A Novel Love Story

by Ashley Poston

The bar was small, lit with neon signs promising Paradise by the Dash(Bud) Lite, and Smooth Rumming.

10/10 names

This was Benji.

I've been waiting

The logo of the restaurant, Grumpy Possum Café, was on the window, a cartoon possum holding both a pancake and a waffle, looking ready to bite the head off a person.

I want to go to there

and if I was lucky, there would be a really good food truck there selling fajitas.”

:')

Anders could get his fictional cell service anywhere.

Hes real you dummy

“Fictional men can’t hold them,” he added, and my heart lodged in my throat. “There’s someone for you. Someone real.”

Is Anders based on someone Rachel Flowers was engaged to? Before her death? Is the real A.S. in NY and still a book critic?

Shit. I squeezed my eyes closed. “I just mean…I’m not supposed to be here. And you have someone else—someone you’re supposed to—”

Or maybe he is someone Rachel Flowers was engaged to and after she died somehow ended up on Eloraton. I'm just spitballing.

His fiancée hadn’t been his ex, his fiancée was…she was…

I knew it

“You’re…the person she dedicated all of her books to. She was your fiancée.” “She was,” he said, “once upon a time.”

:(

Love—true love—always came back.