Page 1 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

Chapter One

August, 2024

“What the hell am I supposed to do with you, Sam?” Catherine slammed my file on her desk so hard the clip came off and pages fluttered toward the floor.

I was pretty sure therapists weren’t supposed to curse, but I also knew that I deserved it. I said nothing.

“We make progress and we make progress and you’re fine and then two weeks later you walk in and you’re off your meds.”

“I—”

“I can tell you’re off your meds. I can tell with one look at you.”

“I can’t write when I’m taking them. I have a deadline and—”

“Who set that deadline?”

“My editor,” I said. “My editor did.”

“You’re the one who submitted another project.”

“I have to work.”

“I’m not telling you not to work. I’m telling you that you need to come to me before you have a deadline so we can adjust your meds. We can try something new.”

“Nothing else works. I’ve tried and nothing else works.”

“There are new meds coming out every other week.”

“I can’t go through that whole process again.”

Catherine stared straight at me, and for a moment, I thought she was going to tell me to leave. Her words were icy, slow, and deliberate. “You go through that process every time you go off of them.”

“I’m sorry.”

She didn’t speak for a very long time. I watched her breathe, then looked over at the mess that was my file. Pages were scattered all over the corner of the office. “I understand,” she finally said. “I’m not going to say it’s okay because it’s absolutely not okay, but I understand. When is your deadline?”

“Second draft needs to be in Thursday.”

“How close are you?”

“Pretty close. I mean, I have two more major sections to rewrite, but besides that, I’m almost done, really.”

Her jaw tightened, but she nodded, her eyes still angry but now focused on the window instead of on me. “Okay. You’re back on them Friday morning. Take half of the mood stabilizers for a week before going up to your normal dosage.”

I knew the drill. “Yes. I promise.”

“Never again.”

“I promise.” Both of us knew I was lying.

Ollie was sprawled in his crate when I got home. He side-eyed me, letting me know that I’d done him wrong by leaving, and dragged himself up as if he was one hundred years old. He was really good at the guilt trip, aside from the fact that his tail was wagging a million miles an hour.

I worked the latch and he stretched formidably. “Hey, baby. Walkies?”

Now, he dropped the exhausted act and threw himself at me, panting and grinning and dancing around. It took me a while to get his harness over his big head, but he skidded to the door and waited for me to clip on his leash.

Ollie and I started our usual walk, winding a mile and a half around the neighborhood. Most days, I brought earbuds to listen to music or a podcast, but that day I went without, hashing my thirty-third book over in my head. One of the scenes I needed to work on contained some really important foreshadowing, and it was going to take a lot of effort to fix it without screwing up the whole plot. I’d known it was awkward when I submitted it, and my editor, Jace, agreed. I’d memorized her edits and suggestions, so I followed Ollie, deep in thought, not paying a lot of attention to where we were going.