The urge to write took me by surprise. I was still reeling from seeing Ryan when I fell into bed this morning sometime after one. My body was drained but it felt like my brain was clipped with jumper cables, sparking with a sudden rush of outside energy. Sleep wasn’t happening and after hours of tossing and turning, I wandered into the living room and ended up on the couch with my laptop.
Maybe I can write more now. It would be amazing to bang out another chapter. I’m about to dive back in when my cell phone rings beside me. I look down and see Samantha, my literary agent’s name, flashing across the caller ID screen. I pick up the phone and accept the call with a tired smile. “Good morning, Sam.”
“I just got the pages. I love them. Have you written more yet?”
I let out a mixture of a laugh and a sigh as I press the phone more firmly to my ear. “Not yet. I wish.”
“Don’t psych yourself out. I like the direction this is going in. It hasDelicate Dawnvibes but with a much stronger female lead, which is exactly what the publisher is looking for.”
I nod my head, remembering how easily my first novel came to me compared to the torture chamber experience this one has been. “I’m glad. I hope they’ll like it.”
“Now you just have to keep momentum. What was it that finally got you started?”
Sliding down a little in my seat, I rub my legs against the cotton cushions. “I’m not positive the two events are connected, but I ended up seeing my college ex-boyfriend last night.”
“Well, well,” Sam says playfully. “That’s intriguing.”
“Intriguing but potentially problematic for my mental health.”
“Whatever. This is New York, Kara—we’re all insane. When are you seeing him again?”
I take a deep breath and push my shoulders back, feeling my muscles stretch and release after hunching over my laptop for so long. “I’m actually having dinner with him and a couple of friends tonight.”
“That’s great! If this guy is what you need to get your book done, then you need to use every opportunity you have to see him again. Need I remind you of the very ominous deadline that’s hanging over our heads?”
The tension in my shoulders is back with a vengeance and has brought friends.
“No reminder is necessary,” I assure her.
“And if there isn’t an opportunity, you need to make the opportunity. I’m talking you, him, your laptop, all of you locked in a room somewhere with no means of escape until the best novel of your life is sitting in my inbox.”
My right eye starts to stress twitch and I quickly give it a rub. “It’s kind of scary that I’m now at the point in my writing process where imprisoning my ex seems like the logical next step.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to scare you. I just know you’re banking on that on-acceptance check.” My eye twitches again as Sam goes on, “I’m assuming there’s no getting out of your Italy trip, right?”
I shake my head, slow and shameful and silent. My Italy trip. A long-awaited dream getaway that is steadily morphing into a money-draining terror. When I pulled the trigger on booking this vacation a couple months ago, I fully anticipated being done with my novel. My best work has always come as the shot clock winds down, and I’ve never missed a deadline. Ever. I actually thought paying for the trip in full on my credit card would be the last incentive I needed to get my act together. Oh, sweet summer child, how wrong I was.
After researching and planning and watchingUnder the Tuscan Sunfor the hundredth time, I am now set to stay in Rome for six whole months. The apartment I’m renting is twenty minutes from Vatican City, and has an updated kitchen, two balconies and a claw-foot tub that all but guarantees a life of perfect happiness. I leave in just over a week, two days after Cristina’s wedding.
The entire trip is also nonrefundable. And time is running out.
When I write a new novel, or am about to, I typically get half of my advance when I sign my publishing contract and the other half upon acceptance of the manuscript. I signed my new contract a year ago, using the first installment to cover my life, my mortgage and monthly bills, and leaving my on-acceptance check to pay for Italy. But here I am, with my manuscript nowhere near done while the interest on my credit card grows and grows, eating away at my sanity with gnawing jaws. Not to mention that the synopsis and first three chapters for my next book are due any day now.
My breathing turns heavy as panic starts to drip into my mind, slowly at first but then pouring in. I end up wheezing slightly into the phone.
“Kara? Try not to hyperventilate again. Where’s your inhaler?”
“I’m all out of puffs.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Listen, I know how fast you can write and I know you have this book inside you somewhere. You’re one of the most talented authors I’ve worked with, but success has come relatively easy to you. Now it’s time to fight for it. Only you can decide how bad you want this.”
Sam’s words seep through me, and a clash of emotions surges in my chest. I want to finish my book. I need to finish it—but the thought of seeking Ryan out to get it done feels highly twisted on so many toxic levels.
It means being physically near him, which will be a challenge in and of itself because a very real part of me wants to smash a bottle over his head. But then there’s another part of me that’s afraid I won’t be able to shake off the weird, unbreakable pull that he’s had on me since the day we met. The same pull I refused to acknowledge last night that left me feeling shaky and ashamed and like I was somehow betraying my dad all over again.
There must be a way I can see Ryan, get my book done, and make my way through this unscathed. Maybe I won’t have to see him on a consistent basis. Maybe seeing him once was enough and I can ride the ripples of last night all the way to the end of my novel. If I can get enough writing done today, it would prove I only need to be around him once in a while. I can handle sporadic interactions with him if I have to. This can all just be an unfortunate work scenario I have to endure and I will not let him get in my head.
I adjust my position on the couch, sitting up straight as I grip the phone tighter. “I promise you,” I say, my voice mirroring a determination I haven’t heard or felt in a very long time, “I am going to get this novel done.”
