Invisible string (Robin Le Normand)

Chapter 8

Doing interviews was a painful, but necessary, way to promote books. So Leire had no option but to do them before the release of every new novel. Her shyness wanted to take over whenever it was time to talk to a journalist but she told it to leave her alone, even if just for an hour.

"For the next half an hour of the show, we'll talk about books like we do every Thursday. Today we're lucky enough to be joined by a young author who will be releasing her newest book very soon. Leire Aguirre published her first novel when she was still finishing her university degree and has only gotten better as an author throughout the years. Hi Leire, welcome to the show".

"Thank you for having me", smiled Leire. "And thank you for the very generous presentation".

"I'm a fan so I might be a bit biased during this interview but I just loved your debut novel and having the chance to get an early copy of your newest book felt like an early Christmas gift. I adored it".

"Thank you", said Leire again. She wasn't the best at taking compliments, especially from strangers.

"What was the inspiration for it?"

Where to begin... "It's hard to say. I don't have one specific source of inspiration. I just...I don't know, I have a vivid imagination. Too vivid sometimes. So whenever I have an idea, I just close my eyes and try to picture it in my head. And then I write it down and let the story take me wherever it wants".

"That sounds fantastic", told her the journalist. "I wish I could picture things in my head as well as you do but I struggle a lot. That's one of the reasons why I like your writing so much. You describe things so well, it helps me imagine how everything is supposed to look".

"It's funny how not everyone is capable of seeing ideas in their head", chuckled Leire. "Just because I can do it, I assume everyone does but it's not the case at all".

The conversation continued with more book talk until it was time to change the subject. Either the journalist or Leire had to bring it up but the topic of Robin had to be mentioned at some point.

"So I was wondering something, Leire. Are you going to live in Madrid now?"

"Kind of?", answered Leire, not sure she was ready to start telling all those lies. "I've wanted to try to move here for a while. For work. But never did it so we're just trying it out now. If I don't feel like it's working, I can always go back home. So it's worth a try".

"Absolutely. And we all saw that one of your famous friends posted about being with you so that got people's attention".

"I bet it did", said Leire, pretending to cringe on the outside while she did on the inside. "Yeah, Robin is living here now so he offered his guest room to me. It was very kind of him because I'm guessing it's quite expensive to live in Madrid".

The journalist nodded, smiling. "It was a nice surprise too. You hadn't been seen together in a while. We all thought you had a falling out or something. Really sad because your friendship is so cute".

"Yeah, well...being honest", said Leire, despite knowing she was not being honest. "We drifted apart for a while. That's just normal in a friendship, you know? We're adults with busy lives...sometimes you don't have the time to see your friends as much as you wanted to. But if the friendship is real, you'll miss being with that person and will find a way to reconnect with them".

"Very poetic. You should become a writer. You're really good with words".

Leire laughed at the joke. But there was some truth in what she said. And she would lie if she said she hadn't been thinking about that recently.