Episode 4: Rewrite Me, Maybe
977 Words
The morning after pretending to be Chase Navarro’s girlfriend, I found myself in an emotional hangover.
Not because I drank—I hadn’t even touched the wine, just water and three servings of yam cake. But something about the way Chase had looked at me by the fountain last night made it hard to breathe. And harder to write off.
It was the kind of look you couldn’t edit out.
The kind that stayed behind your eyelids long after you closed them.
Which is exactly why I had been staring at my laptop for over thirty minutes, trying to pretend nothing happened, while rewriting his draft with all the emotional detachment of a rock.
Rewrite Chapter Nine to show actual tension, I typed into the margin of his manuscript. Right now, it’s all unresolved flirting and internal screaming. No payoff. Readers deserve more.
I paused.
Then muttered, “Hypocrite,” to myself and slammed the laptop shut.
Jonas, my fellow editor and certified bringer of unsolicited truth, called me just as I was about to drown myself in tea.
“I saw the photo,” he said by way of greeting.
“What photo?” I asked too quickly.
He chuckled. “The one of you and Chase holding hands at the Navarro-Gonzales family reunion. The one that’s now his pinned post on i********: with the caption: ‘Plot twist: love edits you.’”
I groaned. “I hate everything.”
“Oh, I don’t. I’m thriving. I love this arc. Will there be a slow burn? A betrayal? A shocking twist where Max actually falls for the client she pretends to hate?”
“You’re fired from being my conscience.”
“I was never hired,” he said brightly. “But seriously. You okay?”
No. “I’m fine.”
Jonas sighed. “Don’t let a man with charming metaphors and good cheekbones get under your skin.”
Too late.
Later that afternoon, Chase showed up at the publishing office.
Uninvited.
Wearing that same smirk that said I’ve done something chaotic and I’m not even sorry.
“Max! Hey!” he said, breezing in like this was his house and not my workspace.
“You don’t have a meeting,” I said, arms crossed.
“No, but I brought coffee.”
I looked down. Two cups.
My name was written on one in cursive. The other read Fake Boyfriend—Extra Shot of Regret.
“You’re insufferable,” I muttered, taking the cup anyway.
He sat in the guest chair across from my desk, like he lived there.
“So…” he started, drawing patterns on my mouse pad. “About last night.”
I tensed.
“Look,” he said, suddenly more serious, “I know we joked a lot. But I want to say thank you. You didn’t have to go, but you did. And you were amazing. My family adored you.”
“Well,” I said, “I am their favorite fake girlfriend.”
“Top two, at least.”
That earned a laugh, and unfortunately, it cracked open something I didn’t want to deal with.
“I’ve also been thinking,” he continued, eyes flicking to my laptop, “maybe we should co-write something.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“A story. Together. You edit me. I’ll try to write in a way that doesn’t cause you physical pain. We brainstorm a rom-com that flips the usual tropes. Something fresh.”
“You hate outlines.”
“You make them sexy.”
I choked on my coffee.
“I’m just saying,” he added, “we have chemistry. On the page. Maybe off it, too. Don’t you think?”
I stared at him. “You’re confusing real life with fiction.”
He leaned in, voice lower. “Or maybe I’m just tired of hiding in fiction.”
Silence settled between us like heavy fog. Dense. Unspoken.
I cleared my throat. “Fine. Let’s draft something. But don’t flirt during meetings.”
“No promises,” he said, grinning.
That night, we opened a shared Google Doc.
Title: Draft Disaster: A Rom-Com in Real Time
Outline Draft by Max Rivera
• Enemies to Lovers
• Forced Proximity
• A Big Misunderstanding
• Emotional Denial
• A Love Confession in the Rain (Or at the Very Least, During Mild Weather)
Notes by Chase Navarro
• Add at least one fake dating scheme.
• Include witty banter and lots of pining.
• Must contain at least one spontaneous kitchen dance.
• Make the editor character hot and intimidating.
• Name her Max.
I typed:
Stop flirting through bullet points.
He replied:
I’m not flirting. I’m foreshadowing.
The next few days blurred into a strange routine.
We wrote. We edited. We argued about sentence structure. He bought me coffee. I pretended not to look at his hands when he wrote.
Our story grew, chapter by chapter. Fictional characters falling for each other in familiar ways.
Sometimes I forgot where their dialogue ended and ours began.
It was getting dangerous.
Friday night, I found myself staring at my phone, waiting for a message that didn’t come.
He was late to our usual video call. No text. No email.
I shouldn’t have cared.
But when I finally opened our shared document, I saw new text added to the bottom.
Scene: The Hero’s Late Apology
He hadn’t meant to vanish. Not from her screen. Not from her life.
But sometimes, even writers lose the words.
So he typed instead:
If this were a chapter, I’d title it “Rewrite Me.” Because I never expected you to be the plot twist I needed.
And then he waited.
Hoping she’d still be reading.
My chest tightened. I added one line back.
Still reading. Still here.
And that was the most honest thing I’d written all week.
- Writer
