Preview: “On Failure”

We moved into the apartment in November, just a few months after our wedding. The apartment was in the attic of a blue Victorian house in Forest Hills, with views of treetops and, in the distance, the downtown skyline. The kitchen was bare with an old stove and a smaller than average refrigerator, but there was an oversized closet we could use as a library and a skylight in the bathroom. The landlord—an elderly woman who answered the door in hair curlers and padded around her rooms in slippers—lived on the first and second floors. 

It was the perfect place to start our new life. 

Kyle was starting his career as a massage therapist. I had finished my first manuscript and delivered it to my agent a month before our wedding. With our new apartment, rings shining on our fingers, and a manuscript ready for submissions, I was on the verge of the life I had always dreamed of. I had no idea that, within a year, I would not want to be a writer anymore.

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