As I’d expected, my top five were all gone by the time I showed back up at the office. Ben and Soren may have kicked up a fuss, but they still, presumably, had places to be and things to do, which was a relief. Janet had probably dropped a lot of subtle and annoying hints that they should leave, too, and I was grateful for that. She was usually the consummate professional, but Janet would have shaken a can of pennies at Stephen King if I told her I needed five minutes to myself.

“How was lunch, sir?” she asked, nibbling at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. God bless her, the woman never left her desk without explicit warning and permission. She couldn’t have been much older than me, if she was older at all, but she had a sort of old-fashioned work ethic that I both respected and needed. She was the glue that held my professional life together.

“It was fine.” I didn’t tell her about the way the waiter had huffily stormed back to my table, gave me a painful apology, and dropped my sandwich unceremoniously in front of me. I also didn’t tell her that Lance joking about the waiter spitting in my food had rendered me so nauseous that I’d struggled to choke everything down, trying to subtly inspect each item before putting it in my mouth. Instead, I just slid her a small box from the nearby bakery. Any time I went out to get food for myself, I picked up a cupcake for Janet – chocolate with vanilla frosting, her favorite – and she always accepted it with a gracious nod and a smile: the perfect amount of thanks. I hung my coat up on the hook behind Janet’s desk and asked, “Any messages?”

“One,” she said, handing me a post-it with her neat scrawl on it. “It’s the new event planner for Fantasticon. He said he really wants to work more closely with you than Devin did.”

I groaned. “Really?” I asked, annoyed. I didn’t have time for this “Did he say why?”

“He did not,” she confirmed, “but it seems like he’s being genuine. He wants to set up a meeting with you to discuss different events the writers could show up to.”

“Oh, that’ll go over like gangbusters,” I said, leaning back against the door to my office, crossing my arms. “Lance was talking about quitting it altogether today.”

“No.” Janet’s soft, round face wore an expression of pure horror. “You didn’t let him?”

“I didn’t. But I don’t think that asking him to do a whole lot more will help. He’s in one of his… slumps.” I didn’t need to specify; she knew exactly what that meant by then. “And I definitely don’t think Soren is going to do anything I ask him to do.” I paused, scuffing the heel of my shoe against the carpet. “Janet, do you think I was a little too… harsh with them earlier?”

“Too harsh? No,” she said. “Perhaps not as diplomatic as you usually are, but it wasn’t anything they didn’t deserve.” She eyed me for a second. “Are you worried you were harsh with Lance?”

I shrugged that off. “Not really. He was just being needlessly self-critical. He was worried that people are starting to think he’s irrelevant, or that they wouldn’t want him at the convention. I think he’s worried about turning into one of those con-hoppers that’s desperate for money and attention. He seems to think that people are going to start questioning why he’s there, which is just ridiculous. I mean, he’s…” I caught a look at the concerned expression on Janet’s face, and my heart seemed to somersault to a stop. “What?”

She shuffled nervously in her seat under my gaze. “Well… It sounds like maybe he could be a little bit right about some of that,” she finally explained. “Ben’s numbers are getting really close to Lance’s, and December’s stuff has really taken off.”

“They’re not past Lance,” I said firmly. I cared about all of my clients and their careers, but my special loyalty to Lance was still unwavering.

“Not yet, no,” she agreed, but I noticed the gentle emphasis on the word “yet.” “Since the guest page for Fantasticon went live, though, I’ve seen a lot of people saying that Lance is coasting off of his fame. I’m not saying they’re right,” she added before I could respond. “This is just what I’ve seen. People are starting to question what Lance is really doing, and they’re definitely questioning his motives. All they ever see from him is a yearly panel at one convention. They’re moving on. He’s just not a public figure anymore."

I frowned. The arms that I had crossed shifted almost imperceptibly, to the point where I was starting to hug myself. I could feel anxiety crawling its way up my throat, and I had to swallow it back down before I could speak. “So the public really is sick of him,” I muttered. Poor Lance.

