7. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Harbor
Staring at a blank page with my brain still slogging through a hangover is like watching two drunks try to waltz. It's so fucking confusing, but I can't look away. So I stare at the screen and will my fingers to move. Last night was supposed to help—just a few drinks, a little escape. Instead, my skull feels like it’s cracking open, and I can’t stop thinking about him. Those eyes, that smile, the way he made me feel like a wick dipped in gasoline. I sit and remember, waiting for the spark.
It's all coming back to me now. How I walked into the bar hoping to forget myself and found something entirely new instead. We’d started talking and it felt so Goddamn effortless. Like I just wanted to spill my guts to him and somehow knew he’d say the right things. Make me feel safe.
It didn’t help that he is sexy as fuck. I tried so hard not to stare, but failed miserably. Not that it was subtle, the way I stared. God, I probably looked desperate . Maybe I was. But it felt like we were the only two people there, and everyone else faded into the background. Those dark eyes locking on to me, drawing me in like a riptide. He’d leaned in close when I talked, smiled like he could see every tangled thing inside of me.
Effortless. That’s how I’d describe him. Effortlessly sexy. Dark hair that looked like he just woke up, but suited him. Tanned skin, dark stubble that spread over his chin. Dark eyes. Oh God, those eyes. Almost black in their darkness. But it was his smile. Crooked, off center, kind of like he was constantly smirking and when he laughed, the deep rumble set me on fire.
It was a concoction that dared me to jump. I’d almost invited him back to my place, just to jump his bones.
God, I’m such a lush. But a woman has needs and apparently, mine were satiated and I wasn’t even awake. What the fuck kind of bullshit is that.
The longer I sit, the less I can stand it. The quiet anticipation builds in my chest, spilling down into my fingers. I have to write something, even if it’s trash. I have to write him out of me. My hands hover above the keyboard, and—
Words start tumbling out.
They trip over each other at first, clumsy and unformed, but soon they take shape. They start to feel like something, something I thought I'd lost. A figure stalking through dense forest. A mask glinting in the moonlight. His breath fogging in the night air as he tracks his prey. A thrilling chill races through me, electric and wild. It fuels the rush of inspiration. Words pour faster than I can catch them.
It's as if I've been holding my breath for weeks and can finally exhale.
There's the dangerous curve of a smile beneath the mask. The way leaves crunch underfoot. Shadows casting long fingers across the forest floor. He moves with an animal grace, always just out of reach but impossibly near. I type as fast as I can, struggling to keep up, terrified that the words will stop before I get them all out. My heart is racing. I can feel it hammering behind my eyes, in my fingertips, and oh god, there’s no stopping this.
I’ve written more in one feverish burst than I have in weeks, and it feels like oxygen rushing back into a room.
But as I pause to read, a different feeling steals over me. The hair-raising chill of something too real, too familiar, as if the story is being fed into my mind rather than created by it. My heart skips in my chest, uncertain. It's a pulse of excitement tangled with fear, the thrill of finally writing again muted by a creeping unease.
The spark, igniting.
The man is in my head, a living thing ready to escape, and I don’t blame him. He feels real. The story is more alive than I am right now, an entire universe growing out of one drunken night at the bar. I see myself in the words but at the same time... not. It’s not me. It can’t be me. But maybe it is. Maybe it’s all been there, hiding, waiting for a spark to set it loose. I drop my hands from the laptop, my breath catching, and sit back at the laptop. It's alive.
So I keep writing.
There is the masked man, the woman in the woods. It terrifies me how real it all feels, as if I'm inside their world instead of my own. The air between us is static, my pulse in my throat, and I want to run. Instead, I let the words pour out, hot and breathless. It’s alive, it’s breathing. It’s—
The door groans as he pushes it open, the sound swallowed by the hush of the forest. Inside, the cabin is dim, lit only by firelight and shadow. The air smells of cedar, smoke, and something t him.
