CHAPTER 30
By the time I’d read almost all of the letters, I was getting a good sense of the man behind the words, and a good sense of their relationship. But, as I settled down to write, I found I was still having trouble finding my female voice. Obviously, it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t have any letters from her, except the one. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was the strange feeling I got every time I tried to think about her or picture her in my head—a feeling I couldn’t quite name or pinpoint. Not to mention the fact that making up her words felt fundamentally wrong. It was one thing copying his words, but making hers up . . .
How could I do this?And, if I did, surely there was no way I could do their story justice?
These two had been so deeply in love and they had been so cruelly separated by the world. It was an injustice so great and profound, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it properly. A strange feeling churned in the pit of my stomach, and little voices started whispering in the back of my consciousness.
One of these voices, I’m guessing the sensible one, was telling me not to do this. This wasnotmy story to tell. I had no permission to tell it, and, if I did, I would be nothing more than a common thief—and a common thief of the worst kind: the stealer of other people’s stories.
And then there was the other voice, the one telling me that, if I didn’t do this, my life as I knew it would be over. No doubt a public humiliation of some sort would follow, some article or other out there in the publishing world about Becca Thorne’s fall from grace. I didn’t think I could live through something like that,again. I grabbed my stomach as anxiety made it bubble and growl at me. I felt physically uncomfortable in the chair, and in my skin. I stood up and tried to take a deep breath, count to five, calm myself, inhale into my third eye or chakra or spiritual vortex, or whatever. I looked out the window; the river at the bottom of the garden was flowing calmly and smoothly, and I focused all my energy on looking at it. I could feel myself starting to spin out a bit, starting to feel that terrible sweaty-sticky-itchy feeling that comes just before . . .
Shit!I gripped the desk and held on, trying to steady myself as the waves of panic made my heart beat faster and my fingers tingle. I’d suffered from anxiety for as long as I could remember. Waking up in a new bed, in a new town, with a new family, and experiencing more first days of school than any other child I knew, had certainly helped cultivate that anxiety, and now it was a fully developed dark monster that always seemed to lurk somewhere in the back of my mind, waiting eagerly to sneak up and pounce on me, usually in the moments when I least expected it.
I told you I was flawed. There was something intrinsically wrong with me. I’d even rushed myself to the hospital a few times, so sure was I that I was having a heart attack, only to be sent home with some tranquilizers and told to go to therapy. And this situation had really opened the door for the dark monster to sink his claws in.
I couldn’t do this!I couldn’t write this book. If I did, I would probably spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to bust me as a fake, a cheap stealer of words and stories.
But this was the only idea I’d had in over a year. Do you know how many days, weeks and months I’d sat and stared at the empty white Word document, while that little cursor flashed at me, taunting me? But the longer I’d sat, the more it felt like I couldn’t move. Paralyzed. As if my muscles had atrophied. The cycle was vicious. The more I did nothing, the more I couldn’t do anything at all.
I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths, like I’d been taught. In—five, four, three, two, one—hold—five, four, three, two, one—out—five, four, three, two, one. My heart started to beat a little slower; the dizzy, nauseous sensation started to lift a little. I opened my eyes again and looked out over the river at the bottom of the garden. I focused all my attention on the rushing water until, finally, I felt better. I let go of the table and stood up straight.
I had to do this.I had no choice. Because, if I didn’t, I would be right back where I started. A nobody. A failure, even. And there would be those who would relish my failure.Hewould relish it, my ex-boss.Hewould absolutely love to watch me publicly humiliatedagain, to watch me crash and burn, just like the last time. It had been almost three years since my previous life had fallen apart, and I was still so desperate to prove him wrong, especially after that review he’d given me in the papers. I’ll never forget it:A vacuous attempt at literary fiction that has no poetry, no passion and no substance to it. Nothing more than the immature ramblings of an “author” out of her depth in the genre.
I took another breath. I imagined the look onhisface that day that he’d fired me from the job of my dreams, and, as if that wasn’t enough for him, he’d then humiliated and shamed me publicly, after also breaking my heart.
But then I started to smile to myself when I remembered the look on his face when he’d discovered that, despite his scathing review, my book had become a bestseller, that it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies and I was now driving around in the car ofhisdreams.
I pulled the chair out and sat back down at the desk and flipped my laptop open. But, before starting, I looked down at the surface of the desk. I ran my fingertips over an old carving in the wood. A small heart, the letterAand what was clearly meant to be a small flower.
The sun was setting, and I watched it paint the sky pink as it started disappearing over the hills on the other side of the river. The sun cast colorful reflections on the usually brown waters. It was really beautiful and for some reason, spurred me on to start writing again. But a knock on the door soon disturbed me.
“Sam?” Ash called out from the other side of the door.
I got up, walked over to the door and opened it.
“Would you like to join us for dinner?” she asked immediately, with a bright, breezy voice. It was such a kind offer. “It’s nothing fancy. But you would be more than welcome.” She smiled at me. Her smile was big and wide, and something about it set me at ease immediately.
“Sounds good,” I heard my usually antisocial self say, before I could stop myself.
“Come by at seven? In an hour?”
“Sure.”
“I just used that passage I was telling you about, at the end of the hallway. I managed to clean some of the cobwebs out, so it’s safe, if you want to use it. It’s a bit cold outside.”
“Great. I’ll do that,” I replied.
“See you soon.” She turned and walked away.
