Note: I’m undertaking the Artist’s Way journey with friends. One piece of this journey is writing morning pages by hand. I’m adjusting this slightly to be a mix of typed and handwritten pages depending on how I feel on a given day. I may share some of my pages here.
Day One
She walked up to the typewriter full of dust and indifference like her. She could see two typed lines even perched from her stairway. As she neared the revelation, she heard a light clearing of the throat. He was not supposed to still be here. She had set clear expectations. As she made it to the bottom of the stairway, he caught the corner of her glance.
“I thought I made it clear that this wasn’t a sleepover.”
He chuckled, standing there in boxers, nearly bare, sculpted with defiance. “I thought I told you I’m not a one-night stand kind of guy. I like you. Let’s have some breakfast. You actually agreed to that last night.”
“In my sleep? Because I don’t remember agreeing to that, and I normally don’t eat breakfast.”
“Coffee and toast with peanut butter then?”
She shrugged. She could use a cup of coffee, and she wasn’t allergic to peanuts. He walked off with purpose, the line of his back straight and strong. He had a cap of ruffled black curls on top of his head that was more visible in the morning sun. They had laughed when her hands became tangled in them. The reality of passion was a far cry from the movie version where her hands would have made it through to his ends.
As soon as he cleared the doorway into the kitchen, causing her discomfort as he opened cabinets getting familiar with her mess, she ran to the typewriter. It had to be from him. She hadn’t touched it in so long. It caused her aches all the time, mentally and physically. She wished she had never been published, never received acclaim, never sold rights for a movie that was never made. She was empty now, and in the passion of last night, she had told him this. She was stupid for opening her book to him with its empty pages. He was making breakfast out of pity, not desire.
She reached for the paper, quality to the touch. If a writer was eschewing modern technology for a draft, they needed to invest in high-quality paper. This was her rule. She would hire somebody to transcribe it to the required format…if she ever managed to write again. The paper between her hands felt like Egyptian cotton sheets, the same sheets of last night. A book advance paid for those.
The paper stood strong before her and heralded a new future brought to her by a beautiful stranger in the night. “You can do this, Sophie. Today is the day you begin again after I make you breakfast.”
Kelly Rogers 