Chapter Eleven #3
I’d meant to make myself lunch, but I spent a couple of hours writing instead.
It wasn’t quite there, didn’t quite come so perfectly yet, but I knew within a day or so the floodgates would open.
After eating a quick sandwich, I spent another hour going through what I had and writing each scene down on a sticky note.
Then I sat on the floor in my office and made a huge timeline of little yellow squares, moving them here and there strategically until I had everything in the order it needed to be.
I’d never done that before, but I’d seen Lisa writing activities on stickies and moving them over her lesson planning calendar like chess pieces.
I was pleased to see that it worked for me, too.
She was wonderful. She was so wonderful.
I sat back on my heels for a minute, thinking about her.
I wondered if she was having a good time.
I wondered if the weather at the beach was amazing and if the ocean was amazing and if her friends were amazing.
I was sure June looked amazing in her bikini.
I shrugged that off as quickly as I could, but a little bit of residual uncertainty stuck.
I wondered if they were going whale watching and snorkeling and out to dive seafood restaurants.
Part of me wanted to hope it was raining and they were sitting inside hating one another, but I knew I didn’t really want that for her.
Then, for just a tiny little moment, I pictured Lisa in a bathing suit and I knew I needed to shut it all down.
What was this, anyway? I’d fallen in love with every best friend I’d ever had, that wasn’t anything new.
We’d just become so close so fast I didn’t know what to think.
We got along so well, had so much in common, but we were in such different places.
I hadn’t been single for that long in the grand scheme of things, but she’d been officially divorced for only days.
I was ready to date again and crushing hard on her, and I had no idea who she would be interested in if she ever even wanted to date again.
Maybe she was so done with being in a relationship that she’d stay single forever.
Maybe she’d find someone cool three years from now.
Maybe hot June would turn out to be bi and they’d live happily ever after. Fuck June.
I could feel the ugly stuff creeping back in through the crevices, whispering doubt and self-hatred behind my ears.
I knew this was why I took the meds. I knew my head would be screaming with it in a few days.
I could just go to the cabinet and take them right now.
I could stop this whole awful deluge of suck.
Instead, I sat there on the floor, brainstorming how everything fit together, the tendons I was missing between scenes, the blood flow from beginning to end.
I slapped more sticky notes down, scribbled, wandered around the house thinking, came back and added to my story map.
Ollie woke up from his nap, found me sitting at his level, and started licking and leaning until I fell over.
Even at my worst, he could still make me laugh. “C’mon, dude. I need a break. Walkies?”
I did a little bit of dictation to myself, but I spent most of the walk worrying.
Lisa hadn’t texted. Was she waiting for me to text?
Should I text? Or was I just a distraction when she wasn’t with other people, doing other things?
It wasn’t like she texted me during nap time at school or anything.
Maybe I should text her something businesslike, like did she want me to water her lawn?
It was October and her lawn didn’t need watering.
Maybe she wanted me to take in her mail?
No, she would have asked me to do it. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and text a hello. Maybe something generic.
Ollie had followed a squirrel up a squat tree and was standing on his hind legs with his front two on the trunk, straining to see where it had gone. I wrapped his leash around my wrist and took out my phone.
Hey…Hope you’re having a good time! Just walked Ollie past your house and was wondering if you need me to take care of anything?
I hit send before I could talk myself out of it. “I think it’s gone, buddy.” I squinted up into the tree myself and even rustled one of the branches, but nothing scurried. Ollie came down on all fours, but shot the tree one more look before we continued along our way.
I nudged my thoughts back toward my book.
I had a decent conflict and plot working up to it, but since I was me, I toyed with adding a dead body somewhere along the way.
Maybe a stalker? One of my characters was already getting over a stalker situation, so maybe she could return?
Saving your girlfriend’s life was always a good way to say I love you.
Or maybe the new girlfriend could pretend to move to Alaska and fuck everything up. And then the protagonist could turn a bit antagonistic and stalk her. Shut up, shut up, shut up. I was very aware that Veronica had ignored my text the other day. Now Lisa would probably ignore—
My phone buzzed and I grabbed at my pocket. Ollie wasn’t at a stopping point, but I didn’t care, just kept walking, eyes fully on my phone.
OMG it’s so gorgeous here. We just got back in from the beach and I’m definitely going back out after dinner just to walk. I don’t think I need you to do anything but I’ll let you know if I come up with something. Say hi to my old man!
I let my breath way out, so far my chest felt concave.
I snapped a picture of Ollie walking along, then promptly tripped over a break in the sidewalk.
I didn’t fall, but Ollie gave me a wry look anyway.
I sent the photo, waited for Lisa to send a heart back, and pocketed my phone again.
All the fuss was for naught. Everything was okay.