Hello my Bindery Babes, happy almost August! This summer is going by so fast!! As promised, I'm sharing Chapter 2 of Creative Differences by Annabel Paulsen & Lydia Wang with you in this post.
HAVE YOU PRE-ORDERED THE BOOK YET??? She's available at all major retailers!
This chapter is from the POV of Amelia, the character on the left side of the cover, and was written by Lydia. In the first chapter, we see Ramona's reaction to learning about Amelia agreeing to a Swanboat reunion tour. So what's Amelia's side of the story?
Remember, if you sign up for the Sapph-Lit Producer or BRAND NEW Literary Salon tier, you'll get a physical ARC of Creative Differences shipped to you! Sign up by 8/1 to receive that and our very first book box, which includes Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett!
ENJOY CHAPTER 2!!!!! xoxo nina
***
CHAPTER 2
Los Angeles, CA
It almost always starts the same way: with a nervous, self-deprecating, “Um, excuse me, I’m so sorry.” After all, Mia Wells fans are nothing if not polite. And slightly anxious.
Amelia quickly thanks the barista who’s just handed her two iced lattes, and then turns around. The fan in question is clearly flustered; she must be around fourteen years old. She’s wearing colorful, sparkly eyeshadow and a faded T-shirt that could’ve cost ten dollars or two hundred—it’s hard to tell in this part of Los Angeles.
“Hi!” Amelia says. Her manager, Callie, has praised her more than once for her tone with fans: warm enough to be friendly, but quiet enough not to draw a scene. Amelia smiles, like this girl is just the person she was hoping to run into.
“My name’s Izzy. I’m just, like . . . I’m a huge fan,” she continues, staring at her pristine white sneakers. “I love your music. I heard you come to this coffee shop sometimes, but I didn’t—”
She’s interrupted by a deep, throaty, and very masculine, “That was a fucking gross bathroom.” Declan Ryder, the famed pseudo-dirtbag frontman of indie rock band American Spirit, grabs one of the two drinks before turning his attention to the fan. “Who’s this?”
“Um, I’m Izzy,” the girl says, her eyes bouncing between Amelia and Declan. “I was just telling Mia Wells—I’m sorry, I mean, Mia—can I call you Mia?—I’m such a fan—‘Years from Now’ was the top song on my Spotify Wrapped.”
“Oh! That means so much to me,” Amelia says, putting her free hand over her heart. “And that’s a pretty deep cut too.”
Izzy’s flush grows deeper. “I mean, I loved the whole album.”
Amelia’s about to respond, but Declan beats her to it. “That’s sweet,” he says. His tone is kind and breezy, like he wasn’t just disparaging Blue Bottle’s restroom twenty seconds ago.
“This is Declan,” Amelia says. She usually wouldn’t introduce him to a fan, but now that he’s an active part of the conversation, it somehow feels awkward not to acknowledge him.
Declan lets out a low laugh. “You don’t have to do that, Mia. I think she knows who I am,” he says, lightly elbowing Amelia.
“Oh, of course,” Izzy says, looking affronted. “Declan Ryder. You’re Mia Wells’s boyfriend.”
Amelia internally winces. He probably would’ve preferred Declan Ryder of the MTV VMA-nominated band American Spirit. Or Declan Ryder, whose impeccable bone structure and indie-sleaze-revival fashion sense have inspired thousands of horny fancams. Even Declan Ryder, also a singer probably would have sufficed.
He’s just never liked the “boyfriend” label. In fact, “I just don’t like the ‘boyfriend’ label” is one of several reasons he and Amelia aren’t in an official relationship, despite dating on and off for seven years.
“Mia, we should . . .” Declan nods toward the door. “It was great to meet you, though.”
“Wait!” Izzy’s voice gets somewhat louder. “Can you . . . do you mind taking a picture?”
She hands her iPhone to Declan before he can respond, and now Amelia’s actually wincing. For years, Declan was the one fans recognized. Women frothed at the mouth when he smiled back at them; people asked him to scrawl lyrics on napkins for tattoos, even though his handwriting has always been totally illegible. Scrawny, unshowered men approached him at bars for advice on how to “make it.”
