After New York

Chapter 5: Vertigo (Reprise)

Song for this chapter: 

Chapter 5

Hardin

"Tessa?!" Is she still there? Did she fucking hear? There's no way she didn't hear.

Her silence on the other side of the line is deafening.

I know what she's thinking. I can feel it even through the phone. I know her better than I know my fucking self.

And despite everything all I can think right now is how I have to explain this. I have to keep her on the phone.

"Tessa please! Okay? Please, stay with me." my voice is wild and desperate, and I don't fucking care. "Don't hang up baby..." I beg. Hot tears forming behind my eyes.

And before I can say any more, the line goes dead.

*************

*Earlier that night*

My fingers hover over the keyboard, my eyes straining as I look at the screen before me. My head aching from the constant stream of blue light.

I've been sitting here for hours and somehow haven't manage to type one single fucking sentence that isn't complete shit. My publicist has been blowing up my email all week. Reminding me of deadlines and commitments, and yet here I am completely unable to provide them with any new material.

 I've been stuck like this for weeks, and my excuses are running out.

I think I've discovered why so many writers drink.

When I wrote AFTER, the words just appeared on the page, as if summoned. I never had to force myself to write. If anything I sometimes had to force myself not to. I drank then. Really fucking drank, and I often found my thoughts bleeding onto the page when my inhibitions had been lowered, and my connection to my emotions had been heightened by a bottle.

And my words were for me then, and no one else. No publishers breathing down my neck, and no expectations.

I never planned for anything I wrote to be read. In fact, I dreaded the thought. Fuck, I wouldn't even let Tessa read them. My journals were always tucked away, Hidden. Much like the feelings they contained.

But I know that's not the only reason it came easier then.

It was her. Everything came easier with her there.

She lit something in me, sparked a light in me that I had never known before her. Every moment I had with her fed something deep within me. Something that had laid completely dormant previously. With every glance I stole, a foreign warmth had flooded my previously cold veins. And I found myself craving that warmth whenever she wasn't close to me. Needing it desperately. And I began to seek out any interaction with her that I could to feel it again, even just for a second.

That first kiss at the lake... I couldn't fucking keep my eyes closed. I had already sensed that something about her was different, but I told myself it was just the thrill of the chase, of my first virgin. But the moment my lips had touched hers I saw colors, and felt her. Her soul? Her energy? I wasn't sure but I felt it fill me in waves, blue and violet and brighter than anything I had ever experienced. I couldn't look away, I just watched her. Trying my best to understand what the fuck she was doing to me. How this unassuming, and incredibly frustrating girl was making me feel things I had never even dreamed of.