“I’m sorry,” she said immediately. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. I thought it would hit Twitter and Facebook eventually, but it looks like it’s still mostly on smaller fan sites for right now.”

Facebook and Twitter – I wrinkled my nose at that. I kept an eye on social media out of pure necessity, but it bothered me. I’d started outsourcing the social media combing to whoever I could. I always tried to be one of the first people to hear about any problems that could pop up, but this was beyond me. My dislike for computers made it difficult for me to use them in anything other than the most cursory capacity, and that had put me behind on this one.

Which was, of course, completely unacceptable.

I should have done better.

I asked Janet to borrow her laptop and told her to tell everyone I was out for the next half hour. I locked the door to my office behind me as I went in and settled myself at the desk. I tossed the post-it down on a pile of miscellaneous papers, made room for the laptop, and turned it on. I tried to ignore the buzzing feeling in my fingertips as I started searching for information.

I went to the “guests” page on Fantasticon’s website and started trawling through the comments. I was disappointed to find that Janet had been kind.

“Lance Epstein? Yawn. Get back to me when he actually does something.”

“Why do they keep getting Epstein? No one needs that washed-up loser at the con. I want to see more December Jones!”

“Who cares about Lance Epstein? Lmao”

“This is so sad. :( I wish he would either release something new or just admit he’s not working. I wonder if something’s wrong with him…”

“To anyone who’s worried about Epstein: don’t bother. He’s gotten his money. That’s all he wanted. He just goes to conventions to make himself look like he cares and to sucker more people into reading a series he’s never going to finish. Asshole.”

I sat back in my seat, rubbing at my jaw so hard I could feel the prickling beginnings of my five-o’clock shadow. It took all my self-control not to start typing venomous responses to all of the commenters. These people wanted to destroy him. They’d eat him alive if they got the chance. I wasn’t sure if there was any way for him to make it up to them. They weren’t just privately rolling their eyes at him the way I did when another month came and went with no new work ending up on my desk; they were angry. They felt abandoned. The panel just wasn’t a big enough commitment, a big enough piece of himself, for them to accept. Instead, they were all excitedly moving on.

I realized my grip on my jaw had tightened enough to hurt, and I forced myself to lower my hand. I had to fix this. This went beyond business. This was about saving not just Lance’s reputation, but his pride. If he ever saw or heard any of this, he would be devastated.

Before I knew it, I was constructing a plan. There would be an essay contest and a giveaway. Fans could enter for the chance to win dinner and breakfast with Lance, a night at a five-star hotel, and free tickets to Fantasticon, all expenses paid. It was going to be expensive, sure, but I would pay for it out of my own pocket. It was worth it to try and keep Lance in the public eye.

It would give him something to hold on to.

I wrote everything up without calling Lance. I couldn’t risk telling him how critical this was or why. I posted it to the official website, Facebook, Twitter – everywhere. I knew Lance wasn’t going to see it – he was almost as bad with computers and technology as I was – and if he happened to stumble across it, I would just have to convince him it was for the best without letting him see all the outrage online.

And really, it was for the best. My only other option was to let him fail, and there was no way I was going to be able to bring myself to do that.

After I was done, I dialed the number for the new Fantasticon organizer and left a hurried message saying I would be happy to meet with him and that I was looking forward to getting the writers more involved. That was another lie, but at least it was a helpful one. After that, I had no choice but to begin rifling through the stacks of notes and manuscripts on my desk, working on bits and pieces of things before all of my meetings that afternoon.

I hadn’t realized how long the day had been until I heard a knock at the door. I looked up to see Janet standing there politely, hands clasped behind her back. “Sir,” she said kindly, “I think it’s time for us to get going.”

I looked up at the clock and jumped. How had it already gotten to eight? “Shit,” I muttered. I handed her the laptop and bit my lip. “I’m really sorry, Janet. I’m sure that you have a lot more you need to do tonight. I just lost track of time.”

“Don’t worry, sir. I know that.” She held out a white paper baggie. “I dropped by the pharmacy. I could tell you were getting low. You always get lost in things when you’re low.”

