Page 3 of He Sees You

My phone screen shows three missed calls from my father, two voicemails, and five texts. I scroll through them:

Call me back.

Celeste, it's important.

Not an emergency but we need to talk.

Are you in a meeting?

Just call when you can.

I play the first voicemail, my father's gruff voice filling the bathroom, "Honey, just wanted you to know... we've had some trouble up here. Nothing for you to worry about, but there have been some incidents. Young women. Just... maybe this Christmas isn't the best time for a visit. Call me back."

The second voicemail is shorter, "Actually, forget what I said. It's fine. You should come home if you want. Your room's always ready. But we can talk about it. Love you."

I pull out my laptop from my bag and balance it on the marble counter.

The cursor blinks at me from a blank page, mocking.

I deleted everything I wrote this morning—all fifteen hundred words of flat, lifeless prose about a heroine who felt nothing when the dangerous man touched her because I've forgotten what it feels like to be touched by someone who makes me feelanythingat all.

I start typing:

Darkness isn't something you can schedule. It doesn't arrive between nine and five, doesn't wait for you to have your laptop ready, and your coffee warm. Real darkness comes when you're?—

I delete it all.

My phone buzzes.

Juliette:

You okay in there?

They're being assholes, but they're not wrong. Your writing has lost something.

When's the last time you did something that scared you?

I look at myself in the mirror again.

Behind my reflection, I can see the city through the window, snow falling harder now, turning the world soft and quiet.

Somewhere out there are eight million people living their lives, feeling things, experiencing passion and terror, and everything in between.

And here I am, hiding in a bathroom that costs more to build than most people's annual salaries, trying to write about feelings I've forgotten how to have.

I walk back into the conference room and don't sit down.

"I'm going home," I announce.

Richard's eyebrows climb toward his receding hairline. "Excuse me?"

"To the Adirondacks. My father's the sheriff there. Two months. I'll write your darkness, but I need to get out of this city to do it."

"Celeste, we have marketing meetings scheduled, the holiday party, the?—"

"Cancel them." I start packing my laptop, my movements decisive for the first time in months. "You want me to method write? Fine. I'll go somewhere that actually feels dangerous. Somewhere that isn't all glass and steel and artificial everything."

"The mountains?" Juliette looks skeptical. "What are you going to do, write about park rangers?"