Amelia has always had fans, too, but for a long time, they were quieter. Young queer people liked her, especially bi girls who loved that she got her start in a queer band and also had a rumored relationship with an indie male heartthrob, all the while writing songs about love interests of all genders. And Amelia’s music has always been revered by critics, industry professionals, and music snobs online, even back in her Swanboat days. But she wasn’t approached. She didn’t automatically answer to “Um, excuse me, I’m so sorry” as if someone had specifically called her name.
And then, last year, Amelia dropped her second solo record, Love Languages. Now, she gets approached, and Declan’s still getting used to taking blurry iPhone photos.
Five minutes later, she’s in the passenger seat of her not-boyfriend’s car, tapping her foot along to a Father John Misty song from Declan’s latest playlist. Amelia forces herself to keep staring out at the congested LA traffic, even though part of her itches to turn to face Declan. She wants to tell him about a stupid video she watched last night that sent her down a ridiculous internet rabbit hole, talk about how their mutual friends are doing, argue over whose Spotify mix to play.
Any of those conversation topics, of course, would be a nonstarter. Declan thinks TikTok is stupid, and they don’t have any kind of shared friend group to discuss. As for their car ride soundtrack—well, Declan’s a firm believer in the “my car, my music” rule.
It’s not like they have nothing to discuss. Amelia’s known Declan since they were both nineteen, and he’s always down to complain about systemic issues in the industry, vent about the charts, or bounce around rollout ideas for a new single. In that way, he’s been a consistent and comforting presence in her life, even when their relationship—or lack thereof—is neither of those things.
But lately, more than ever, their moments alone have felt . . . silent. Tense.
Amelia drums her fingertips against the lid of her latte, trying not to feel a little depressed. We’ve both just been busy, she tells herself, and she knows it’s true: Her star seemingly won’t stop rising, and Declan’s been gearing up for a nationwide tour. Still, Amelia catches herself wishing that she had the kind of relationship where thirty minutes of traffic meant thirty blissful minutes of talking and debating and laughing with someone before they dropped her off at her house and smiled into a goodbye kiss.
It’s a laughably unrealistic thing to want. She knows that. As a touring artist who spends more time on the road and in the studio than at her own house, Amelia doesn’t have the time for a traditional romantic relationship, which is why her situation with Declan is perfect. And besides, she knows better than to initiate any kind of conversation right now; encounters with Amelia’s fans put Declan on edge, and she can tell the traffic is only making him testier. His jaw is tight, and he hasn’t looked at her once.
“So, I was thinking about the tour,” Declan finally says as the song fades out. “And how, you know, you were saying how much you’ll miss me.”
For a split second, Amelia expects him to ask for “freedom” while he’s on the road. It wouldn’t be the first time their relationship switched to “off” as one of them focused on their career.
But then, he punctuates the statement with a little smirk. “What if you came with?”
“Came on tour?” Amelia repeats.
“Yeah.” Declan shrugs. “You finished touring Love Languages a while ago now, and I know your summer’s clear. So, why not? You could come out and play a song with me at each show. It would be fucking awesome, right? Your fans love us together.”
There’s a very big, very hypothetical, Swanboat-shaped reason her summer schedule is clear. Amelia’s throat goes dry.
All she can manage now is, “What song?”
He smirks again. “I was thinking ‘She’s All That.’”
Much like Declan himself, American Spirit’s songs aren’t romantic, exactly—they’re about consumerism, ironic masculinity, the commitment issues he inherited from his parents. He sings about drugs, too, even though Declan’s been straight -edge since Amelia first met him back in college. “She’s All That” is one of the rare songs that’s ostensibly about Amelia, but Amelia’s always secretly hated it, mostly because there’s a crude line about the subject’s blow-job prowess in the (admittedly catchy) chorus.
“I don’t know what to say,” Amelia musters. “I mean, I’m really honored that you want me there.”
He takes off his sunglasses, squinting in the sunlight. “This would be really great for me, Mia. You’re having such a moment right now, you know?”
