Chapter 168: The Open Page

The Open Page became profitable much faster than Freya expected.

Not dramatically profitable.

Healthy profitable.

That distinction delighted her accountant.

The store's success came from events rather than ordinary book sales alone. Children's reading mornings filled weekends. Local writers hosted launches. Beyond the Algorithm workshops brought university groups. Sunroom occasionally used the community table for free small-space design clinics.

Freya spent one afternoon each week working from the bookstore.

Readers sometimes recognized her.

Most left her alone.

One elderly woman did not.

She approached Freya with three of her novels stacked in her arms.

"I like your early books better."

Freya blinked.

"Thank you?"

"The new ones are too polished."

Freya laughed.

The woman asked for a signature anyway.

That evening, Freya told Louis.

"She's right."

"About your early books?"

"They were messier. But maybe they had more urgency."

"Because you needed money."

"Exactly."

Louis considered that.

"Do you want to need money again?"

"No."

"Then find another source of urgency."

Freya hated when he made useful points.

She began spending more time observing people at The Open Page.

A teenager secretly writing fantasy stories in a notebook.

A divorced father learning how to braid his daughter's hair from an illustrated guide.

Two elderly men arguing over history books.

A woman reading alone during her lunch break every Tuesday.

Stories were everywhere.

Freya had been trying to write about transmigration because her own experience felt extraordinary.

Perhaps extraordinary was not the only thing worth writing.

She opened the empty document again.

This time, she began with a woman who owned a tiny bookstore and knew everyone else's favorite ending but had no idea what she wanted for herself.

No billionaires.

No conspiracy.

No predictive algorithm.

At least not yet.

Freya wrote two thousand words before realizing the time.

Mia found her still at the bookstore after closing.

"You're smiling."

"Am I?"

"Writer's block?"

"Gone."

The new story had nothing to do with Freya's life on the surface.

Yet underneath, it was entirely about choice.

She understood that now.

Writers could change costumes, settings, and genres.

The questions followed them.

When Louis arrived to take her home, Freya refused to show him the draft.

"Why?"

"Because you'll ask whether the male lead is based on you."

"Is he?"

"No."

"Then he's probably poorly written."

Freya threw a bookmark at him.

The Open Page had given her another beginning.

She suspected Louis would become unbearable about being responsible for it.

She would never tell him.

Freya refused to outline the entire new novel before writing it. She wanted to discover some of the characters as she went. After spending so long fighting a story that claimed to know everyone's ending, allowing fictional people room to surprise her felt appropriate.

Freya made a note of the development and returned to the practical work in front of her. She had learned that a complicated life became manageable only when she separated what she knew, what she suspected, and what she could actually do next. Louis respected that habit, even when his instinct was to solve everything immediately. For now, they chose the next useful step and left the unanswered part where it belonged.

Freya made a note of the development and returned to the practical work in front of her. She had learned that a complicated life became manageable only when she separated what she knew, what she suspected, and what she could actually do next. Louis respected that habit, even when his instinct was to solve everything immediately. For now, they chose the next useful step and left the unanswered part where it belonged.