Three months ago, he lost his ability to write. Not like he lost an arm, or suffered a stroke, or became forgetful despite his youth. No. Chad Gilligan was fine, as fine as anyone his age could be who lived on coffee and no sleep. It was his damn heart.
Three months ago, Chad was dumped—cast aside like a used condom. Not something he wanted to admit out loud, but it had messed him. Messed him enough that whenever he sat down to write, he wanted to hurl abuses at the woman responsible for the hurt.
A feeling he was not used to.
What he was used to was sitting in that café on Elizabeth Street, across Hyde Park; at that table near the giant window and watch people. He was also used to writing about them as a character in his book. The cafe was rich in gold, and he was a miner. What he was not used to, was sitting there twiddling his thumbs, lost and sour. And he definitely wasn't used to feeling nausea every time he thought about writing another romance.
He no longer had the heart or stomach for it. He could cry—if he hadn't been sitting in the cafe.
Usually, people coming in from the street captured his attention. Their looks, their swagger, the way they smiled, the tone of their voice, or their attitudes; details he could use in a story. And today, he hoped to find something he could use. Something. Anything. He wasn't picky. He just needed something to inspire a story.
He refrained from yelling, 'Send me a sign!' at the sky. After weeks of praying and no returns, Chad didn't hold his breath.
When the front door opened for the first time that morning, his head snapped up—ready for action, ready for gold.
Here we go.
As a gaggle of office workers scurried in, rubbing stiff hands together, or pulling their scarves higher, busy with their chatter, a gust of wind slipped in behind them. It sent a napkin swirling off his table, and a chill snaking around his skinny ankles.
Chad groaned with severe displeasure. He hadn't been able to find fresh socks this morning. He wore his loafers sockless, and his toes ached with the cold. He didn't need idiots letting in gusts of icy wind that made him wish he'd done a load of washing. He needed to get his act together. He only had two clean underwear left in his drawer.
The last one to enter, a woman, gave him a nervous smile when she caught him staring daggers.
He turned away with a faint smile and picked the napkin from the floor. He wasn't in the mood to smile at a female today, lest she thinks he's flirting, or worse, interested—he was not interested in anyone. And there in lay the problem for a writer who needed a muse but hadn't the heart to find her—or him.
He ran a hand over the mouse-pad, bringing his laptop back to life. He reached for the coffee mug with the other. To his dismay, he stared at a blank page and the bottom of an empty mug.
He sneered at the cursor on the screen. 'What are we going to write, Chad?' it questioned him. He shut the laptop with a sluggish hand and a heavy heart. He had been staring at the blank screen for days and weeks. His mind was blank as the gleaming page.
For eight years—without fail—Chad had come to the café, placed his order, and sat at that table to write. Nine bestsellers and poof—words vanished like a magician's assistant in a puff of smoke. There one moment and gone the next—like his girlfriend. The thought of Setal sent him whimpering in his corner.
But what worried him more was that he struggled with words. His oldest, constant companions—gone. It made him uneasy. What if they never came back?
'What's the story, Chad?' His wretched laptop prodded him as he eyed the thing.
"Do you need a refill?" Tylor, the café owner and barista, asked on his way to the backroom, taking a bulging black garbage bag past Chad.
"Huh?"
"Working on something new?" Tylor asked.
He considered the question. "Trying to find something new."
Tylor hurled the bag behind the door and closed it back up. "Didn't spot any interesting people today?"
"Well, there's you."
"You can't always write about me." Tylor laughed, heading back to the coffee bar.
"If only that was the problem." Chad chuckled, like a weary kid about to step onto a giant Ferris wheel.
"What is the problem?" Tylor asked, taking over for the barista at the bar.
The familiar hiss of the steam wand heating the milk soothed Chad's forlorn heart. He hesitated, noticing other customers listening in on their loud conversation. "I... I can't write."
Tylor eyed the laptop with a knowing smile. "Ever considered writing, not typing? I heard it works for creative people."
Writing, not typing. What an odd, nostalgic notion, yet the desperate writer in Chad felt a jolt of motivation. He rushed to his feet and stuffed his belongings in his bag, waving a perfunctory goodbye in Tylor's direction. He foxtrotted out of the café with a spring in his steps.
It was a frosty morning. He pulled his collar up around his ears, tucked his chin in and carried on his march with a grin on his face. He headed for the Pitt Street Mall, battling the work crowd with their multitude of coffee cups, accosting puffs of smoke, or a dizzying array of scents. Something he avoided.
