Page 40 of Fate Fiction

“I have to go into the woods and get some small sticks for kindling,” I stated, hoping it was clear this was a task meant to be completed alone.

“Ah, does that require you to go off on a run again?” He playfully asked.

“Funny. I just like running.”

“Sure.”

“It helps me clear my mind.”

“From what?”

Dragonflies looped lazily above our heads in a clumsy dance backed by cotton candy clouds. Evan and I were face to face on the beach, the wind picked up and there were small waves hitting the dock rhythmically.

The question was loaded, and Evan seemed to know that when he asked it. I didn’t know the answer he was looking for. It would be easy to say from the breakup but after I was so nonchalant about it backtracking could be difficult.

“...Stuff,” Evan squinted his eyes and nodded at my answer, like he was trying to read my mind, “forgive me if I’m not going to spill my heart out to someone I’ve known all of thirty hours.” I let out a sharp bark of a laugh and stepped past him.

The noise of shaking trees and snapping branches as I gathered the kindling probably echoed through camp. When I emerged, he was gone from his seat.

I settled on the front porch of my cabin, wrapped in comfy clothes and doused in bug spray.

The rainbow spinning wheel on my laptop as it booted up taunted me, forcing me to pause at the decision to write.

Here? Now? It seemed to ask.

I had to write, I had to put something on paper to prove that I was more than a washed up fangirl who could only write about one singular thing. I shut my eyes and envisioned that dream life again. Bookstores stocking my words on their shelves. People telling me to my face that my words changed their life for the better. It was so within reach.

If I could manage to write anything worth publishing.

My cursor hovered in the word doc, zero words written out of a promised hundred thousand. Inspiration had all been sucked out of me. In another tab was my Ice on the Turret document, the entire reason why I was doing this in the first place.

I was struggling to figure out even a true setting for the book, the fic was so enmeshed in the universe of Thorndown that pulling the characters from it and stripping them of everything but a few distinct personality traits felt not only wrong, but impossible.

I grabbed a notebook from the kitchen and opened it, listing off each character, their role in the Thorndown universe, and key personality traits. I left space beside each for their new identity and role in this alternate universe I was trying to build.

My pen lingered as I wrote Sir Erwyn.

Acknowledging Evan’s character, even in private, now caused a pit in my stomach. Sir Erwyn wasn’t real, but Evan very much was, and I didn’t know how to create an alias for him without turning it into a version of Evan. It remained blank for now, a task I’d save for when I was much, much further removed from the real thing.

As I read through the weak plot concept I had cobbled together, I was bored with it. It was pallid and unoriginal, and every character I attempted to create from thin air was nothing but a watered down version of their original inspiration.

My week of inspiration was already a dud in forty eight hours. I buried my head in my hands and groaned.

The sun had set and the glow of my laptop was the only thing illuminating my face. Someone had already started the fire further down the beach. I shut my laptop and made my way over, knowing I wouldn’t be opening it again any time soon.

Evan and Sue were laughing at some joke Evan had just made as I approached. Sue enthusiastically patted the chair next to her.

“No Randy?” I asked as I settled into the seat.

“You know how he is,” said Sue. “The sun is down which means he’s probably asleep in his armchair already.”

“Sounds like my father,” Evan quipped.

Sue saw this as an invitation to ask dozens of questions about Evan’s family, life in Scotland, if he ever had seen a Highland Cow (he had, obviously), and his opinion on whiskey (he was fine with it, but preferred beer).

I stared into the crackling fire, throwing on another log every time it died down. The stars had put on a full show that night, the Milky Way was crystal clear and the moon was nearly full. I was half listening to the conversation as I looked out past the fire at the lake.

I was looking wistfully over at the dock and thinking about laying out on it later tonight once I finally got to be alone when Sue called to me, “Danbam, I’m heading inside. Goodnight kiddo.”