I’ve been driving for two hours now, the white lines of the highway blurring into an endless ribbon beneath my tires. I’m still not entirely sure if I’m running toward the sanctuary of the cabin or fleeing from the chaos of everything else. It’s always a little of both, I suppose, a blend of aspiration and desperation. But I’ve never felt such an urgent need to escape my real life, to shed its skin and step into something new, as I do right now. My deepest desire is to dive headfirst into writing thisbook, to immerse myself so completely that not a single person or event from the outside world can penetrate the walls of my fictional creation.
My anxiety is at an all-time high, and writing is truly the only thing that eases it.
I just hope it works this time. This feeling of urgency, this desperate hope that I can redeem myself, won’t go away unless I reach that cabin and commit myself entirely.
Writer’s block clamped down on me like a suffocating trap that arrived precisely when my name started appearing in articles beyond the literary sphere.
It’s a cruel irony, isn’t it? One person’s dream of widespread recognition can so easily become another’s nightmare.
My phone vibrates in the cup holder, its screen flashing with yet another notification that induces my anxiety. I turned off notifications for social media after the vitriol began. The digital world, once a platform for connection, has become a relentless antagonist, and the only way to silence it is to cut myself off from it.
At least it means when I do get a notification, it’s actually from someone who wants to talktome and notaboutme.
I’m relieved to see Nora’s name as the one flashing across the phone screen. I swipe it with my finger, and the call picks up over the car speakers.
“I hope you’re calling to tell me you have extra Adderall and you’re mailing me some,” I blurt out.
“First of all,” Nora says, “you don’t have ADHD.Ido. And second, you don’t need drugs. You need intense therapy and a good fuck.” She pauses. “From someone who isn’t me. That was a suggestion, not an offer.”
“Darn and darn,” I sigh. “Well, you called at a good time.”
“Why? Another panic attack?”
“I was listening toAnd What Now, Readers?”
“Petra! Goddammit.”
I groan. “Iknow.”
“That’s why I was calling. I wanted you to avoid today’s episode.”
“But you told me exposure therapy would be good. I was exposing.”
“I just meant exposure to going back on social media. Making a post. I didn’t mean you should dig up everyone talking shit about you and listen to it all.Good God.I’m your friend, not Satan.”
“So you listened?”
“I had to turn it off when Allister McFuckity Fuckface came on.”
“Yeah, me too. I pulled over for a bit when I heard he was the guest. Felt like I was about to puke.”
“I’m sorry. You almost to the rental?”
“Ten minutes away.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Nora’s voice crackles through the speaker.
“Is what a good idea? Me, alone in the woods, trying to recover after being digitally flayed by the entire internet?” I keep my eyes on the road. Pines blur past, getting larger and more condensed until they begin to feel like they’re threatening to swallow my car.
“It’s not thewholeinternet,” Nora says. “Just the vocal fringe with a financial agenda.”
“Oh, right. The people making death threats were vetted and just deemed money hungry. I forgot.” I smile despite myself.
“These people don’t know you. They threatened to boil your dog, Petra. You don’t evenhavea dog.”
“Exactly. They’ll probably buy me a new puppy and have it delivered to me with a cute bow and let me fall in love with it andthenboil it.”
The signal fades for a second and her voice becomes robotic, then cuts out altogether. “Goddammit.” I pick my phone up and move it to the dash like that’s somehow going to make for a better signal.
