Chapter 5
CARMEN
My aunt Cindy lives a couple blocks away from Last Word. In this area of the small town, the density starts to thin out a little bit, the shops and rowhomes tapering off into more single-family houses with yards.
Cindy has a gorgeous one. It’s roomy but not huge, with a beautiful wraparound porch.
She doesn’t have much of a front yard, but makes up for it with a sizeable backyard, where a gravel driveway leads to a two-story garage.
A couple years ago, Cindy renovated the second floor into a small but comfortable one-bedroom apartment.
She was thinking about renting it out, but with how busy the café keeps her, she never got around to doing the paperwork and legwork to put it on the market.
I like to think that even without Cindy’s help, I’d have found a way to make it on my own while taking this gap year. But it sure as hell would have been a lot harder.
The only convenience that the apartment above the garage lacks is its own washer and dryer, so to do my laundry, I traipse over to Cindy’s place.
Which is where I am right now, folding the last sweater of my load.
When I walk up the stairs from her basement, I hear her front door open.
“Honey, I’m home!”
The voice that booms through Cindy’s first floor is familiar, but the words coming from it sound utterly out of place.
It’s Kazu, Cindy’s boyfriend. He owns Chiyoda Ramen in Cedar Shade, a place that makes such good food that even his infamous personality doesn’t drive the customers away. Most people would call him antisocial and rude.
Actually, most people would just call him an asshole. I’ve overheard plenty of students and residents call him exactly that in snippets of conversation that have twittered into my ear while working.
But the few people who get close to him know better. Yeah, he is gruff and terse. He has no interest in small talk or social niceties. In short, he’s my kind of guy. And underneath it all, I know he’s kind and loyal to the people he cares about.
And he cares about my aunt Cindy a lot, and he treats her right. For that, he’s one of my favorite people.
But he’d never have used the voice I just overheard if he knew I was walking up from the basement. He’s reserved, and I know he only lets that lovey-dovey side of himself out when there’s only one woman around to see it.
I walk into the kitchen to see Kazu pulling my aunt into his arms with a debonaire look on his face, the dour chef morphing into a Casanova when he thinks he’s alone with Cindy.
He catches sight of me in his peripheral vision, and his mood switches. The usual stiffness comes back into his wiry frame, and the provocative glint in his eyes dims. He takes a step back from my aunt, an air of embarrassment about him.
He nods toward me. “Carmen.”
I nod back. “Kazu.”
My aunt, who doesn’t have a bashful bone in her body, tucks herself against Kazu in defiance of his reserved nature.
She brushes her hand over his chest. Kazu’s face advertises the struggle he’s going through.
He clearly doesn’t want someone else to see him in a moment of affection.
He also clearly doesn’t want Cindy to pull her hand away.
“At least he didn’t jump ten feet back this time,” Cindy says to me with a teasing grin on her face. “He’s slowly learning to let other people see that he does have feelings like a normal human.”
Kazu lets out a low, exasperated groan.
I tilt my laundry basket demonstratively. “I’m just taking my laundry back to my place. I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Wait,” Kazu says. “I brought you dinner, too.”
He nods to the kitchen counter, where there are two bags with his restaurant branding. One full of two containers of food, presumably for him and Cindy, and the other with one, for me.
“Thank you,” I say, sliding my pinky into the handles of the bag to pick it up while I’m holding my laundry. “Whatever it is, it’ll be a lot better than what I was planning on having.”
“We’d invite you to eat with us, but,” Cindy wiggles her eyebrows, “we’re gonna need our privacy.”
Kazu couldn’t look more uncomfortable.
I can’t help but smile. “I hear you loud and clear.”
My aunt’s eyebrows get even more hyperactive. “Open a window in about an hour, and you really might.”
Okay, I was wrong. Kazu can look even more uncomfortable.
That’s my cue to leave. “Good night, guys,” I say, stepping out the back door.
“Goodnight!” Cindy sings cheerily as Kazu grunts in acknowledgment.
The short walk back to my apartment is freezing. A sharp wind slices through the air, whistling harshly through tree branches. I hurry up the stairs and breathe a sigh of relief when I’m ensconced in my cozy, warm apartment.
I check what Kazu brought for me. It’s a big bowl of pork ramen with spring rolls on the side. It’s right around the time I usually eat dinner, my stomach just rumbled, and the ramen is still hot. Perfect.
