Page 20 of Not a Strong Enough Word

I’d better get to work on this. My editor is known to show up at my house unexpectedly with more notes.

Thanks, Ryan.

And even though I know that message is a clear indication that she’s signing off, I risk another question anyway.

From: Ryan Whitlock

To: Scarlett Frye

Subject: Re: MS Notes

Are you open to your editor stopping by with more notes in the future? I can warn him to stay away if you prefer.

I don’t expect an immediate response. Her last email was final, and my question is loaded. There are a hundred reasons why she might not write back, and only half of them have to do with me making a move she’s not ready for. But I still check my email frequently throughout the rest of the day. I’m disappointed every time there’s nothing from her.

Later that night, after a lonely dinner of microwave lasagna and a cold shower that does nothing to calm my thoughts of her, I lie awake in bed, staring at the dark ceiling and kicking myself. First I show up unexpectedly at her apartment, then I ask if I can do it again? What was I thinking? I probably scared her away by being too forward. I should be handling her with kid gloves, like Casey suggested the other day.

Around midnight, as I’m just starting to drift off to sleep, my phone lights up with a text message. Groggily, I open the app without thinking, but I’m jolted awake when Scarlett’s name appears at the top of my screen. She blocked my number when she disappeared all those years ago. It’s been so long since she’s texted me that our past messages have disappeared into the ether, so just one message sits in a little gray bubble at the top. Just the sight of it has my heart swelling up with longing.

Scarlett: If you need to hand-deliver notes, I wouldn’t mind.

Chapter 10

Scarlett

For the next week, my days and nights are consumed by two things: bicycles and Ryan Whitlock. Thoughts of the two of them circle around and around, as if each occupies alternating spokes on the wheels of the very bicycle that is the object of my obsession. As they turn faster and faster, they blur into something one and the same—each inextricable from the other.

By the end of that first week, I’ve done more research on bicycles than any normal human would ever need. Everything I’ve found, no matter how seemingly unimportant, is printed and strewn about my desk and floor. Some papers have made it to my bed where they mingle with various red-inked pages of my manuscript. I make a habit of curling up there in the evenings with my research and Ryan’s notes, adding my own responses to the margins and edits between the lines before going back to my laptop and typing up a more refined version. I work well into each night, falling asleep on top of the words and awakening with the sun to start the process all over again.

More of my time than I’d like to admit is spent staring into space and flipping through the pages in my mind until I land on a place to add a scene, but when it clicks, I jump out of bed and type furiously, unaware of the time or my body, completely lost in my work.

The words fly from my brain to the keyboard almost faster than my fingers can keep up. It’s a high unlike any other, and I’m addicted to the feeling. This is exactly as it used to be, when I would write and write and never need to come up for air. No, writing was the air, and I needed it like I needed to breathe.

I don’t know how I lived without it for five years.

The truth is, I didn’t really live for those years. Not well anyway. Giving it up was akin to cutting off oxygen. I had thought writing was like a drug and giving it up cold turkey was best for me in the long run. And who knows. Maybe it was for a while. If the way I’ve fallen right back into old habits is any indication, there might not be a way for me to do this job with any kind of balance.

But it’s different this time in one very important way—Ryan is only involved at the surface level. The emails we shared at the start of the week were exhilarating. Bouncing ideas back and forth with him again was as easy as…well…riding a bike. But that’s all this is. Even though I unblocked his number and texted him that it would be okay to come by again, he doesn’t. He wouldn’t have any notes yet anyway, since I’m still working through the first round, but that never stopped him before. His absence is all the reminder I need to keep my head down and the words flowing.

Different book. Different Scarlett. Different outcome.

Even if they are the same late nights and early mornings. The same dwindling groceries and forgotten meals. The same lost count of how long it’s been since I’ve showered.

The same man. The same emails. The same quips and repartee.

I loved him once. But I loved writing once, too. Love for the latter has crept back slowly, in the lines and the margins, but love for him was never meant to be. The loss of my love for him is so completely intertwined with the loss of my love for writing then. Despite all the work I’ve done to separate the two, there’s still a thread that holds them tightly together.

Yet as I sit cross-legged on my bed with my phone face down and buried in the comforter and pages strewn about, I chew on the end of my pen and wait for the dread that had been the third spoke of the wheel all those years ago. The knowledge that I couldn’t sustain this if I wanted room in my life for anything but words. That there were things I wanted that I could never have with the schedule I was put on. That even Ryan was secondary to my work.

But the dread doesn’t come. Instead, it’s more like a piece of me that had been missing has found its way back and snapped into place. Like a lost earring found under a cushion. And instead of being painful to look at, Ryan’s familiar, red-penned handwriting is comforting in the dead of night, like an old friend. The lack of sleep propels me forward rather than drags me down. Newton was right—a body in motion stays in motion. When a writer starts, she can’t stop until the job is done. I’ll sleep and eat when it’s over. It’ll be worth it again, just like it was before.

It has to. Because I’m starting to realize I don’t fully know who I am without this.

As Friday night bleeds into Saturday morning, I finally send off the updated manuscript to Ryan and Trina and expect not to hear anything until Monday when they are both back in the office. I flop over onto my bed without bothering to remove the laptop from it and relish in the accomplishment.

My elation is rudely interrupted simultaneously by my growling stomach and several dings from my phone. Bleary eyed, I look around the bed, figuring it’ll be easier to stop the noise from the phone than that from my stomach if my last raid of a mostly-empty pantry is any indication. I pat the comforter and shift papers around, eventually shoving them off the bed since I don’t need them anymore anyway. The phone dings again, which is when I realize the sound is coming directly from underneath me. Sure enough, when I scoot my ass over, I’ve been sitting on it. Thank god no one was here to see that. Ryan used to give me shit about that kind of thing all the time. For some reason, that reminder is painful, and an otherwise-forgotten memory comes clearly into focus.

“How is it you knew exactly where page sixty-nine was when I asked you about the concert scene half an hour ago, but you can’t remember where you put your phone?” Ryan poked my ribs teasingly.