It probably isn’t meant to be an insult; Amelia knows that. Besides, she is having a moment—she has the Spotify stats to back it up. But still, that specific compliment makes her heart sink to her stomach, every time. If Amelia learned anything from Swanboat, it’s that moments always pass.
“I don’t think you need me to help you, though,” Amelia says, trying to buy some time. “You have so many fans. Your tour’s sold out.”
“Well, obviously.” Declan grins as he rolls his eyes. “But I don’t have the Wellies.”
Amelia automatically smiles at the name, even though Declan says it as if he were making fun of a deranged cult. She’s not sure when her fans gave themselves the nickname, but she’s always found it cute. “Listen, Dec. I’d love to come,” she says. “But maybe . . . maybe just for the hometown shows, here in LA? It’s just a little last minute to plan everything, and I’m still doing a lot of press for the album, and—”
She takes a breath to look over at Declan, who’s glaring down at his phone.
“What is it?” she asks, hating the way her voice starts to shake.
“And you’re already going on tour,” he deadpans. “Is that what you were going to say?”
Amelia blanches. “I don’t—”
Declan tosses the phone to her. The traffic lets up, and he drives on as she reads the Rolling Stone headline. “Sad Girls, Get Ready: Five Years After Their Split, a Swanboat Reunion Tour Might Be Happening.”
Fuck. “Okay, this is totally—where did they hear this?” Amelia sputters.
But she just has to scroll down a few paragraphs to find her answer: an embedded Instagram post from Bea. It’s an old, very unflattering photo of the three of them—well, of two out of three of them. Ramona, as usual, looks inaccessibly cool, gazing right at the camera and wearing a cropped tank top that shows off her many tattoos. But Bea’s head is tilted back, and they’re laughing so hard, you can see up their nostrils. Amelia, meanwhile, is wearing no makeup and an old, visibly stained T-shirt, and she’s staring right at Ramona, a shy, small smile on her face that makes current-day Amelia blush.
The photo is captioned, Planning something special . . .
Theoretically, the post could mean anything. But in classic Bea fashion, they immediately responded to a fan comment with MAYBE I’m talking about a tour. . . .
Damn it.
“I just agreed to a few shows,” Amelia promises. “Nothing big.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Declan looks somewhere between pissed and hurt.
“It wasn’t even a sure thing yet,” she says, and it’s the truth. The reunion tour—which really was billed to her as just a few shows—was her label’s idea. They claimed it could help Amelia “keep up the Love Languages momentum this summer,” which felt like an extremely polite way of saying “keep Amelia in the zeitgeist while she struggles to write her third album.”
Even though Amelia generally overthinks everything, she agreed to this idea pretty quickly. Aside from the fact that saying yes would help her buy some time and look agreeable to a lot of very important people, she couldn’t bring herself to be the one to say no.
She may have briefly thought about the possibility of performing with Swanboat again—wondered if it would be a complete disaster, ruminated over what she’d say and how it would go—but she tried to write away her anxieties, figuring there wasn’t a chance in hell her label could pull off a surprise reunion tour.
After all, they’d have to get Ramona on board.
And Ramona fucking hates her guts.
“I was going to tell you,” Amelia says. “Besides, I figured that even if Interscope could make it happen, it wouldn’t really matter. The shows would overlap with your tour, so it’s not like we’d be seeing each other anyway. . . .” She keeps babbling, but her mind is racing. If Bea posted about the tour, does that mean Ramona agreed to it?
Declan, meanwhile, stares straight ahead as he drives, and Amelia feels a knot of guilt. He might not be her boyfriend, but he’s still the closest thing she has to a friend, unless you count her manager or publicist. At this point, many of Amelia’s college friendships have fizzled into acquaintanceships, and she definitely doesn’t have anyone from before that. She hasn’t even talked to her own parents in months.
If only for that reason, the idea of genuinely hurting him makes her feel like she’s swallowed a boxful of rocks. “I’m sorry,” she finally says, earnestly. “I should have told you.”
He just nods, still focusing on the highway.