Cindy and Kazu stay on my mind as I take the ramen out of the bag and remove the plastic lid. Their relationship probably looks inexplicable to outside observers, but it’s perfect for them.
An unsettled feeling rattles through me. I haven’t gone on a single date, or even thought about it, in the eight months since I broke up with my ex.
Do I even want to start again?
I bring my food to my desk and set it next to my computer. I take a slow sip of the hot broth. The warm, comforting flavor is a stark contrast to the cold, forbidding expanse of empty white that taunts me from my laptop screen.
This chapter is going to be the death of me.
I glance down to the bottom-left corner of the document. The number displayed gives me a slight boost of morale. I’ve already written fifty thousand words.
This part of the story is a struggle to execute, but with how far I’ve gotten already, I believe in myself. I’ll be able to finish this book.
But I don’t know if or when the process will get any easier than it is right now.
I slurp up some noodles, then pull a tissue from the box next to my computer to wipe off some broth droplets that splattered on my screen. My eyes stay fixed on the flashing cursor underneath my latest chapter heading as I eat.
While my stomach fills with ramen, my mind stubbornly refuses to fill with ideas.
Doubt starts to crowd in at the edges of my mind.
I try to beat it back. I upended my life, dropped out of school, and wrecked my relationship with my parents to give myself the chance to write this book, a chance I wasn’t sure I’d ever have if I stayed on the path I was on. Giving up isn’t an option.
All my life, I wanted to write a book. So many nights, a good book has kept me company in the late and lonely hours when I couldn’t get to sleep; and so many days, when I was in a bad mood and didn’t have a lot I was looking forward to, I could at least look forward to continuing the book I was reading.
I want to create something that can do the same for others.
I want to create something that can give anyone a bit of entertainment, comfort, and even companionship, no matter who or where they are, no matter their circumstances in life, no matter the time of year or hour of the day.
And nothing in the world can do that better than a good book.
There’s so much negativity in the world. Thanks to my sour moods, I contribute to that more than I wish I did. There needs to be more good in the world, more things that give people comfort, more things that make them feel better, maybe even make them happy, if only for a short time.
Social interaction is just … something I’ve never been good at. I’m not the kind of person who’s able to spread happiness and good feelings through the way I interact with others. But I’d like to be able to do that through my books.
Not that the subject matter of the book I’m writing is all sunny and fluffy.
But a book with characters you relate to and care about, even if it has darker themes, can brighten your day like a good friend.
That’s what books have done for me, and I’ve always yearned to be able to write something that does so for others.
After slurping down the last of the fatty, flavored broth, I set my fingers on my keypad. They still can’t get to clicking.
Well, a full stomach isn’t the recipe to get the creative juices flowing.
I think I know why my brain is so blocked on this chapter.
It’s the first chapter where my male main character and female main character, who have been either feuding with each other or tiptoeing around their reluctant mutual attraction, finally lose their composure.
They’re total opposites, can’t stand each other at first, but their constant proximity and undeniable physical chemistry overwhelm them, and in this chapter, I want to vividly paint their emotions and sensations as their facades crack.
When I try to find the right words to describe those emotions and sensations—that’s when my brain shuts down.
The book I’m writing is a thriller, not a romance. Still, I want a couple short but really spicy scenes between the two main characters. I’m just finding it unexpectedly difficult to get in the right mindset to execute them.
Is it because I’ve never felt the kind of consuming passion that I’m trying to bring alive on the page myself?
Part of me says that doesn’t make sense. I mean, sheesh, there’s murder in this book, and I didn’t have any trouble describing that despite having never experienced it.
But something about describing desire—real, raw desire, throbbing through my characters so hard that it overflows, forcing them to do things they know they shouldn’t …
thinking about writing that when I haven’t felt it myself makes a hollow feeling sink into me.
It keeps me from getting lost in my writing.
It’s not like I’m a virgin or anything. It’s just that in the two long-term relationships I’ve been in, and the couple hook ups I’ve had, the sex has always been … meh. I’ve never felt the kind of sheer physical chemistry that I’m trying to capture in my story.
What about those hands of Jamie’s that you brushed against the other day? They might send some heat through your body that helps you find the right words to sizzle on the page.
A muscle tugs low in my core.
I shake my head. Sex with a guy I’m not compatible with isn’t the way to deal with writer’s block. That’s ridiculous.
I sigh at the still-empty page in front of me. I just wish I did know how to deal with it.