He hadn't written longhand in some time. The prospect of getting rid of his writer's block made his fingers tingle with anticipation, or it could have been the cold snipping at them. He didn't care. He could almost taste the words in his mouth, hear the phantom voices in his head, narrating a story, a story he could write. The thought made him wild with happiness, the first he'd felt since the event.
By lunchtime, Chad was back in his seat, hunched over a new notepad, scribbling away until his phone rang. It was her.
He stared at the screen, feeling betrayed by his otherwise trusted gadget. Should he take her call?
His heart winced at the memory—
'Remember, down on your knees, count to three, present the ring, do your spiel, and Voila, she'll say yes...' recalling Jo's words, Chad had gone down on a wobbly knee in the middle of the near-filled restaurant, amidst an audience. "Setal, we've been together almost three years."
"What are you doing, Chad?" She had stared at him over her menu.
... count to three, present the ring...
Counting to three, he'd held the ring up at her, pinched between his fingers.
... do your spiel...
"I... gosh, this is hard... I love you. I loved you the moment you took my coffee by accident and told Tylor off. I loved you the moment you asked me out on our first date. I have loved every minute since. I have a wonderful, gorgeous, intelligent woman in my life who loves me for me and not some imaginary character—"
"Chad—"
"Setal Ahuja, will you marry me?"
She'd risen from her seat. He had known what she was about to say: 'Yes, Chad Gilligan, the love of my life. I will marry you.'
"Chad, get up and stop this." She had eyed the restaurant, embarrassed.
"Is that a yes?"
"No. It's not a yes, you idiot. You ruined everything!" She'd grabbed her bag and with a loathing look at the ring, she'd left—with Chad still down on one knee, reeling.
"But... I love you—"
The phone stopped vibrating in his hand as the call ended, and a message flashed on the screen; startling him back to reality. She left a voice mail. He wanted to scream: Why, oh why?
He waved at Tylor for, "Another coffee," before plucking the courage to listen to the witch's message.
"Chad!" The indisputable, terse voice of his near-fiancé, Setal, charred the tranquil air between his ear and the phone. "Are you avoiding me?"
He nodded to no one in particular.
"You can't keep avoiding me, you know," she screeched. "I have spare keys, remember."
Must change locks!
"We need to talk. Your sister said you're taking this badly. It's nothing personal," she continued.
Nothing personal? Right. He must remember it the next time he proposes and his girlfriend breaks up with him because she didn't 'feel it with him anymore'. What did it even mean?
The computerised voice jolted him out of his thoughts, prompting him to repeat, save, or delete the message.
Delete. Delete. Dear God, delete!
Laila, a usual waitress, brought over his second cup of coffee as he attacked the screen viciously, trying to delete the bloody message.
"Are you okay?" she asked, sounding concerned.
"Peachy!" he snapped before peering up at her, ashamed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
"Bad day?" she asked, placing the coffee in front of him.
"My ex just called to see if I'm handling the break-up okay."
Laila cringed.
Chad nodded.
"Well, she didn't deserve you." Laila picked up his used cup with a smile. "You'll find somebody better. You're a celebrity, Chad. Women will flock to be in your life."
"And flock out," he grumbled sourly.
"Cheer up." Laila giggled. "Too much time indoors has fried your brain. Go out."
"I'm not ready to go out," he moaned, raw hurt pouring out with his voice.
"I mean, go outside—in nature. Find new places to haunt. Meet new people. Interesting people!" Laila nodded at the view outside the window. "Someone different for that story you need."
Chad stared at the park with the oddest expression—like Laila had told him to go rob a bank and write about it. Her suggestion sounded farfetched. Go out, ha! He didn't want to—until he saw the array of people ambling across the park. Another riverbank brimming with gold.
"Someone different? Someone who might like trees?" he asked in a daze.
"Yes, someone who might like trees." Laila laughed, leaving him to his own thoughts.
Chad stared at the park with wonder. He could test the waters. He was desperate to try anything.
Moments later, with a weak latte in hand, Chad crossed the road with trepidation dripping from his very core. The flashing red pedestrian light had him scramble to the other side all jittery. He shivered when he reached the sidewalk, and it had nothing to do with the icy wind snaking through the streets with fervour. He threw a longing glance at his seat in the café, already occupied by a middle-aged gentleman.
