The Bad Jokes #2: The Blonde

Chapter 15 (Gracie): All The Time You Need

***TW for discussion of miscarriage***

I'd been half an hour late to the meeting with my agent, but she'd been understanding, especially after hearing about the elevator breaking down.

"I think I'd be curled up in the corner of it, sucking my thumb, if I'd gotten stuck in an elevator. That's one of my biggest fears. That and spiders."

It'd been mine, too, until I'd been trapped in an elevator with Wyatt. His solid presence had made it bearable, even if I'd had to listen to him explain things, things that played in my mind on repeat, looking for holes in his story, comparing what he'd told me today to what he'd told me when I'd shown up unexpectedly at his house.

"I wasn't alone, so that helped," I said, recognizing the truth in that as I said the words out loud. "I would have been freaking out otherwise."

"So, Gracie, you've never missed a deadline before," she said, drawing us back to the reason for the meeting today.

I couldn't even look at her I was so ashamed. I took my deadlines seriously and had never even come close to missing one before. It was a point of pride with me.

"I haven't been able to write," I said miserably. This was my livelihood, but even more than that, it was my creative place where I could let all those words in my head come alive -- and all those beautiful words had all dried up like a creek in a drought. "I've tried. And I was writing some horrible shit that I may as well have not even written, it was that bad. Then even that stopped."

He'll take your words.

"Writer's block," she said sagely.

"Maybe," was my non-committal answer. I couldn't actually reveal it was my destiny as foretold by a psychic at a fair when I was eighteen. If I told her that tale, she'd tell me there was nothing wrong with my imagination and to get writing.

"You've never had a problem with deadlines before, Grace. Given your stalker and everything you went through with her, I think it's understandable. It was a horribly traumatic experience."

It had nothing to do with Your Fan and everything to do with Wyatt.

"Have you talked to anyone?" she asked, with such compassion I wanted to cry.

"I did. For a bit."

But my therapist didn't seem to think I was suffering from any stalker trauma. It was Wyatt-induced trauma that she clearly misdiagnosed.

"Oh, Grace," she said, her hand reaching out to clasp mine. "I'm so sorry. 

"I'll be OK," I promised her. I had to be. If I couldn't write...it didn't bear thinking about. Writing was my release for all of those emotions running around in me. It helped me order my thoughts, work through things that were worrying me, heal any hurts I had, release my anger, let my petty out to play and just basically make sense of the world, both the real one and the one in my head.

"I know you'll be OK. I have absolutely no doubt you will be. You're one of my most reliable authors," she said. "You aren't demanding, you aren't insane, you aren't a diva, you aren't even eccentric...I've told you before that you're the easiest author I have to work with. I'll talk to Rae, buy you some time. They've been worried about the stress you were under from the stalker, so they'll work with us, Grace. No worries, OK?"

I sniffed and she reached out and grabbed a tissue box from the table in front of us. I patted my eyes dry, gave her a hug and thanked her for everything.

"I'll be in touch," she said. "You just focus on you for a bit. Take care of yourself, Grace. Give it a minute."

When I walked out of her office, I decided to take the stairs and not risk the elevator, even though the stairs creeped me out. Today, the elevator was the creepier threat. Besides, how long could it take to walk down ten floors' worth of stairs? In creepy, dimly-lit, enclosed stairwells where no one could hear the echoes of your screams?