How to End a Love Story(110)

She thinks of the infinitely different love stories they could have lived instead—and she decides she’ll write them all. She’ll fracture this feeling into a million shards of glass reflecting back the same, unbelievable love story so she can capture it for the days when she needs to read it back to herself and to him—when they’re sad, or tired, or annoyed, or hurting. Or happy, she reminds herself. Loving him is poetry, and she thinks she’ll try her hand at that too.

“This is my favorite part of the day I married you,” Helen says, smiling.

“So far,” Grant agrees, and her heart—that reliable organ—beats loudly in agreement, in want me, love me, have me, keep me, in happilyeverafter.





Acknowledgments




This book was born in the dark and it took a lot of people and a lot of drafts to bring it into the light.

First: Zack Wallnau, my husband and creative soul mate, who I forced to read this book in front of me, every night before we went to sleep, as it was being drafted. Thank you for taking care of me and our cats while I was writing, and thank you to our cats, Canary and Eloise, for being the best lap companions.

Next: Ginger Jiang, my childhood bestie and the first person to read a complete draft. Thank you for telling me I had something worth reading. Thanks also for becoming a doctor and someone I can text for fictional medical inquiries.

My “first real draft” readers: Meghan Fitzmartin, Julie Ganis, Priyanka Mattoo, Whitney Milam, Anna O’Brian, Rosianna Halse Rojas, Rebecca Rosenberg, and Scott Rosenfeld. Your support and encouragement and gentle nudges for clarity helped me find the path to improvement. Shoutout also to Vicki Cheng and Heather Mason for moral support and answers about press tour logistics.

My “go long draft” readers: Alison Falzetta, Tim Hautekiet, and Stephanie Kim Johnson. You read the early extended-cut version of this book and told me what I could lose and what was worth keeping.

In a class of her own: Sarah MacLean. I forced this manuscript in front of your eyeballs via the Romancing the Vote auction and you went so above and beyond in your support and championing of this story and these characters, it makes me want to cry when I think about it too much. I’ve learned so much from reading your books and listening to your romance podcast (Fated Mates! Everyone who tells kissing stories should listen to this!) and I’m so glad a twist of fate (me, bidding frantically on a manuscript critique from you, for democracy and also my own selfish purposes) brought you into my life.

My agent, Taylor Haggerty. You represent a constellation of literary stars, and I continue to be beside myself that you chose to represent me. Thank you for giving me notes that whipped this manuscript into submission shape in ways I never could have done on my own, thank you for being my champion and fairy queen guide in the foreign land of publishing, thank you for knowing exactly how to sell this book.

My editor, Carrie Feron. When I was told you were leaving Avon once we finished this book together, I spent twenty-four hours crying my devastation about it and I don’t think that was me being dramatic at all. You will always be the first editor I ever worked with in this business, and what a mark you’ve left on me as a writer! Thank you for wanting to bring this book into the world with me, and thank you for shaping me into the kind of author I didn’t even know I could be.

The whole team at Avon: First, thank you for making the world a more romantic place through the books you publish. It’s an honor to be published by you. Thanks especially to Asanté Simons, DJ DeSmyter, Jessica Lyons, Ellie Anderson, Alessandra Roche, May Chen, and Liate Stehlik for making me feel welcome and answering my many questions throughout this process. Thanks also to my proofreader, Katie Shepherd, for being patient with my creative commas, and copy editor Stephanie Evans for your keen eye and the truly humbling gift of getting to read my sex scenes described back to me in a style sheet.

Massive thanks to the wildly talented people who turned this docx file of a manuscript into a beautiful object on the shelf: illustrator Alan Dingman, art director Jeanne Lee Reina, interior designer Diahann Sturge, and managing editor Brittani DiMare. You have phenomenal taste in aesthetics and I am so grateful for your time, energy, and creativity. Thanks also to Henry Sene Yee, whose early sketches and hard work on this book gave me a crash course in the art of cover design and helped set us on the right path.

My sensitivity reader, Anna Akana. Thank you first for being a generous friend and kind soul who I’m so lucky to have in my life. Thank you also for reading this book in its thorny ugliness and guiding me to find a version that felt more emotionally honest and in line with the story you knew I was trying to tell. I am so very grateful.

Thank you to Kimberley Atkins, Lily Cooper, and Jo Dickinson at Hodder & Stoughton, Heather Baror-Shapiro at Baror International, Kristin Dwyer, Jessica Brock, and Molly Mitchell at LEO PR, Holly Root and Jasmine Brown at Root Literary, and Kassie King at The Novel Neighbor for steering me along my first publishing journey.

Thank you to my teams at UTA (Jenny Maryasis, Amanda Hymson, Greg Iserson, and Mary Pender) and Kaplan/Perrone (Alex Lerner and Ben Neumann) and my attorney, Phil Klein, for working tirelessly to turn me from a passionate creative artist type into an artist with a career. Your advice and steady guidance over the years is one of the greatest unfair advantages I have.

Thank you to all the smart women who’ve given me good advice over the past decade, and all the smart women who gave them good advice first—this book wouldn’t exist without you.