Chad turned back to the park and heaved a breath—there was no going back now. He took his first tentative step onto the green grass, hoping for a miracle, for inspiration to guide him to the next story. He needed it for both his and his editor's sake. His initial deadline to pitch ideas for the next novel had already whooshed by days ago.
Yesterday, Terry had called, wanting to hear a rough idea for a story, and instead of coming up with one, he had said, "Give me a week."
"A week?"
"One to two weeks."
"Chad!" she had yelled.
"Okay, I'll try to get you something by end of the week," he had given in.
A quiet sigh that said, 'You better.'
A thrilling conversation—but the point stuck like superglue. If he wanted to remain a successful author—and he did—he had better deliver the next story worthy of his name, or rather his pseudonym. An impossible feat, given his continued moping.
He wrinkled his nose against the cold and approached an empty park bench, with butterflies in his stomach and the taste of words in his mouth. He sat down and dropped his clunky bag on the wooden seat with enough gusto; it headed straight for the edge and fell.
A figure in a dirty, oversized puff jacket wriggled out from under the bench. Their arms flailed about their head as if shooing off a swarm of bees and not Chad's ill-placed bag, which now graced the ground.
"Oh, I'm sorry..." he said in a small voice, unsure whether he should step any closer to the street relic.
The relic went to kick his bag, breathing life back into him. He scooped his belongings off the ground in a hurry.
"Whoa. Please don't kick that. It has..."
"Valuables?" The voice was gentle. Feminine.
His head snapped up. "Yes." He pretended to dust the bag. "I didn't mean to hurt you." He looked her up and down. "What are you doing under there, anyway?"
The woman stared into his eyes with such fierceness it caused him to shirk and consider his exit.
"Sleeping," she replied curtly.
She pulled her grubby scarf higher up her face, leaving her eyes visible between it and the beanie. Her eyes were brown, bright and young.
"What?" she barked. "Does the ground or the seat have your name on it? I thought the park belonged to the public, and I am a fucking public!" she shouted, hot and angry.
She picked up her belongings from under the seat, a simple backpack and a small duffel bag. Then she walked away, muttering loud enough for him to hear. "Mine, mine, mine, everything is fucking yours. Why don't you declare oxygen belongs to you lot too already? Selfish prick!"
Chad watched the woman smart away from him in shock. It took him a moment before he sat down on the end of the bench, boggled by the incident. He fished out his laptop and turned it on, trying to settle his nerves. He eyed the path she had stomped off on; worried she'd come back any moment with more mutterings.
He stared at the blinking cursor on his screen, his mind blank, his heart thundering like an untamed horse in his chest.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," he grumbled, slamming the screen shut, unable to rid the woman from his mind. He turned to where she'd rushed off and sipped his coffee. She had almost given him a heart attack. He wished she had. Terry couldn't hold it against him for not delivering another book.
Another book.
He would have laughed if someone told him eight years ago, he—or the author, Zachery Eve—would one day face a monstrous writer's block and words would forsake him.
But, here he was, a thirty-three-year-old romance writer, newly single, in possession of a heart held together by band-aids, trying to come up with a romance plot that wasn't as dark and depressing as he was. Romance—the word tasted bitter in his mouth.
With eyes still fixated on the footpath, Chad took a sip of his coffee and gagged. It had gone cold, and cold coffee never agreed with him. He stuffed his laptop back in his bag and headed for the cafe. Back to hot coffee and staring at people who would not yell profanities at him. Maybe a nice slice of cheesecake to go with that hot coffee too...
♡
He skulked through the dark empty house sometime past two in the morning, unable to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the woman's brown eyes floated in front of him. He could hear the hurl of profanities she'd thrown echoing in his ears.
He dawdled to the kitchen, ran a fresh brew of coffee and fetched his laptop. He might as well try to write something. Beneath the stark light, he sat on a barstool and stared at his nemesis, the taunting screen. His hands hovered over the keyboard, and he closed his eyes; hoping and praying the words would come.
The woman's eyes flashed in his mind.
He typed one word: Homeless.
He stared at the word for a moment before deleting it. What kind of romance could he make out of that?
Alas, a pot of coffee downed and the page still blank, he crawled back to bed still a broken man. He would write when he felt ready, and not because Terry breathed down his neck like a dragon. A dragon that could burn his proverbial house—or his career—to the ground if he didn't deliver the next bestseller within the year.