I first met Nora in a secondhand bookstore when we both reached for the last copy of Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” After several minutes of insisting the other person take the book, we wound up co-purchasing it and discussed how we would share it (should one person read the book in its entirety, or would we do a handoff chapter by chapter?) over lunch, which turned into several dates, that appeared to have deeper undertones, ones that could have led to something a little more serious.

The problem, at least on my part, was that I was an open book, while Nora avoided revealing herself to me. That was until one drunken evening when she finally invited me up to her flat and I discovered she was a writer. Curious, I pulled one of her novels off her bookshelf and she tried to snatch it from my hand, claiming that it was a first draft, just broad strokes of the story and she was still fleshing out the details.

I told her not to worry, that I’d turn off my inner critic and view it as a work in progress. But as I skimmed through the book, her entire attitude toward me changed, and I instantly regretted plucking the book off the shelf, because it turned out to be a serial killer story that described in detail how she planned to murder me.

©2021 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys