Chapter 9
Aashiq wasn’t kidding when he said we’d get started right away.
The next morning, he accompanied me to work again (he wasn’t in my apartment all night, and when I asked him where he went, he said he was wandering around New York; he almost got mauled by a homeless cat, he said, but otherwise it was fine) and after we got home and had dinner (leftovers from my birthday dinner with my parents), he pounced.
“Okay, since your old book is gone, the only logical thing to do is start a new one.”
I frown from my spot in the kitchen, where I’m putting our plates into the dishwasher.
I’ve already changed into pajamas, but Aashiq’s still dressed impeccably in black dress pants and a white knit sweater, which matches the white knit sweater and dress pants I wore to work today.
I guess comfort doesn’t matter when you’re not a human.
“I can’t just decide to start writing a new book, Aashiq. ”
“Why not?” he asks.
“I have to be in the mood.” The dishwasher isn’t full yet, so I close the door, then turn around to face Aashiq, leaning against the counter. “I’m a mood writer. I don’t organize my projects according to what I have to write next. I choose whatever feels right and go with it.”
“Okay,” he muses. He taps his fingers on top of the counter. “Do you have any ideas right now you might want to pursue?”
“I have a notebook I sometimes scribble ideas into,” I offer. “But they’re just plot bunnies. I haven’t fully developed anything because I’m usually busy with something else.”
“Let’s take a look at this notebook, then.”
I go to my bedroom, and Aashiq follows behind.
I dig the notebook out of my bedside table drawer—ideas often come to me in dreams, and I always force myself to wake up and write them down because I can’t trust myself to remember the next morning.
I turn around and hold it out to Aashiq.
His fingers wrap around the top of the book, and just as he moves to tug it out of my hands, my grip tightens and I pull back.
Aashiq raises a brow. “Something wrong, Ziya?”
“No,” I reply unconvincingly, my tone hesitant.
“Then you can let go.” When I maintain my grip, Aashiq continues to regard me with an expectant stare. “Are you afraid of something?”
“No,” I say, but I’m even less confident this time.
Aashiq lowers his hand, but neither he nor I let go of the notebook, so it hovers between our torsos.
“Ziya,” he says. “This isn’t going to work if we don’t trust each other. I’m going to be honest with you about everything I do, so I need you to be honest with me, too. Now.” He squares his shoulders. “What are you afraid of?”
Even though every instinct in my body tells me to lie, to toss my notebook back in my drawer and pretend like it doesn’t exist, I sigh. “I’m afraid…you’ll think my ideas are awful.”
He furrows his brows. “I’d never think that. All your ideas are wonderful.”
“You don’t even know what they are yet.”
“I don’t need to know,” he replies. “They’re ideas you’ve come up with, so they’re wonderful.”
I huff. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one putting your heart on the line.”
He tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
I dig my nails into my palm. “Writing is putting yourself out there for the whole world to perceive,” I say. “It’s like, the most embarrassing thing to be on full display—the world will either hate you or validate you.”
Aashiq hums for a moment. “What you’re feeling is perfectly normal,” he says.
“But you shouldn’t self-reject by thinking twenty steps into the future.
Take things one at a time, which starts with sharing your ideas with me so I can help.
” He raises the notebook in our hands again.
The same sincerity he stared at me with in the rain returns, though it’s much less intense this time. “Will you let me help you?”
After a long moment, I lift my fingers up, one at a time. His responding grin warms my insides, and he flips the notebook open. Then he goes and sits on my bed.
He’s silent for a few minutes, and as each second passes my stomach ties into knot after knot.
Oh, God, what if he thinks the ideas are terrible?
What if he thinks it’s better for him to cut his losses and let me fend for myself?
Great, he impossibly comes into my life, reignites my hopes and my passion, and now he’s going to leave. That’s just wonder—
“These are really good,” Aashiq finally says.
Immediately, all the tension leaves my body. Right. Of course. I knew I didn’t have anything to worry about.
“How do you feel about the idea where the veterinarian and her older brother’s best friend have a marriage of convenience?” he asks.
I shake my head. “That one sucks.”
He frowns but moves on. “Okay…how about the one where the baker has to save her parents’ restaurant with the help of her former high school nemesis?”
“No. That one sucks, too.”
“What about the one where the elementary school teacher falls for her student’s widowed father?”
I stick my tongue out like I’m gagging. “I can’t believe I even considered that one.”
Aashiq drops the notebook into his lap. “Why are you being so hard on your ideas?” He stares at me in disbelief. “You’re the one who came up with them.”
“Because…” I grit my teeth, my mind drifting back to Rachel’s words. “People don’t want these ideas.”
“What do you mean?”
“These are all quiet stories,” I reply. “Low stakes. They don’t have pizzazz.”
Aashiq is quiet for another moment. He only speaks when I finally peek up at him from underneath my lashes. “Ziya, you can write whatever you want. You don’t need to worry about having pizzazz. You can write a pizzazzless book.”
I snort. “I used to think that, too.” I plop down next to him on the bed. “It’s why I wrote those ideas down. I thought I’d be able to do whatever I wanted. But I guess that’s not true.”
Aashiq stares at me for a moment, then glances back down at my notebook. He closes it and tosses it behind us. “Okay, I have an idea. For now, let’s not launch right into a new book.”
A deep sigh pushes through my nose. “Thank God. But what do we do instead?”
“Something else.” He gets up from the bed, then goes over to my desk.
He digs through it for a second, but it doesn’t take long for him to pull out one of my many empty notebooks—when I bought them, I swore I’d use them for writing.
He plucks a pretty pen from my holder, then turns around and places both items in my lap.
I wrinkle my nose. “What do you want me to do with these?”
“We’re going back to basics,” Aashiq explains, dipping his chin with enthusiasm.
“You’re going to be writing, but you won’t write actual fiction.
For now, anything you can write down, you will write down.
That includes journaling, writing affirmations, goals for the day, to-do lists.
Anything that comes to your mind that can be put to paper but isn’t fiction-related, you’re going to write. ”
I frown. “Uh, I literally never do any of that stuff,” I tell him. “It also sounds kind of dumb and sentimental.”
Aashiq splutters. “You’re questioning the sentimentality of writing?” he says. “Every great story in existence was born of sentimentality. All good art is feeling. It’s tenderness, sadness, nostalgia.”
“And how does writing a to-do list fit into this?”
“It gives you an opportunity to dig deep within yourself and figure out what really needs to be done in a day,” he offers. “Plus, haven’t you ever heard a reader say they’d be willing to read an author’s grocery lists?”
I huff but turn my attention to the notebook and the pen. I pick up both, cradling them in my hands like I’ve never held either one before. “I don’t have time to write, though,” I try. “Work takes up a lot of my day. I’m not sure where I’d find moments to do stuff like write in a journal.”
“You were doing it before I showed up, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, and I was miserable,” I say. “Staying up late into the night and then waking up super early to go to work was a terrible cycle. I hated it, but I did it because it was what I thought I had to do.”
Aashiq pauses, then nods once. “Okay, fine. We can figure that out, too.”
“How?”
“We just will.” He pauses, waiting for me to make another protestation. I can’t find any more in me, though, so as soon as he sees my shoulders sag with defeat, he claps his hands. “Let’s get started.”