Amelia wishes she could reach for her own phone, although she’s not sure what she would do. Text Bea, maybe, and ask why the hell they’d announce the tour before sending a heads-up to the defunct Swanboat group chat. Or she could message her team, start planning an official announcement of her own. A part of her—one that’s bigger than it should be, really—wants to message Ramona, if only to clear the air before they officially start touring together again. She’s chatted with Bea here and there, of course, and they usually try to meet up at least once a year. But she hasn’t seen Ramona since the last night of their last tour—their only tour. They stopped talking pretty immediately after that.
“Maybe you can still come to some of my shows. Like if we’re both in the Midwest at the same time, or something,” Declan says. Any trace of visible hurt is gone, replaced with a sour smirk. “I’m probably playing bigger venues, anyway. Our last album was huge, and Swanboat was always more niche.”
In a way, he’s not wrong. Swanboat had a smaller, more cult-like following, and they were never signed to a label. As a result, their tour was an intimate one, planned by a tour manager who just so happened to be a fellow Emerson student and friend of Bea’s. They crashed on acquaintances’ couches and dined at cheap pizza joints until, toward the end of the tour, they made the luxurious switch to budget hotels. They were scrappy, independent. Underdogs. That’s never exactly been Declan.
But what Declan doesn’t acknowledge is that things are different now. The fact that the trio abruptly disintegrated right on the precipice of a major record deal—and the fact that all three immediately went on to build very different solo careers—became a common talking point among music geeks, and definitely among Amelia’s fanbase. And over the past couple of years, as more queer fans have discovered Amelia, Swanboat’s streaming numbers have kept growing too.
“Mia?” Declan prompts.
“Yeah. I’d love to,” she says, forcing a smile. “I mean, if we happen to be in the same place at the same time. That could be great.”
At that, Declan reaches over and squeezes her arm—the briefest of gestures. “Damn. Swanboat,” he says. “I didn’t even know you still kept in touch with those guys.” Before Amelia can respond, Alex G fades into the Strokes, Declan turns the volume up, and the conversation’s over.
***
Once Amelia’s home—freshly changed into a Fleetwood Mac T-shirt and athletic shorts, with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail—she thinks about calling Bea. Instead, she calls her manager.
“I’m so sorry,” Callie says in lieu of a greeting. “Beatrix shouldn’t have announced that on Instagram.”
“Technically, they didn’t announce it,” Amelia says weakly. It’s almost funny: The tour hasn’t even started yet, and she’s already falling back into the habit of smoothing things over, defending Bea’s messy antics. “So . . . this is actually happening?”
“Ramona agreed yesterday,” Callie answers. Apparently, Amelia’s question wasn’t as subtle as she thought.
Amelia’s stomach lurches. She has about a million more questions, mostly ones that begin with “why,” but she knows Callie doesn’t have any insight into Ramona’s thought process. “And it’s just a few shows?”
She lets out a whoosh of a breath before answering, then mutters something Amelia can’t make out.
“I’m sorry?”
“They want to add more dates,” Callie says. “Two months, thirteen cities. The booking agency thinks they can sell it out in days.” When Amelia doesn’t answer, she adds, “This was always a possibility, Mia. There’s a reason we kept your schedule clear.”
Amelia nods, even though Callie can’t see her. She can handle two months on the road with Beatrix, even though their once-close friendship has devolved into “happy birthday” texts, Instagram comments, and the occasional drink whenever Bea happens to make it to California.
But then she thinks of Ramona, and her hands start to itch. Ramona, whose pouty smirk used to turn into a real smile, probably against her will, whenever Amelia complimented one of her lyrics. Ramona, who once insisted on turning their whole van around and driving an extra hour because Amelia accidentally left her lucky charm bracelet at a diner somewhere near San Francisco, and they couldn’t get a hostess on the phone. Ramona, who used to look so focused and intense during their performances that Amelia’s heart would literally start somersaulting during shows. How the hell will she be able to handle two months with her?
No, Amelia immediately corrects herself. Two months without Declan. She feels so horrible about Declan’s taking a back seat in her brain, in fact, that she blurts out, “Would I be able to do a couple of shows with American Spirit? If we happen to be in the same city?”
