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"I love what I do. But I loved it more when I was a teenager, writing lyrics in my journal. I loved it more when I was focused on the work itself. When I didn't have to put art second. Or even third."
I don't completely understand—I don't have an artistic temperament—but I can almost imagine it.
"The work itself is the same," she says. "And I love it the same. It fills me the same. Not more. Not better. The same."
I look at her curiously.
"I thought success would fill me inside. But it doesn't. It can't. All the money in the world can't change the pain I feel when I get lonely. It can't erase the self-loathing thoughts in myhead. Or ease the worry over my boyfriend's sobriety. It can't make me into a person without depression. It can get me help, and make my life easier, and solve all sorts of problems. But only problems caused by lack of money."
"What are you talking about, Cass?"
She continues without answering, "Love is like that too. It's this beautiful, amazing, agonizing thing. It fills me in so many ways. But it doesn't solve my problems. It doesn't make me into a different person."
What?
"Nothing can fill that hole inside me except me," she says.
"Cassie, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about."
She laughs. "Am I being too esoteric?"
"Acting like one of your muses." What the hell is that guy's name? The one she was in love with in high school because of his wounded soul? Has she met him now? How did he meet that vision?
Oh God—
What if they fucked—
She wouldn't, would she?
I don't want to know.
"Okay, let me break it down," she says.
"We lawyers are literal."
"You are not," she says. "The law is the most abstract thing in the world! But okay, sure. We'll go with that. I'm happy with Damon. He makes me happy. Spending time with him makes me happy. But I can't spend all my time with him. And that happiness can't erase my other problems."
"I'm following."
"And work is the same. I find fulfillment in the act of writing itself. In the words themselves. I feel good when I'm listening to music or grooving to a song itself. When I have to give thataway to someone else, well, sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it doesn't. It's not where I fill my well."
"This is the more literal explanation?" I ask.
She nods.
"Seriously, Cass, can you drop the Morpheus shit?" I knowThe Matrixis her favorite movie, but I don't remember her ever saying she loved the philosophical ramblings of the mentor figure.
She looks me in the eyes. "Are you happy?"
"What?"
"Will either thing make you happy? Staying here and making partner or moving to New York with Daphne?"
Won't they?
"Or does that happiness live inside you somewhere?"
"This is still Morpheus shit," I say.