She wasn’t wrong. I had a bad habit of not picking up my prescriptions until I was completely out, meaning I usually had to reduce my dosages to conserve the very little I had left just to keep myself from getting sick. My brain never worked even close to right without my exact dosage being followed to the letter.

“Thank you,” I said, sighing with relief when I felt the heft of the white bag. “I feel a little guilty making you run my errands for me, though. Also, you can always leave before I do, you know.”

“I’m your secretary,” she pointed out. “I knew it was part of the job.”

“Still. Thank you. It means a lot.”

She gave my bicep a light squeeze over my shirt. “I know, sir. And I’m glad.”

I walked Janet to her car in companionable silence; it was dark, and it was the gentlemanly thing to do anyway. We both pretended she was being overly helpful and overprotective when she insisted upon driving me to my car, but the fact was that I was happy she did it. Walking to my car in a dark parking structure in the middle of winter was pretty high on my list of nightmares.

But Janet knew that. Janet knew everything.

I don’t remember exactly when my life became such an open book for her, but it had. She was extremely perceptive, noting every tiny expression on my face as it happened and keeping it filed away for later. She started to understand my likes and dislikes, from what I wanted for lunch to the way I tied my shoelaces. Still, it had been a shock to me when one day she just started talking about her family. She was going to see her brother, she explained. “He needs a little extra help, sometimes,” she’d told me. “Especially when he gets overwhelmed.”

“Overwhelmed?”

She shrugged. “He’s an anxious guy. He’s plenty smart and he could do anything in the world that he set his mind too, but sometimes he needs someone to fall back on. He pushes himself too hard, and when he does that, all his fears get worse.” She met my eyes just for a second, but I could feel the intensity of her stare. “He was diagnosed with OCD a little while ago. It’s been hard for him. He always knew he fixated on stuff, but I think he’s ashamed to call it what it really is.”

A lump swelled in my throat as she spoke. I ducked my head to hide the welling tears in my eyes. “Hm” was all I could say.

“But it’s alright for him to need some help,” she continued. “I know he’ll do just fine. And he knows that all he needs to do is ask and I’ll be there.”

“You’re a good sister,” I’d said, fighting to keep my voice steady.

She shook her head. “No. I just take care of the people who deserve it.”

I don’t know when she figured it out. We didn’t talk about it much after that, and whenever we did, it was in the context of her brother. “He’s been on Prozac for a while,” she told me once, the tone faux-conversational. “It seems to help.” The next day, I made an appointment with my psychiatrist to discuss it. Janet had become a sort of mental health guru for me. She wasn’t just the only person I trusted to pick up my medication; she was the only person I trusted to know about it in the first place.

Except, of course, for my therapist.

Traffic nearly made me late for my appointment, but my therapist, Di, sort of expected that by now. She greeted me with a smile before I could even sit down in the waiting room. “Were your clients keeping you?” she asked.

“No. Not for a lack of trying, though.” I sighed and flopped down onto her worn, scratchy green couch. I never thought about how many people had been touching it or how many germs had dug their way in. Something about Di’s office always felt clean. It was safe. Bad thoughts couldn’t reach me there. “All of them came in today bitching about something, but I managed to shake them to go to lunch with Lance.” I wrinkled my nose, thinking back. “But then Lance was bitching about something.”

“Oh? That’s a surprise,” Di said, folding her hands in her lap. She was a short, older woman with soft, kind features and gestures that reminded me of my very polite, very Catholic grandmother. “I thought he gave you a lot less trouble than the rest of them, work-wise.”

“Usually, yeah. But he wanted to drop his panel.”

“Mm.” The sound was gently disapproving, and I knew it wasn’t directed at me. “What did you tell him?”

“That the fans would be disappointed if he didn’t do it.” I couldn’t help but smirk a little. “And that Ben would take his slot if he really didn’t want it.”

Di chuckled. “Playing dirty, huh?”

“He wanted to be convinced. It was sort of my only option.” I rubbed my hands on my knees, needing a tactile sensation to distract me from the memory of our lunch together, the way the waiter had glared and how I had pawed through my sandwich like a total lunatic.

