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felt a primal need to know more.
    “Why did you want to be a writer?” she asked.
    “After the death of a friend of mine, I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted. All I knew was I was sick of the life I had. I no longer wanted to hide in dark corners, dealing to trash like my mother. I was eighteen. I had already done time in the juvenile detention center, several times over. And, already at eighteen, I was just…tired.” His eyes met hers, the moonlight playing shadows on his face. “I was sick of being in and out of homes, tired of running from the police, of nights spent on the streets. In short, I took a trip that changed my life.” He looked out a window. “While I was traveling, I heard something about how, as a form of therapy, they recommend writing things down, and everything I had been holding in for so long was eating me alive, destroying me from the inside out. So, I started writing. But once I started, the truth of everything was too hard.”  He paused. “Then I had an idea. What if I wrote fiction? What if I took my life—everything I went through, the people I met—and changed them slightly? What if I wrote stories? So, I turned the stories into fiction, changing little things.” His eyes went blank, creasing at the corners, while his expression took on a faraway look as he stared past her into the darkness.
    She couldn’t imagine what he thought about when he grew silent—the horrors he had experienced in his childhood, no doubt. The urge to reach out and smooth the lines around his eyes plagued Andi until her fingers twitched, and she forced her hands into clenched fists.
    When he shifted his gaze to her, the lines smoothed. “Why do you want to write?” he asked.
    “I’m afraid my reasons aren’t so inspiring.”
    “No reason is a bad one.”
    Andi shook her head, wondering how she could explain it to him so he’d understand. She had no past she was running from, no pain to heal.
    She shrugged. “It’s who I am. I don’t know how else to explain it, except that when I write something good and my words come to life, it’s like flying. There’s nothing in the world that compares to having your story and the people you create come to life.” Smiling, she added, “When I was a kid, I used to sit in front of my bedroom mirror. I’d imagine myself as someone else, and I’d have conversations with fictional characters. Making up people and stories felt natural. I’ve wanted to be a writer from the moment I read my first book. I don’t know any way to explain it other than to say I just know this is what I’m meant to do, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
    “There’s nothing uninspiring in that.”
    “I know I’ll be successful. I have to be. There is no other option.”
    “The way you are right now, it’s so different from how I was when I started out. I was angry, broken. Wanting to be a writer was driven more by need than actual desire. I was filled with demons that needed a way out. And then I sort of fell into a publishing deal. I feel like the biggest jackass when I say that but it’s true. I happened to be in a city at the right time. They were having a writer’s convention. Since I had been writing so much, I went, curious what it would be all about. I met an agent and the rest is history. But your ambition, your determination … I have those things now because I became that way after time, but it’s something I lacked in those early years. Maybe that’s why I feel drawn to it now. To you. You’re everything I wasn’t back then but wanted to be.”
    His eyes met hers. She caught her breath but couldn’t glance away, so she held his gaze and watched him as he spoke. “My writing healed me. Then, when all the stories about me broke and people started coming forward, I felt exposed. After that passed, all I felt was loss. Which brought me here. Well, that and hiding from the press. But I think you working for me would help me.”
    He leaned closer