He sets her down, gently this time, onto a threadbare couch. She doesn’t try to run. Not now.
“You still haven’t asked who I am,” he says, removing his gloves with slow, precise movements. His voice is calm, but charged, like lightning behind the clouds.
“I don’t need to,” she says. “I’ve dreamed you before.”
The mask tilts. A moment passes. Then he steps closer.
“You dreamed it wrong.”
He kneels before her, touches her ankle where his fingers bruised her earlier. A silent apology. Or a warning.
“I’m not the kind you wake up from,” he murmurs. “I’m the kind you wake for.”
And with that, he begins unfastening the buttons of her torn dress—not to strip, not yet—but as if peeling back a secret.
She doesn’t stop him.
She just watches, breath held.
Waiting to see if she’ll survive her own fantasy.
This isn't me, I tell myself, but I keep adding more details anyway. My hands are shaking.
It must be from him. Implanted desires. The stranger at the bar, the way he made me feel. It’s the only explanation that makes sense, but my pulse still skips when I remember the come between my legs and the thrilling feeling that accompanied that. The way he leaned in close, like he had some beautiful, terrifying secret. Maybe he saw me the way I want to be seen, real, alive, and not just a scared little writer pretending she knows what she's doing. Lila says I’m too nice. That I give people the benefit of the doubt even when they don’t deserve it. But I’d rather be soft and a little bruised than closed-off and cold.
So I take that bruise, the danger of it, and keep writing. It’s me, it’s not me, and maybe it doesn’t matter.
My hands find the keys, typing in a frenzy. I sit with the laptop perched awkwardly on my lap, slouched into the couch as if it’s all just a casual Sunday afternoon and not some fever dream of a story that’s dragging me along for the ride. The words fill the screen faster than I can catch up. I’m the passenger here, clinging tight, holding my breath.
The masked man corners his prey. Her eyes are wide, lips parted as if to scream. He doesn’t speak but she knows. She knows what he wants, and god help her, so does she.
My hands can’t keep up, but they try. It’s like my brain is a snow globe someone keeps shaking. And I keep writing anyway.
It’s dark by the time I look up from my screen. I’m surprised by that, given it hasn’t felt like hours. It’s barely felt like minutes since I started.
The story stretches before me, miles of forest I don’t remember crossing. How did I get here? There are entire chapters, a whole world, a relationship that doesn’t even exist, spun out of a single breathless day.
The masked man is more than a stalker now; he’s a seducer, dangerous and... erotic. The woman can’t stop running, but it’s what she wants. The pages feel like foreign territory, thrilling and terrifying. Stretching, my feet hit the ground as I walk for the first time today. I stand at the window, peering out at the night, feeling just as exposed. As if he’s there. Watching me. I close the curtains and retreat to my desk. It’s alive, and so am I.
His pursuit is relentless, but she doesn’t want it to stop. They’re trapped in a game, a chase that tangles them together in ways I didn’t expect. It’s darker than I imagined, and more raw, and I wonder where this is coming from. Certainly not me. Not the me I’ve been.
I should be terrified, but I’m not complaining.
Descriptions leap out at me, too specific, too visceral, unlike the neat little narratives that used to be my trademark. It’s a whole new world. Unsettling. But thrilling, too. It’s alive, and so am I. I read on, shocked by the sheer volume, my breath catching at the danger of it all. It’s as if someone’s unlocked some secret inside my brain and now the words won’t stop coming.
But it’s all fiction. Right?
There’s a flutter in my chest that isn’t fear at all.
I’ve never written like this. I’ve never felt like this. Where did it come from? I save my work, clicking that little button until my screen almost freezes, and start a new chapter. His breath on her neck. His hand at her throat.
The thrill of breaking through the block pushes my fingers faster and faster, outpacing the doubt in my mind.
Gone are the days of cowboys and ranches…
I’ve found my muse and have no intention of stopping.