveway leading to their pristine white, newly constructed Plan A103 farmhouse from page 39 of Simple Living magazine, directly beside the russet-colored single-wide resting on cinder blocks with the loose hinge on the swinging front door.

I love the spit of gravel and kick of the boys’ legs as they race side by side for the school bus, their parents watching from the front porches with coffee clutched in hand.

I love the message I plan to bring to the story.

And I know I’m not supposed to, I know it only causes heartache for me, but I can’t help it. I’m a surrogate mother and eventually I have to give this baby away and it drives me insane.

“And drop the kids,” Amelia says.

I feel it. It feels like she just slashed the two little boys in half.

Their history, gone. The world never to see what beautiful things they did together.

Their whole lives, gone.

My face must be draining of color because Jack steps in. “Amelia, I’ve heard all about this story. It’s going to be great—”

“Kids out,” she says more firmly. “I hate books with kids in them. People hate kids enough in real life. Nobody wants to hear more about other people’s children when they’re trying to read and escape their own.”

How? How is this the same woman who wins over millions of people through her television interviews? There really could be twins here: one evil, the other the angel the evil one lets out temporarily to do interviews.

Susanna, who just five minutes prior had showed everyone a picture of her daughter getting third place at a gymnastics competition, stares down painfully at her laptop with inflamed cheeks.

Meanwhile, I’m a teakettle. My head is suddenly aching. Spinning. There are so many consequences to just changing the setting to Key West and dropping the main characters (whom, again, I love). A sick and unsettling feeling persists in the dizziness. A growing shock. A mourning. A weight of a hundred bricks dropped on my head. Thoughts whizzing in and out.

The deadline is in three months. I’m struggling as it is.

A thought forms: Maybe I could just write them into a different story. Tuck the boys away safe and sound and write them out on my own later.

But when?

When would I ever have the time?

I’d have to completely change everything to do that. The parents need to be different. The message, different. Their jobs different. Houses. Lifestyles. Names. Hobbies. Motivations. Longings. Backstories.

To keep this book as my own and give it any hope of meeting the world one day, I’ll have to shelve the whole story now. Drop it into the proverbial file cabinet and write fresh.

Can I do that?

Could I ever have time to bring my own story to life?

And who would even publish it?