These last eighteen months in New York postcollege had been Molly’s first real exposure to the world of “dating.” And though nothing particularly satisfying had come of it yet—there was only Cameron, the Ph.D. student she’d fallen hard for who’d turned out to be a （self-proclaimed） emotionally unavailable recluse—on her more optimistic days, Molly carried the feeling that, when it came to love, something big was bound to happen to her in this city.
She didn’t think of herself as picky, but her friends told her she was. Everly pointed out that she liked only smart guys, which was true, but Molly thought that was a reasonable attribute to seek. Nina didn’t always seem to care about intelligence in the men she dated, but Everly’s girlfriend—a graphic designer named Sage, whom she’d met online—was sharp as a tack. And Liz; well, Liz was in another category altogether, because she’d never been single, not for more than a minute. She’d jumped straight from her long-term high school boyfriend to her college—and current—boyfriend, Zander, whom she’d been with for five years now. According to Liz, they’d be married by the time she was twenty-eight. At twenty-three, that still felt a lifetime away.
Molly’s actual problem, she knew, was her fragile trust in men. She’d been eight the day her father tossed his bags into the back of the station wagon and drove away, a memory she carried with her, the defining image of her childhood. The dreary March afternoon that Darby called and told her there was another girl in the picture, Molly felt a range of crushing emotions, but shock wasn’t one of them. At the same time tears dripped down her face, Molly had wanted to laugh at the strange realization that she wasn’t surprised. Men were going to leave her. The darkness in her had been waiting for this.
“You really don’t think I’ve had a relationship like this before?” Molly probed her friends.
“Sorry, but no.” Nina shrugged.
“Even with Darby?”
“Ugh, especially with Darby.” Liz scrunched her nose. “I know he broke your heart, but he was such a worm.”
“What we mean,” Nina said, giving Liz a pointed look, “is that all those guys—except for Kevin, I guess—made you feel bad more often than they made you feel good. That’s why this thing with Jake feels different.”
Molly was falling in love, that much was clear. So hard and fast it would’ve been easy to lose control. But the irony was, with Jake at her side, Molly now felt more in control of her life than she ever had before. Her productivity and motivation had reached an all-time high.
Jake inspired her writing more than any professor at NYU, more than any of the authors she worshipped and reread most fervently. Molly was in awe of Jake’s work ethic and commitment to his craft; it impressed and attracted her on a deep, subliminal level that manifested as influence. Working late into the night in Jake’s apartment on North Tenth Street, Molly liked to imagine them as an artsy couple from the sixties or seventies—Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, perhaps.
By April, Molly had finished her thesis and was already working on fusing the individual stories into a novel. Jake had a connection to a literary agent—a woman he knew through the Lanes—who’d told him she’d be happy to take a look at Molly’s book when it was ready.
Molly’s book, as Jake was always referring to it. The idea of publishing a legitimate novel had once felt like a pipe dream, but because Jake believed it was possible, Molly had begun to believe it could be, too. “Molly’s book is incredible,” he gushed to her friends over drinks at Skinny Dennis. They were out with their significant others, celebrating Nina’s birthday. Molly felt a warm glow spread through her chest at the realization that, for the first time ever, all four of them were in relationships. Good relationships, too.
“Molly’s book?” Liz raised an eyebrow. “If my roommate were writing a book, I think I’d know about it.”
Jake said nothing, and suddenly, the air was charged with a sense of challenge, the way it often seemed to be when Jake and Liz were in the same room. Molly didn’t understand what it was about him that seemed to get under Liz’s skin. Couldn’t her friend just be happy for her? Molly had always supported Liz and Zander.
“I’m connecting the short stories from my thesis to become a novel, hopefully,” Molly explained, swiveling her beer glass. She felt uncomfortable, a twinge of guilt that she’d never shared this with her friends before. Though the majority of her classmates at NYU were aspiring writers, Molly didn’t like to admit she was among them. She’d lied about it on more than one occasion, explaining to her professors and classmates that she’d likely use her degree to teach or pursue a career in publishing, rather than write professionally.