Sitting at the desk in the hotel room, I spin side to side. I continuously click the pen in my hand until the noise becomes dull and I can't hear it no more. The curtains are drawn closed and a lit lamp stands in the corner.
Take-out is left half eaten on the nightstand and background noise of the television is on. The laptop screen is blank and intimidating. My notebook is scribbled with various of ideas, thoughts and an outline of something I can create.
Slamming the pen on the desk, I rub my temples. My phone screen lights up and it's a message from Francine. She is emailing me the contract for the movie production. There's this dull anticipation in my chest. I should be excited for this—to see my book come to life.
Yet, there's a part of me I don't want to relive in that fictional story. Something I wrote through sweat and tears. A part of me that belongs in that story and see someone else create it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I pick up my phone and dial my dad's number. He is in a slumber right now but I wonder if he'll answer. Just so I can hear his voice when I tell him that I'm home.
It rings on speaker and I find myself shaking my leg. I bring a finger to my mouth and begin gnawing at my nail. It rings and rings and rings. A voice in the back of my head comes out from a door I locked.
Guilt.
Before it can crawl out and remind me, I end the call at the final ring. I count how many times it rings until I am able to hang up because I know he won't answer. Maybe I'm afraid someone else will.
I should go visit him since I'm in New York. It might help me feel this longing for forgiveness. Or maybe the feeling of abandonment or loneliness. I stare at the recent call list and notice how many times I've called him.
His son must be older now. Possibly late elementary or early secondary school. It's been so long since I've visited, I don't even remember how he looks. Maybe he looks the same but his face has matured to his age. Possibly taller and grew out the baby fat.
Now there's that heaviness in my chest again. I felt it when Clarry told me Rubies died. I find myself touching the bruise. I wonder if the girls are feeling the same right now. Question what they did wrong for everything to happen.
Do any of them feel guilty for her death?
Do they feel what I'm feeling as I sit alone in a hotel room with nothing but my faint breathing?
How faint was Rubies when she decided it was time to go? I shiver at the thought.
Returning to my project, I think of what Clarry told me at the coffee shop. What if I wrote something in regards of returning to my hometown. The other book was about leaving things behind.
Except Rubies. Who came and left so sudden.
That's what I hate about everything. I hate my book and hate when people recognize me from the back of the author's page. Something about it belittles me and no matter how much fame I receive, it's not enough.
I grew eager at the contract and the money and the media. I wanted to grow with my readers but now they are reading my book and growing into me. They have branched out and related to the protagonist that it doesn't make it feel any special anymore.
I wanted that protagonist to be me and now all I see is them.
Reflecting on the girls today, I try to recognize their bleak traits that still linger. It's difficult for me to pin point because it's been so long since I've seen them. So, I focus on the night of the party and where things fell apart. How that part of them still lingers.
A story is nothing without a title but I can't think of one right now. I can't think of a title that will pull readers the same way my other book pulled them. It's the last thing I will do for a story like this.
I don't find myself typing but imagining the way I want to create this. Seven friends who have these traits that destroyed themselves. A fairytale that starts with destruction and slowly find its way to salvation.
~*~
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General FictionSeven friends. Six alive. One dead. A dark past, truths and lies, and a forgetful story. Fame isn't for the faint of heart. This is something Theodora Adler knows well, as she's just beginning her life as a 25-year-old bestselling author. Disillusio...