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MARCH.

It's pretty small," I say, before whispering, "What is that smell?"

Seth takes a dramatic sniff of the air. "Eau de boiled broccoli and something pine-like? Are you getting the same notes?"

I pull back the bedroom window drapes and look into a parking lot.

"I miss California. And the ocean," I say. And I do-enough that it's almost a physical pain. Wrapping my arms around myself, I hold on tight. Try to keep it together, because there are far worse things than having to move back home and put your plans on hold.

"There are worse things, Rowan," I whisper, tracing the frost patterns on the windowpane.

"What's that?" Seth asks. He's on the other side of the bedroom, opening the side table drawer, being nosy.

I shake my head. "I think it's cabbage."

When Seth gives me a confused look, I add, "The smell. It's cooked cabbage."

It's still cold here, and a recent light dusting of snow has left patches of white on the black asphalt of the complex's parking lot. Our old place in LA didn't exactly have a stellar view-it was mostly other buildings and side streets-but if you pressed yourself in just the right way against the wall and looked to the far right, you could catch a blue sliver of water. Technically it was an ocean view.

Seth sits on the bed, bouncing a few times, and waggles his eyebrows at me as the mattress squeaks and the headboard hits the wall behind it. "Plenty of give. This could be fun, right?"

"I wonder how many other people have had 'fun' on that bed?"

"Good point," Seth says. "Probably want to get a new mattress." But we won't, because we can't afford it.

He comes behind me and wraps an arm around my waist. With his other hand he points out the window at a small cluster of trees edging the parking lot. "At least we have a hint of nature?"

I lean my head against his chest and hold back tears.

"Hey, hey," Seth says, turning me toward him and tucking a finger under my chin. He kisses the tip of my nose. "This is temporary. A few months. Tops."

I nod. "Temporary. I know."

Seth pulls the drapes back farther, letting a wider swath of sunlight into the room. "And the light in here is good. Great, actually." He grins at me. "That'll make filming easier."

I tense, as filming is the last thing I want to think about right now.

"True," I reply quietly. Without enthusiasm. But he doesn't seem to notice-has conveniently never noticed, or at least paid much attention to, my animosity toward his burgeoning YouTube channel, which has occupied much of his time and focus of late. Or maybe it's that I haven't explicitly told him how I feel, so he's innocently clueless versus purposefully ignorant. Either way, it's a sore spot between us, at least from my perspective.


Seth Wright and I met in 2017 in LA (he was doing his MFA; I was finishing film school), and we moved in together after our third date, which remains one of the most spontaneous things I have ever done. While I eschew the love-at-first-sight trope, it’s hard for me to explain what happened with Seth any other way.

We met at a party hosted by one of my classmates, Tate Alton, whose mother was a moderately famous actor and had a stunner of a beach house. Tate introduced us, and as I shook Seth's hand, I looked into his dark eyes, framed by the most incredible lashes I had ever seen, and my world flipped upside down. We drank too much sangria and sat on the beach in the dark, alternating between making out and testing each other on ridiculous feats of strength and endurance, like who could hold the longest handstand (me) and who could skip a rock the farthest into the ocean (Seth, though we really couldn't see well enough to be sure). Our second date was more traditional, with dinner at a restaurant and then a long beach walk where I held Seth's hand in one of mine and my sandals in the other. He was bright and refreshing-different from the other guys I'd met in LA-like a big squeeze of lemon juice in a glass of water.

I was already smitten, but when he invited me to an escape room for our third date, all the clues leading to a key to his apartment and an earnest love letter written by hand, I couldn't imagine saying anything other than "yes" to his offer of moving in. Sure, my lease was up and it made good financial sense to have a roommate, but it was much simpler than any of that: I was head over heels in love.

Times weren't easy for two creatives without secure jobs, but we hustled and limped along all right until the pandemic hit. Then I lost my server job and Seth his personal trainer one, and sooner than either of us expected we ran out of money and prospects. With Hollywood shut down and no one looking at scripts-particularly from a writer with zero credits-I could no longer borrow against hope. Going "home" to Ann Arbor, where I grew up, seemed the best (or only) option.

Despite the setback, we promised to continue chasing our dreams-me with my screenplay, Seth with his novel. But since leaving LA a few weeks ago, I've been stagnant, while Seth's motivation has grown . . . just not for his manuscript, which remains unopened. He's become single-minded about his nearly two-year-old YouTube channel, TheWrightStory, which started as a place to capture the daily struggles of an author trying to write the next great American novel. He read some article about how much money could be made on YouTube and became fixated on this solving our pandemic-induced financial woes.

Initially, I didn't mind his shift in focus from author to YouTube content creator. I even did the odd video with him because, as he maintained, I was a big part of his story. Plus, between the grinding hustle to pay our bills and his frustrations with his unfinished book, it was nice to see him enthusiastic and excited about something again. No one was in a "good" mood in those days, as the pandemic raged on and life felt like one struggle after another, but Seth was particularly dark-minded. I'd call it more of a deep apathy than a depression, but it scared the hell out of me. My carefree, creative, and ambitious boyfriend-who had golden-retriever-level positivity-became sullen and disconnected. At least until TheWrightStory took hold of him.

I personally didn't get the appeal, either for creators or their audiences, but figured it was merely a happy distraction for Seth. A hobby until he got his feet back under him. I was wrong.

