Chapter 40 Diane
Diane
When I next surface from writing, the house has gone dim and quiet.
A black river of words flows behind my eyes, and my hands ache from typing too long.
The light at the windows is a faint pink mush, September dusk.
For a dizzy half second I’m unsure where I am, my spine pressed into the sofa’s seam, my notes sliding to the carpet like scattered feathers.
I have written fifteen pages without stopping, the kind of jag that only comes once in a blue moon and leaves you both triumphant and hollowed out. I type the last line of the chapter, hands shaking from fatigue and some animal thrill, and for a long time I just stare at the words.
I want to cry but don’t. Instead, I let myself feel the high and crash of it—the way a story, when it finally cracks open, can swallow you whole.
I scroll back and read the last paragraph, needing to see it as a reader would:
She did not know if the leap would end in flight or in the sea, but the not knowing was the point. She stepped forward, her heart loud in her ears, and decided that some risks were worth the fall.
I read it again, slower. Some risks were worth the fall.
Outside, a branch taps the glass, a wind-shivered warning. I ignore it. The words pulse in my head.
I think of Nathan, of all the ways I have kept myself safe from wanting things I might not get. I think of the other women I have envied, those who go after what they want, who risk embarrassment, who call in the middle of the night just to say I miss you. I have never been that person, not really.
But maybe I could be.
I close the laptop and stack the loose pages of my notes, aligning the edges with unnecessary care. I brush crumbs from the desktop, then rise, stretching until my spine cracks. The room is a cave of blue shadows, my reflection barely visible in the window.
I shut the window, sliding it closed with a firmness I rarely permit myself.
The house settles, the wind turns, and I breathe in the evening, letting it fill every corner.
When I leave the library, I am still scared, but it is a new kind of scared, the kind that comes with wanting something you might actually get.
In the hallway, I pause and run my hands over my hair, flattening the wild strands into something almost presentable. I feel taller than I did this morning. Lighter, too, like I’ve been quietly refilled with helium.
Somewhere out there is Nathan, wondering, just as I am, what happens next.
I head for the door. For the first time in years, I am ready to find out.