#selfishficsummer

Kara’s phone buzzed in her pocket just as she was navigating the roundabout in front of the house and turning left toward the road around back where she’d been given explicit instructions to park. Rolling to a stop next to a red pickup truck already parked in front of a long, freshly painted row of dark green stables that looked more pristine than the interiors of most people’s homes, Kara glanced at the new message from her sister.

So, you’re really doing this, huh?

Kara rolled her eyes and smiled at the mirroring of her own thoughts. Alex knew her a bit too well. She glanced around to make sure no one had come to greet her and then tapped out a quick response.

I really am. It’s beautiful and quiet. Perfect place to write.  

An almost instant reply:  It’s not the writing I’m worried about.

Kara bit her lip. To say Alex had been skeptical about Kara’s rambling explanation of Cat’s proposition would be an understatement. According to Alex, it was a  terrible  idea. A distraction. A ridiculous lark. Maybe even a stain on her integrity as a writer. Kara had laughed out loud at that one. Alex had her best interests at heart, sure, but who would know—or care?—where she spent a summer writing the book her boss (now also officially her editor, Kara reminded herself giddily) thought might actually put her on the map, might actually make a difference? The book she’d been working herself up to write ever since she’d closed the chapter on that other long-lost life of hers, the one where people cared very little about what she thought and only about what she could do.

She’s not like the rest of her family, Alex. I know what that’s like better than anyone.

I know. I’m sorry. Is it nice there? 

Kara stepped out of the car as she typed out a quick response, anxious to explore:  It’s gorgeous. Call you tonight? 

Of course. Love you. 

Fifteen years ago, when Kara had come to live with the Danvers as a terrified thirteen-year-old, she’d known, even then, that she had a story to tell. A story about how good deeds are more often punished than not. She didn’t have the words then, but she had them now. After years of flying under the radar, dodging true crime aficionados and reporters looking to make a name for themselves with a tell-all from the last daughter of the Krypton cult, Kara was finally ready to talk. But it would be on her own terms. Her story, in her words. She hadn’t spent the last decade and a half living like a ghost, with a last name that wasn’t hers, only to turn back now. 

Kara shook her head, surveying the stables and barn with her hands on her hips for a moment, before texting Alex a quick heart emoji, pocketing her phone, and turning towards the car’s trunk. Now wasn't the time to reminisce. Before she could speak her truth, she had to finish the book–and wasn't that why she was here? 

That, and Kara didn't have the luxury to take time off just to write. The Danvers' were comfortably middle class, but they weren't wealthy. A steady income was absolutely necessary, and while she loved her work as an editor for Catco Publishing, it was draining, leaving her unable to write more than a paragraph or two when she got home at night. That’s how she’d eked out the first hundred pages, though, paragraph by paragraph. But if she really wanted to finish this book, she needed time. She needed this summer.

So, here was the perfect solution, Kara reminded herself with a smile as she shook off the contagion of Alex's worrying, and popped open the trunk. She pulled two suitcases free and placed them on the packed dirt of the drive. She had a free place to stay for three months on a gorgeous estate. She had a part-time job keeping a stable full of likely very high-end horses exercised. And she'd have the rest of the time to write, free of distractions. Cat had hinted that the enigmatic Lena Luthor–who now owned the manor and all of her family's assets after her murderous brother had been arrested and sentenced, and her mother, no doubt an accomplice, had vanished–probably wouldn't make much an appearance. 

"She's very private," Cat had scoffed, disbelievingly. "I think it's playing a little too perfectly into the 'evil genius in her lair' trope or, you know, the madwoman in the attic, but what do I know? That girl has the perfect makings of a bestseller, and she won't say a word." One of the other junior editors, Nia, later told Kara that Lena had refused no less than a dozen of Cat's offers to publish her memoirs of growing up in a household of megalomaniacal murderers. 

Still, the Grants and Luthors had run in similar circles, and Cat was one of the few allies Lena had left. When Lena had complained she didn't know who of her mother’s staff she could trust, it was Cat who'd made the suggestion of a mutually beneficial, temporary arrangement, just for a few months until Lena could figure out next steps.

Kara had heard all this from Cat’s gossipy assistant, Eve, of course, not the woman herself. Cat had only told her that she had the perfect solution to Kara's "inane" dilemma that she couldn't take an unpaid leave for three months just to write ("I mean, really, Kara, writers have to suffer for their art, and you'll still have health insurance because I'm nothing if not generous, but if you  insist on having a job, I have an idea for you."). So, here she was.

Lena hadn't even come out of the house to greet her, and Kara had been on the property for at least fifteen minutes, so she probably wouldn't be seeing much of the mysterious heiress. And Cat had said Lena wasn't much of a rider, that she was planning to sell the horses at the end of the summer once the hubbub of the trial had, hopefully, died down. So it would be just Kara with her thoughts, the occasional visit from Alex. Riding and writing. It was going to be a good summer.