She observed me calmly. I jumped when she said, “So, what has you so on edge?”

“I’m not,” I lied. When she raised a skeptical eyebrow, I sighed. “It was just… kind of a bad day. I felt… ganged up on. A lot of people needing things from me.” I rubbed my eyes, leaving my fingers pressed against my eyelids, letting colored spots drift through the darkness. Sometimes it made things easier to shut down one of my senses. It helped everything else fall into place.

“You have a very demanding job,” Di said, apparently by way of agreement. “You have a lot of people relying on you, and that’s a trigger for you. It’s okay to feel frustrated or stressed because of it.”

I flinched at the word “trigger.” I hated it. I’d gotten so used to seeing it plastered on alt-right websites and think pieces about how millennials are ruining the world that I was practically allergic to it. I didn’t want to be someone with triggers. I wanted to be tough, completely made of stone.

But I wasn’t. I was far from it.

“I know it’s okay to feel that way,” I grumbled, finally dropping my hands and looking at her, watching the way the lights in the room seemed to fade from pink back to white. “I just don’t want to feel it. I’m thirty. It feels like…” I shook my head. I had no idea how to explain it.

Fortunately, Di did. “You feel like it should be done by now,” she said quietly.

“Yeah. I mean, my parents always said it would get better, that the anxiety would get easier to deal with when I got older. But I don’t know how old I’m supposed to get before that finally kicks in. It’s like every day, there’s something. I guess that with the meds and the therapy, I just expected more. The doctor said that the Prozac was supposed to help, but I’m at the maximum dosage and nothing has changed. The Klonopin and Xanax keep me from having nightmares and take the edge off a little bit, but everything is still there. The only way I can sleep is with the Sonata. It’s just –“

Di reached out a hand and gently touched my wrist. I looked down and saw that I’d been scratching at the skin on the inside of my forearm. “Oh, shit,” I muttered. “I didn’t realize I was doing it.”

“I know,” she said, pulling back with a little pat. “Maybe you should talk to the doctors about a different medication?”

“No,” I said stubbornly. “I’m tired of hopping from med to med. None of them help.” I felt myself starting to scratch again and pulled my sleeve down, trying to cover my reddening skin. It was an unconscious habit – dermatillomania, Di had called it. “I don’t think any of them can help. I think this is just who I am.”

“You’re not your mental illness, Damien.”

I snorted. “Yeah, okay.” I shook my head and looked up at her, finally making eye contact. She didn’t seem bothered by my dismissal. It was nice to be able to be frustrated in front of someone. “I hear that all the time, you know. ‘You’re not your illnesses.’ But maybe I am. Maybe some of us are the things that make us sick. These thoughts are coming from my brain. They’re controlling all my actions. They shape how I see the world. How is that not me?”

She tilted her head, examining me closely. “Okay, fair enough,” she said. “You are a product of your experiences, and your experiences include severe OCD.” I bristled at the word ‘severe,’ but I didn’t argue. “Even so, your thoughts can be overcome. Those aren’t from you. Those are your illness.”

It felt awfully easy for her to say. It was another thing altogether to live. She wasn’t living with the barrage of scary, even violent, thoughts. My stomach turned when I thought of the restaurant. I remembered my hand bumping the steak knife at my side and the flurry of nerves something so simple had stirred up in me. I don’t know how I kept it from showing on my face, but no one had noticed. They never did. My intrusive thoughts only intruded on me.

That should have been comforting, but it wasn’t. It just made me feel even more trapped.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said, trying to change the too-uncomfortable subject. “I’ve just got a lot on my plate right now with Fantasticon coming up. I have a lot I still need to do for it. And now some guy who’s helping to plan it wants to get me involved. Apparently he wants to get writers and other creators ‘more involved.’”

“Hm. And how’s that going to work? Do you really think they’ll go for it?”

“They will,” I said, cold and determined.

She pursed her lips. “You don’t control them, Damien,” she reminded me. “As much as you may want to, you don’t.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, but I couldn’t help but smile when I said, “Want to bet?”