Chapter 38

Tessa’s POV

It was Friday and I couldn’t have been happier about that.

The conversation I had with Brian stuck in my mind and I couldn’t seem to shake this nasty and unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach. He had taken up so much space in my head and I just wanted him to get out.

“Maybe you should think about getting a restraining order,” Ruby suggested as we sat down in our usual seats in Joseph’s classroom.

“He’s not dangerous,” I said, shaking my head. “Just an asshole. I’ll be fine. I’ll just keep ignoring him until he gets the hint.”

“And he doesn’t know where you are staying, right?”

“Nope,” I answered.

“Maybe it’s better if you stayed in the hotel then,” she said with a shrug. “Brian knows where I live, and I wouldn’t want to put you in danger.”

“I really don’t think he’s dangerous. He has too much to lose,” I said in return. “But you are right. It’ll be better if he doesn’t know where I am.”

“Good morning, everybody,” Joseph said as he walked into the room. “I was able to review all your assignments last night. You all did nice work. I’ll pass them back at the end of class. I made some notes and suggestions on how to better the story and your assignment for Monday will be to give me an updated copy via my email by 10 am.”

I wrote that down in my agenda, as did everyone else.

“As for today, I’m going to show you a short film and you are going to choose a character in that film, any character you’d like, and write me a small story or poem about that character. Use your imagination and really bring that character to life. I can’t wait to see what you can come up with.”

The film was about werewolves and witches living in harmony together after battling years in a war against one another. It was a very old, black-and-white film. I wondered how much of this film was true and how much were fiction.

There was a young girl in the film that seemed to loved one of the werewolves despite their obvious differences. I felt I could relate to her, so I chose her as the character for my short story.

I took some notes on the girl’s personality from what I can tell from the short film. Once the film was over, Joseph turned on the lights and told us to get to work.

The words and storyline flew effortlessly from my mind. I wrote about this young girl who was in danger by a group of evil vampires, but she was saved by a noble werewolf. In the end, they lived happily ever after.

We handed in our assignments, and he had us do silent reading while grading them. For a moment, I felt his eyes on me during my silent reading. I looked up to meet his wandering gaze and I recognized the purple writing on the paper he was holding.

He was reading my story.

My face instantly warmed and I looked back down at my book, trying to hide my embarrassment.

Toward the end of class, he handed our assignments back,

I got an A.

As did Ruby.

“Do you need a ride anywhere?” Ruby asked as we packed up our things to get ready to leave.

“No, thank you,” I said in return. “But we will talk later.”

“You’ve been acting strange lately. Are you sure everything is okay?”

There was a moment of hesitation which I knew she’d sense because she gave me a look that made my face warm in shame. I hated lying to her and she always knew when I lied to her.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I finally said after a short silence.

She assessed my face further with brows that were knitted together. The silence spoke volumes and I knew she could see right through me. I soon saw disappointment flash on her face.

Then she finally said, “If you say so,” before she turned away and left the room, leaving me staring after her.

…

Joseph waited inside his car when I walked out into the parking lot. It was still fairly light out, so he remained in the backseat.

If I didn’t feel like his personal driver before, I certainly did now.

I rolled my eyes and threw my backpack on the passenger seat as I got into the driver’s seat.

“Your story was interesting,” he said, as we began driving.

I shrugged casually.

“It kind of just came to me,” I said in return.

“It just came to you?” He asked, and I heard the humor in his tone. “It sounded very familiar.”

“Not exactly,” I said, staring at his curious face in the mirror. “The main characters were in love in this story.”

He stayed silent so I decided to change the subject.

“Do you think I could decorate your Villa a little? Maybe make it a little more comfortable?”

“If that’s what you want,” he answered. “But try to refrain from bright colors.”

“No bright colors. Got it,” I said, making a mental note. “I’ll go shopping this weekend and grab some stuff for decorating. Your home has a lot of potential.”

“Does it?” He asked, now looking back out the window. “Well, I guess I’m lucky that I have your eye for detail.”

I couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or not, but I decided to humor him anyways.

“What would you do without me?”

“Have lack of colors apparently,” he teased.

Once we returned to the villa, we went our separate ways. He went to his study to get some work done and I went to his room and worked on a new blog post. My room had a desk on the far side of the room where I kept my laptop.

I sat down and opened my blog, staring at it for a long while. It didn’t have much engagement, but I’m hoping that one day that’ll change.

I just needed to get better at writing and maybe set a theme for my blog. Currently, it holds a variety of post topics. I wrote fantasy and fiction stories and poetry, I wrote diary-like blog entries, and real-life experiences. There really wasn’t a specific direction my blog was going in and I think that confused the small amount of audience that I had.

I opened a new entry and began typing:

Another day is complete where I’m forever stuck between the stages of moving on and being stuck in the past. I was once again forced to speak to the man who broke my heart into a million pieces…

I stopped writing and frowned at my words. I shook my head and deleted it. I don’t want to write yet another post about Brian.

I thought about something Joseph had said on the first day of class and I started to grow inspired.

Trying again I wrote:

What is fiction? What defines fiction? Does it count as fiction if you’ve never seen something? Just because you’ve never seen a unicorn, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means you’ve never seen it. The idea that there could be otherworldly creatures living amongst us is crazy to me because it’s always seemed like such fiction. But as I grow older, and I experience more in life, I’m discovering things that I would only ever dream of.

Most won’t believe in something unless they actually see it and I find that to be ridiculous because it’s not like we can actually see air. However, we know the air is there because we can breathe. But just because we can’t see it… doesn’t mean It’s not there.

Fiction and fantasy are all about opening your mind and thinking outside the box. Fitting logic into it won’t make for a good story. Sometimes it’s easier to believe in something you can’t see vs. believing in something you can see. Life is a mysterious box and thinking outside that box will open your imagination to something incredible.

I paused again, staring at the words I had typed, and I frowned. It still didn’t seem good enough and I don’t think many people were going to read it or even understand it. But I did some editing and then clicked post.

I leaned back, staring at my new post that was now active on my blog.

Brian always told me that I should just give up the blog and move on to something more productive. But I told him it was going to be big one day.

He never believed that for a second because of how little engagement I got.

After a few minutes, I saw that Ruby had already read and liked my latest blog post. I was pleased that I still had her support.

Even though we spent less time together, Ruby still supported me as usual. This was what I loved about her.

“Nobody will ever read the shit that you write.”

Brian’s words haunted my mind. But I quickly brushed it out of my head. That wasn’t true; Ruby read my blog posts.

She reads what I write.

But still, there was a part of me that wondered if Brian was maybe right about me not making it as writer. I wondered if I would ever truly be good enough to be a real writer.