Verity

by Colleen Hoover

Here, I’m invisible. Unimportant. Manhattan is too crowded to give a shit about me, and I love her for it.

Omg I’m not like other girls, I wanna be ~invisible~

can tell by his reaction that he isn’t one of the more hardened New Yorkers. He might live here now, but wherever he’s from, it’s a place that didn’t completely beat the empathy out of him.

But how do you know that, what in his expression tells you that :/

the small of my back as he leads me in that direction.

Ugh I hate when people do that, leave the SMALL OF MY BACK ALONE DUDE

I attempt to dissect the layers of his cryptic reply.

Bruh just asked, the worst is you get told no bro, I don’t wanna talk about it

Chartreuse.

So like a lime color, could of just said that but you had me search it up like he worth all that effort

Most people come to New York to be discovered. The rest of us come here to hide.

Is that true New Yorkers? I need some NY friends to confirm

Lo for short would be a cool nickname

“You said you’ve seen worse. What have you seen?”

Finally you asked

then faces me.

Before facing me

“I pulled my eight-year-old daughter’s body out of a lake five months ago.”

OH FUCK LITERALLY CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH 👀

It’s what you do when you’ve experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you…people worse off than you…and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you.

Trauma bonding??

an ant as it crawled across my big toe.

Girl what?!

It’s hard to say why I have such a deeply crippling aversion to other humans,

I’m not like other ants lmao

She kept me fairly secluded from people outside of school because she was afraid of what I might be capable of during my many sleepwalking episodes.

HHUUUUHHH?!!!

“There aren’t many Lowens in the world. I’m sure I can figure out which books you’ve written.”

True

I don’t know him at all, nor do I know how he relates to the meeting I’m about to have, but even without being privy to any details of what’s happening this morning, I can’t help but like the guy.

Girl you barely know him…it’s pretty privilege isn’t it?

He leans in and kisses me on the cheek. I stiffen.

First of all, ew. Second of all, ew.

“You look terrible.” I say it because he doesn’t look terrible. He never does, and he knows it. “You look refreshed and ravishing.” He says it because I never look refreshed and ravishing.

Wow…so creative

Resting Bored Face.

Ha.ha.so.funny. (Lame joke…ngl I’d probably say this so I admit, I can be lame sometimes too)

eating, to turning her over in her bed.

I was waiting for her to say shitting too 🤣

People who are afraid of the outdoors I suppose

“I know. I’ll be fine.” I don’t want to talk about my financial issues with Corey. With anyone.

Girl please get a different agent, this is such a bad situation

What isn’t the agent-client standard would be the six months we spent in a relationship and the two years of sex that followed our breakup.

No shit Sherlock

But the reason our actual relationship was so short-lived is because he was in love with another woman.

Hot damn

Never mind that the other woman in our relationship was also me.

So he fell for the fantasy character of who you were before getting with you and after some time, he realized he didn’t want be with you anymore…once again, hot damn

He assumed my character’s personality was a close reflection of my own, when in fact, I couldn’t be more opposite from her.

That’s terrible

By Saturday night, we had fucked three times.

That’s wild and totally unprofessional mister agent man, bad bad

I was difficult. An emotionally challenging puzzle he wasn’t up for solving. Which was fine. I wasn’t in the mood to be solved.

I’m not like other girls

As difficult as it was being in a relationship with him, it is surprisingly easy being his client. It’s why I chose not to switch agencies after our breakup, because he’s been loyal and unbiased when it comes to my career.

Girl I guess

It’s best if I just sit back and listen.

Girl stand up

But he’s good in bed, like most assholes.

Now that’s a lie

Verity Crawford,”

ITS HER FUCKING NAME??!!!

I’m not sure if it’s because of what happened to his wife, or what he told me in the bathroom earlier—that his daughter passed away several months ago.

Literally all of the above

“I grew up in Richmond,” I say. “Our next-door neighbor lost all three members of his family in less than two years. His son died in combat. His wife died six months later of cancer. Then his daughter died in a car wreck.”

Why was I able to predict the deaths omg

“He still lives in the same town. He remarried a few years later. Has a few stepkids and grandchildren.”

Girl you could have just said I don’t know

“The lawyer is lowballing you. Tell your agent to ask for half a million. Tell them you’ll do it with no press, under a pen name, with an ironclad non-disclosure. That way, whatever it is you’re trying to hide can stay hidden.”

Bruh why don’t you do it since you wanna make all my decisions now

“I don’t like him,” Corey says, plopping down in his seat. “What did he say to you?”

Bro but why? Give me a reason otherwise this just sounds forced for unnecessary drama (doesn’t even matter cause corey basically disappears from the rest of the book)

I had a boyfriend in my early twenties named Amos, who liked being choked.

Way to start a chapter lmao

Would he have moved on to even more dangerous sexual perversions?

Girl chill, it’s just a kink, most people have them and most understand them. Just be normal

In your early twenties, vanilla sex should satisfy a person without the need to introduce fetishes so early on in a relationship.

Applies to some, not to many

I could still be with Amos.

What a way to gain perspective 🙄

“The man lost two daughters. Then his wife gets injured in a car wreck. I’m not sure I’m all that comfortable with you being in his home.”

You scared he is going to kill her, now that would be an interesting ending like bam, you died and are now a ghost haunting him

“How about you worry about the contractual details, Corey? I’ll worry about the research and writing part of it.”

Spitting facts, mind your business side of things mister agent man

Looking out for me? He knew my mother was dying, and he hasn’t checked in with me in two months. He’s not looking out for me. He’s an ex-boyfriend who thought he was going to get laid tonight, but instead, was quietly rejected right before finding out I’ll be staying in another man’s home. He’s disguising his jealousy as concern.

This dude is just overstepping some professional boundaries, like chill bro, let me do my job and you do yours

Agent and author.

And thank goodness for that

Or maybe I could have used the time to mentally prep myself for all the reasons I’m going to stay far away from Jeremy Crawford while I’m in his home.

Yeah that’s not happening

But instead of doing any of that, I chose to listen to the audiobook of the first novel in Verity Crawford’s series.

Smart, I would do that too. Get a feel for the vibes

Who am I kidding? Every time one of Verity’s novels releases, it hits number one on the Times.

This is what Colleen Hoover wants

1) Start the book and hate everything I write. 2) Keep writing the book despite hating everything I write. 3) Finish the book and pretend I’m happy with it.

This is so sad

I’m the awkward writer who posts a picture of my book and says, “It’s an okay book. There are words in it. Read it if you want.”

I would love to see some unironic evidence of this because I have never seen this before