“Typically, anything over fifty thousand words constitutes a novel. That might sound like an enormous amount of writing to you, but you'd be surprised how quickly those words show up on the paper. Plus, you're splitting the work with your partner, so you're splitting the word count, too. Twenty-five thousand words each over a four-week period is very manageable, guys.”
“Some people take years to finish a book,” someone else says. James Noble. I've never liked the fucker—his hair is too perfect—but I find myself warming to him now. He raises a good point.
“I'm not looking for a perfect manuscript,” Jarvis replies. “It doesn't need to be edited. It doesn't even need to be proofread. This isn't about writing the world's next bestseller. It's simply about a beginning, a middle, and an end. This project's about starting something difficult, seeing it through, and getting to be a little creative with it along the way. I promise, if you put your heart and soul into this and you work as a team, it's going to be so much fun.”
I know better than to ask this, but I pose the question anyway. “And if we wanna fly solo? Can we complete this bullshit assignment on our own?”
Jarvis smiles. “No, Pax, you may not. This is a joint project. I expect both students to participate and contribute fully and equally. With a writing style as unique and bold as yours, I'll know if you’re not playing by the rules, too.” She leans her back against the wall at the front of the classroom, folding her arms across her chest. “What's the matter? I thought you and Presley were the best of friends. Presley, is that not true?”
Next to me, Chase sets down her pen and shifts in her seat. “Oh, no. Pax and I are friends. Great friends.” The smile she flashes me could split the world in two; I feel like I've just been kicked square in the gut. “He just doesn't like to collaborate. He likes to have everything his own way. Isn't that right?”
I wrap my hands around her throat, and I squeeze. Even in the mental image I paint in my head, she doesn't react the way she's supposed to, though. She fucking laughs. I don't say anything in response. I give her a tight, unhappy smile that isn't fooling anyone.
“Well. I suppose you're just gonna have to learn how to be a team player, Pax,” Jarvis says. “We'll be spending our time in class working on this from here on out. And I'm expecting at least four hours of your time dedicated to writing outside of class, too. I suggest you do this in the library if you can. Being together so you can plot and ask each other questions will really help—”
She prattles on about how this disastrous idea of hers is going to work. I don't pay a lick of attention. I'm far too busy listing all of the ways I can get out of this bullshit assignment.
Soon, she sets us to work, telling us to brainstorm the basic premise of our stories as well as break ground on the story arc. Around us, everyone explodes into action, talking frantically about what they're going to write. I glare at the pen in my hands, chewing on the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. Copper coats my tongue.
“I vote murder mystery,” Presley mutters. “Calvin Klein model travels to Singapore for a shoot, only to be brutally killed and hacked to pieces in his locked hotel room.”
An underhanded dig about a Calvin Klein model. How fucking clever. “Sounds more like fantasy to me,” I growl. “You can write whatever you want. I'm not doing this with you.”
“Jarvis didn't sound like she was giving you much of a choice. I could be way off base here, but I don’t think she likes you very much.”
“No one likes me very much. That's the whole point. I'm not here to be liked. I'm not here to creatively castrate myself by working with other people, either. Our writing styles won't be compatible.” I whirl on her, narrowing my eyes. “Do you even know how to write, or did you sign up for this just to fuck with me? ’Cause I'm not wasting time writing with you if you don't have a fucking clue what you're doing.”
“This is advanced creative writing. I had to submit two different pieces before Jarvis would let me join the class. She described my work as dynamic, with a unique and mature voice. I know I'm good.”
I curl my top lip. “I can't wait to check out the trite bullshit you fed her to earn a compliment like that.”
“Great. I'll email it to you.” She grins. “P Davis at Wolf Hall dot E D U, right? First initial, last name.”
“I was joking,” I hiss. “I don't wanna read your poem about a poor little city girl who always dreamed of having a pony. I want you to transfer out of this class. This wasn’t part of the deal.”
Her playful smile dims a little. She shakes her head. “I think I’m gonna stay, actually. I'm gonna complete this project to the best of my abilities. I always wanted to join this class and I didn’t. Because I was scared of you. And now that I’m not scared of you—”
“We’ve been over this. You fucking should be.”
She laughs softly. “I’ve aced all of my English assignments. I’ve already been accepted to Sarah Lawrence. All I want to do is earn some extra credits to make next year as easy as possible, and then get the hell off this mountain. My signing up for what little is left of this class has nothing to do with you. Or you and me—”
“There is no you and me.”
She laughs again, louder this time, coupling the sound with a shrug of her left shoulder. She doesn’t even seem to care that I’m giving her my very best I-will-skin-your-cat-and-shit-in-your-mailbox glare. “I’m only here for the grade, Pax. Outside of our little agreement we made last night, I don’t need you to like me. I don’t need you to be nice to me. I don’t even need you to talk to me.”
“And how the fuck are we supposed to write an entire book together if we’re not talking to each other?”
She drums her fingers against the top of her textbook, narrowing her eyes at me slightly. “I’ll pick the genre. I’ll write the first chapter. I’ll hand it off to you at the end of class and you can just pick it up and run with it.”
“That’ll be a disaster.”
“If you’re half the writer you think you are, it should be easy, no?”
Jesus wept. How can she be this…this…insufferable? “You really think I’d let you pick the genre and write the first chapter? You’re out of your mind. The first chapter’s the most important chapter in the book—”
“Debatable.”
“Whatever.” I brush off her casual little smirk. “I am not getting stuck writing a goddamn romance novel, Chase. No fucking way.”
“Fine then.” She beams. “You pick the genre, and you write the first chapter. I’ll pick up and run with whatever you concoct without complaint.”
“You're serious. You actually want to do this?”
She bobs her head to one side, smiling as she looks off out of the window. “Well, I'm sure Alison Boycraft's World of Warcraft fanfiction piece is going to be thrilling, but I get the feeling that co-writing a project with you might be more my speed,” she says.
She's sure making a lot of assumptions. She has no idea what writing with me would be like. She's clearly painted some sort of picture in her head that, guaranteed, will not be even remotely close to reality. I'll make sure of that.