As his growing number of subscribers asked for more couple-themed content, and our videos together performed better than his alone, I was soon participating in near-daily videos. We did day-in-the-life shoots of our morning routine (curated, naturally)-journaling and stretching, followed by a breakfast of matcha lattes and poached eggs, all before nine a.m. and the start of the "workday." There were craft-related videos, with Seth showing off his color-coded manuscript system (embellished, as he only ever used yellow tabs, and even then not consistently), and me sharing tips for a screenplay's three-act structure.

Sometimes we'd take the camera with us to the grocery store (the grocery store!) for a healthy-dinner video, or to the park to show how a bench and some monkey bars are all you need for a great workout. And very occasionally there would be a prank video, the most ridiculous trend, in my view. Like on Thanksgiving, while carving the giant turkey I'd bought with our bloated credit card, Seth pretended to slice open his hand on camera. I ran into the room at the gruesome sight of fake blood everywhere and a wailing Seth, and played the part of panicked girlfriend to a tee . . . despite the fact that the entire thing was scripted for viewers' enjoyment.

So while I don't fully understand YouTube's allure for Seth after he worked his ass off for his MFA, it turns out he wasn't wrong: The channel did get traction, and it started to replenish our bank account. In a sea of content, TheWrightStory found a loyal audience, perhaps more quickly than he might have under different circumstances, as many were housebound and bored. Seth became effervescent and cheerful again. Much-coveted advertising revenue became more of a stream than a trickle, though still not enough to fully support us. When the channel breezed past 100,000 subscribers after its first six months, Seth put his novel aside "temporarily" to focus on the goal of acquiring 500,000 subscribers by year-end.

"Think of the money we'll be able to generate, Rowan. It will be worth it. I promise."

I wanted to believe him. I chose to believe in him.

In the end, even with nearly 600,000 subscribers, our mountain of debt won, and though we left our futon and single house plant behind, YouTube came with us to Ann Arbor.


Seth tugs me away from the window and pushes me gently onto the bed, crawling on top of me. I laugh and half-heartedly push him away.

"Seth! Diane is, like, right outside," I hiss as he bounces us on the bed, the springs squeaking loudly.

"Diane did tell us to take our time. Get a 'feel' for the place before we commit." Seth nuzzles into my neck just as there's a knock on the bedroom door.

Realtor Diane-my parents' friend, and so doing them (and me) a favor-opens the bedroom door. She looks the part-a navy skirt and blazer, crisp white shirt underneath, with a folder in her French-manicured hands and a bright smile on her face-and is somewhere between the ages of forty and sixty. She's effortlessly professional. Confident. I want to ask if she loves her work, if this is her "dream" career.

Diane is unfazed finding us in such a position. "So? What do you think?" she asks, glancing around the bedroom with its "great light" and squeaky queen bed, with two small nightstands that look like they've been put together with an Allen key, and a cheaply framed print of Gustav Klimt's The Kiss above the headboard. Everything feels muted and dated, but it's within our budget and offers month-to-month rental terms. My parents offered for us stay with them, but that would have kicked the last shred of fighting spirit out of me.

Seth gives me a questioning look, and I nod.

"We'll take it," he says.

"Fantastic," Diane replies. "I'll get my office to start the paperwork." She puts her hand on the doorknob, then turns back to us. "And I'll give you two a minute. No rush."

"Thanks, Diane!" Seth shouts out, to the now-closed bedroom door. He kisses me deeply.

"Just a few months, until we can get back on our feet. It's going to be okay, Rowan."

"And if it's not, and I have to live in the same city as my parents, in an apartment that smells like boiled cabbage until the day I die, at least we'll be together, right?"

Seth nods, gently sweeping a stray hair from my cheek before kissing it. "Always."

I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him tighter to me. It's hard to breathe with him on top of me, but I don't care. I used to say I wanted to unzip his chest and crawl inside to be as close to him as possible. I don't say it out loud now, but I feel it nonetheless.

APRIL.

Your dad and I need your list, honey."

"Mom, I already told you. I don't need anything." I know my parents will likely slip money into a card, for something "extra" like they always do, no matter what I put on a birthday list.

Tomorrow is my thirtieth, and while everyone keeps trying to make it a big deal, my main wish is for it to pass quietly. I'm dreading it, actually. Because this is the birthday for having either representation for my work, or my script in the hands of someone who has the ability to change my life. And here I am, on my last day of being twenty-nine, no closer than I was when I set the goal two years ago.

I agreed to a dinner at a local Italian restaurant with my parents and sisters-who are married, with two children each-but that's it as far as celebrations go. My sisters and I aren't particularly close, the way it sometimes happens when you're the baby of the family and there's a stretch of five years between you and your next oldest sibling (Rachel). Eight between me and the eldest (Lily). When Lily left for college, I hadn't even hit puberty. Knobby knees and a flat chest and still putting lost teeth under my pillow for my parents to play the tooth fairy, even though I knew by then it was a hoax.

My mom sighs, and I hear my dad shout out, "If she doesn't tell us what she wants, I'll just have to wear the T-shirt to dinner."

Despite my melancholy, I laugh. It's one of my family's running jokes, the T-shirt that started a birthday trend. When Lily turned thirteen, she told my parents in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome at her sleepover party . . . which was taking place at our house. When it was time for cake, my dad unzipped his sweater and revealed a T-shirt underneath that read "Lily's Dad & Best Friend" in purple-glitter block letters on the front. He made Lily take photos with him in front of the cake, her friends giggling and clearly grateful this wasn't their party, or their dad. Lily never demanded my parents disappear again, nor did Rachel or I when our birthday parties came around. My dad also had shirts made with my name and Rachel's, and on every birthday celebrated since he has pulled out the appropriately named shirt for pictures.

"Tell him the T-shirt is the only gift I need," I say.