“That’s what I thought.” Scott leans back. “When I was blocked, I told myself it was about craft. Technique. I’d lost my edge, or the industry had changed, or I just needed the right inspiration.” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t any of that.”
“What was it?”
“Fear.” He says the word simply, like it’s obvious. “I’d spent years writing about emotions I wasn’tactually letting myself feel. I built walls so thick I couldn’t access anything real anymore. The words stopped coming because I’d stopped letting anything in.”
I don’t say anything.
“The block wasn’t a craft problem,” he continues. “It was a protection problem. I’d gotten so good at keeping myself safe that I’d shut down completely. You can’t write about feelings you won’t let yourself have.”
“So what broke it?”
His expression shifts. Softens. “Someone who saw through the walls. Someone who made it scarier to stay closed off than to let her in.”
“Jessica.”
“Jessica.” He almost smiles. “She didn’t fix me. That’s not how it works. But she made me want to try. To stop hiding. To write something true instead of something safe.”
I think about Delilah in the coffee shop. The way she looked at me after she spilled her drink. The concern in her voice when she asked if I was still blocked.
“What if the person who makes you feel things is also the person who destroyed you the last time you letthem in?”
Scott doesn’t flinch. “Then you have to decide what scares you more—getting hurt again, or spending the rest of your life wondering what if.”
We sit in silence for a minute. Outside, the ocean crashes. Steady and relentless, the way it’s always been.
“She left me twice,” I finally say. “Delilah. The first time we were kids. The second time—” I shake my head. “I thought it was real. I thought she was staying. And then she just...wasn’t.”
“Did she say why?”
“No. That’s the thing. She just left. No explanation. No goodbye. Just gone.” I stare at the ceiling. “I poured all of it into my music. Every song on my first three albums is about her. The critics called it ‘raw’ and ‘authentic.’ They had no idea I was just bleeding onto the page because I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve been writing about losing her for ten years, and I’ve got nothing left.” I look at him. “The wound isn’t fresh anymore. It’s just...scar tissue. I can’t access it. I can’t feel it. I spent so long protecting myself from that kind of pain that I think I forgot how to feel anything at all.”
Scott nods slowly. “That’s the trap. You buildwalls to survive, and then the walls become the problem.”
“So what’s the solution? Tear them down? Let her hurt me again?”
“The solution is to stop writing around her and start writing to her.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“You’ve been processing your feelings about Delilah through your music for a decade. But you’ve never actually talked to her. Never asked why she left. Never told her what it did to you.” He leans forward. “The block isn’t because you’ve run out of things to say. It’s because you’ve been saying them to the wrong audience.”
“I can’t just?—”
“I’m not saying pour your heart out tomorrow. I’m saying stop avoiding her. Stop treating every interaction like a threat. You’re here for two months, and she’s doing the wedding flowers. You’re going to see her constantly.” He shrugs. “So see her. Talk to her. Let yourself feel something instead of running from it.”
“What if she runs again?”
“Then at least you’ll know. And you can finally write the ending instead of being stuck in the middle of a story that never gotfinished.”
I think about the page in my notebook.She crashed into me like she always does?—
It’s not good. It’s not even close to good.
But it came out of seeing her. Feeling something. Being present instead of hiding.
