Autumn Masters is a failure in her own mind. She is about to let her dream of being a writer die when she is given an opportunity that may be too good to be true. She has to navigate dating, sex, attraction, writing, teaching, and learning all at the same time. Will she survive the torture, use it to her advantage, or be swept beneath it all?

The Torture of Autumn

Autumn put the strap with the MP3 player around her arm and checked that her sneakers were tied. It had been a long time since she’d gone running. It wasn’t something she normally did. While she was writing, sometimes she would go for a walk, but it took some sort of serious issue to get her to run.


The last time she’d been running, she’d still smoked. Sometimes she missed that. It wasn’t an addiction to the nicotine. At least not anymore. What she missed was the look, the feel. When having a deep, intellectual conversation, it just somehow felt better to have a cigarette between your fingers to gesture with. She missed being able to inhale smoke into her lungs while she was thinking. She missed the feel of the cigarette between her lips, missed the flick of ash in an ashtray. It was a great conversation starter. It was a great way to meet people. It was a great way to look generous. It was a great way to insert pauses into a conversation, or into dialogue.


Chapter 50: Not much in the world is more personal than a novel