It was harder than expected, though, to produce something. Everything I wrote felt wrong and got deleted soon after. Only a few passages were good enough to keep. Now, with the date approaching and nothing in mind, it feels like I’m hopelessly back at square one.
“According to the curriculum, I need at least two thousand five hundred.”
“Geez.” He drops his pencil onto the sketchbook, back straightening. “And when is this due?”
“Tomorrow.”
Grant winces. A heavy dread of anxiety slams through my chest. For good measure, I pulled out my agenda when we settled at the window table and double checked my due dates. I hoped that by some miracle I misread the page, and the deadline was some distance away.
Unfortunately, my organizational skills are too honed to misread or miswrite a deadline.
The large frame looming on my left is a distraction from my thoughts.
“You have a lot of shit going on.” Grant scans over the page. “You schedule your shower times?”
His own finger, calloused and defined by the constant movements of his pen or pencil or brush, trace over my weekly schedule. I watch it too closely than I’d ever admit.
“So I know how much study time I have every night, yeah.”
His brows raise, but I don’t feel judged. His expression is less surprise and more concern.
“If I micromanaged my schedule like this, I think I’d always be stressed about what I’m supposed to do next.”
The dark cloud of anxiety expands, growing closer to being unmanageable.
Thinking of the “next” has held me and my achievements together up until this semester. Once I fell behind, my balance faltered, and I’ve been desperately grasping for ahold on my “next” ever since. I can barely stay grounded with the now.
“Don’t admire me too much. I try to anticipate the future but couldn’t even prepare myself for my assignment tomorrow.”
I laugh, but it’s empty and lonely, and Grant’s stare is unamused.
“Do you have your first act with you?” I don’t answer verbally but retrieve the marked-up papers out of my tote. His fingertips, damp from the condensation of his cup, cool my hand when he flails it and the assignment. “You wrote this off an outline youoriginally scrapped. You decided to bring it out of the throwaway pile to make this. You’re capable of writing a second act, too.”
His grip leaves a chill in its wake. It spreads further across my body when the same hand pushes slightly outgrown locks out of his eyes. I force myself to refocus on the assignment and not the flex of his fingers or the sound of his voice.
“There must be something more you thought of. What was written in your outline?” I opt not to answer that verbally, either. Another stack of pages gets yanked out of my bag, and I hand it over for him to read. “Perfect. You planned a montage of hangouts to get them more familiar with each other. What’s the issue?”
“I don’t know.” I can barely admit it. “It started off fine when I was writing. The first scene was so easy. And then it was time for the second and I had nothing.”
I tried to unravel my characters and piece together what I think they would do. I compared my work to romance novels with similar premises and hoped for inspiration that never came. I even asked Kam what he would do, and after being told four different ways to “write what you like”, I decided I’d never ask him for advice again.
I’m stuck. I’ve been stuck. While everyone else in my cohort probably finished their precisely outlined stories, I’m bested by a laser tag scene. It’s almost an insult to them that I’m in the same master’s program.
The gravity of the situation, that the good grade I got must be a fluke considering my idiotic track record, crashes into me.
“Oh my gosh.” My shallow breaths weigh down my shoulders. “I’m so screwed. There’s no hope for me or this degree.”
Panic expands in my chest and I feel lightheaded in the worst way possible.
“Hey.” Grant is blurry in my peripherals. “You’re fine.”
“I’m not fine. It’s not fine.” I turn the first act face down. I can’t look at it when imminent failure is setting in again. The talk with my mom, and with Rosie, scream at my thoughts and highlight my failures. “This was so stupid. I can’t believe I thought I could do this.”
“Liliana, stop.”
Teardrops gather at my waterline. The worst emotions overwhelm me. Embarrassment, disappointment, anxiety. More embarrassment, because I’m going to cry in front of Grant.
At my workplace. Because I set myself up for failure and have no one else to blame. And after realizing the grudge I held over him was a valid mistake made while he was grieving his mother.