She can practically see Callie’s eyes grow wider in shock. “Oh, um—really?”
Amelia bites her lip. Callie knows about her whole thing with Declan, obviously. Her label and PR team approve: Every time she’s sneakily photographed with Declan at a coffee shop, they both get a burst of buzz, and their fans love dissecting her lyrics for clues about their relationship. But Amelia’s always gotten the sense that while Callie loves all of her songs about tortured romance and situationships, she’s less ecstatic about Declan himself, whose cocky asshole schtick isn’t always just a schtick.
“If you want that in the contract, we can talk about it,” Callie continues after taking a beat. “But frankly, Amelia, people are excited about you. And Swanboat. It’s sweet that you want to do a favor for your boyfriend, but—”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Amelia interrupts. It’s automatic. It’s a disclaimer, really, one Callie has heard a million times.
“Fine. It’s nice you want to help out a beloved friend,” Callie says, like she’s talking to a sensitive toddler. “But I care about you, Amelia, and your career, and your fans. Sometimes you have to put yourself first.”
“Just if we happen to be in the same place. That’s all I meant,” Amelia says, wishing she hadn’t brought this up. The last thing she wants is to look like the kind of girl who cares more about a guy than her own music. “I just told him I’d ask.”
Once again, she can envision the exact look on Callie’s face, the pity in her eyes. “You can tell him—I mean, you can tell the band—that we’ll try to work something out. And, Mia?”
“Yeah?” Amelia sits down on her green velvet couch and curls her legs under her butt, mentally preparing for whatever’s about to come next.
“This is important,” Callie says after a pause that’s slightly too long for Amelia’s liking. “I don’t want to rush you, or stress you out, but—”
“I know,” Amelia interrupts, sparing Callie from having to finish her sentence. “I need to stay focused.”
Once Amelia wrapped the Love Languages tour, the hints began. Now, several months later, they’ve started to feel less like hints. Her publicity team’s emails have become more blunt, while Callie’s questions about demos have gotten less tepid. Phone calls that once began, “The label is just curious,” have slowly morphed into ones that include the caveat “I really don’t want to put more pressure on you, but . . .”
Amelia knows she should have her next album underway, or at least a vision for it. In the past, she’s never struggled with writer’s block—but in the past, she’s never had to one-up an album that somehow became a massive success. These days, she’s found herself dodging questions from journalists and writing off every seed of an idea as not good enough. Once upon a time, she used to be able to write down a single lyric and then stare at her notebook until an entire song seemed to form around it; now, she’ll write down a metaphor and just imagine dozens of social media posts about how disappointing Mia Wells’s music is these days. Sometimes she finds herself avoiding her guitar, like the instrument itself is judging her.
“We need to give the label an update by the end of the summer, Mia,” Callie says. “I know you’ve been stuck, but maybe this tour will inspire you. You’re going back to your roots, revisiting the first real songs you ever wrote. . . .” She tapers off.
“No, you’re right. This will be good for me,” Amelia responds, unsure whether she’s manifesting a best-case scenario outcome or outright lying. “And I’ll come back with a plan for album three, no problem.”
“You’re sure?” Amelia can hear the skepticism in Callie’s tone.
“Of course. It’s why I’m doing this,” she stresses. “Well, that and the fans, of course. If people are excited . . . that’s what I care about.”
“They’re so excited, Amelia,” Callie says, her voice low and conspiratorial. “So on this note, now that we’re official, there’s a lot we should discuss. Social media strategy, some solo press ops—and you’ll be doing press as a trio, too, of course. . . .”
“Hang on,” Amelia says, jumping up from her seat. “Let me take some notes.”
“That’s my girl,” Callie says, and Amelia can feel it: The conversation’s back on solid ground. Touring, planning, engaging with fans . . . it’s what she does. As she jots down notes about local publications and scheduling, she can feel everything else in her brain—from Declan to Ramona to the looming, omnipresent fear that her moment is just a moment—turning quieter and quieter, until it’s nothing but background music.
