Page 51 of Fangs with Benefits

I hover my pinkie over the enter button, debating how much I want to tell him about this past life of mine. Screw it.

Molly: I got a master’s degree in fiction. It’s actually why I moved to New York in the first place.

Elijah: Molly June, you contain multitudes.

I exhale a laugh, then glance over the cubicle shoulder to make sure Kenneth has his headphones on. I don’t need him pestering me.

Molly: I knew I shouldn’t have told you my middle name.

Elijah: I like your middle name.

Elijah: Now back to the more important matter at hand, you’ve been withholding a life as a prolific fiction writer from me?

Molly: I never said I was prolific.

A few seconds pass before he starts typing again, then stops for a minute. I chew on a hangnail on my thumb while I wait, then realise what I’m doing and rub a pump of hand sanitiser on my hands. A notification bubble appears next to his name with a new message and I can’t resist looking immediately.

Elijah: I’ve just typed your name into the internet and discovered a short story called ‘Two Bird Brains’. Is that by you or another Molly June Mason?

Molly: Me.

Molly: Don’t read it!

Elijah doesn’t respond, and if I had to guess, he’s already reading it. The story was the first one I ever had published in an online journal, a strange story about a woman who gets a job at a bird sanctuary and falls in love with one of the corvids she’s taking care of. She starts sleeping in the sanctuary and, in the end, turns into a bird herself.

The story is too long, with prose way too purple, but when I wrote it, I was so proud of myself for how much I’d grown since my first stories in high school and my undergrad. I’m still proud of myself, or that version of myself, and stand by the work despite the ways I’d write it differently if I wrote it now.

I suppose that’s the thing about growth; ideally, it’s not supposed to stop. I think we’re supposed to keep looking back at past selves with a wince and a smile, hoping that we’ll keep getting better.

Molly: Fine, you can read it, but if you hate it, I don’t want to hear it.

I busy my hands while I wait for him to respond, the minutes ticking by while my stomach tumbles in that way it always does when I know someone is reading my writing. It’s not something I’ve felt recently, not for a couple years anyway, and the return of it is as exhilarating as it is bothersome.

Elijah: Molly, that was excellent!

Elijah: I was worried the protagonist would end up dead, eyes picked out by her beloved–I like your ending so much more. Hopeful, though bittersweet, leaving behind her family for a life in the bird sanctuary.

Elijah: Are there more? Where can I find them? The Google?

Molly: Thank you, and yes there are a few more on The Google lmao.

Molly: but you don’t have to read them

Elijah: Why would I not read them?

Molly: No minotaurs :(

Elijah: I should’ve known you were a writer. You’re clever.

Elijah: Why don’t you ever talk about it?

Molly: I don’t really write any more. Just for me.

Elijah: For the credenza.

Molly: Yes. For the credenza.

Elijah: Have you heard the bit about hiding light under a bushel?