Writer’s Block

“Your shower isn’t working.” “It is! Let me–” “No! I mean I can figure this out.” “Are you sure?” The sound of knuckles light against the door. “You pull and twist to the left for warm water–” “Got it. I’m fine!” If he had said anything else you didn’t hear it, not with the rush of water from the shower. His shower. His bathroom. His house and last night his bed. Why? You asked yourself again, flattening your forehead against the wall as warm water fell and wrapped around you like an overwhelming hug. “Why?” This time out loud and…

You love him. You love him. “I know. I heard you the first bajillion times,” your best friend scoffed beside you. You were saying it out loud, apparently. It was dark and you didn’t turn to see his face, but you knew his eye roll followed. He’d done it a bajillion times before too. “Sorry,” you said, grinning, though you weren’t really. “I mean look at him.” That was what you were here for, precisely. In this dark, smoky bar on a school night, two hours of traffic away from where you and your friend both lived. Standing at the…

“Hello.” You weren’t crying. You weren’t. Maybe you were sniffling a little bit, but no one around here should notice that. You’re in a train station so early on a weekday morning, rush hour, it looked like. People in these parts were polite, even to strange foreigners like you. But it was rush hour–the whole lot of them were milling, streaming in different directions, with no reason to pay attention to you, the lost, starving, little thing burdened by luggage and standing all alone in a corner. “Hello?” You heard it this time. It came from much closer. You turned…

He’s like that hot guy who’s your friend. Your hot guy friend. It’s a weird thought to have right now, after watching the guy rip off his shirt and show off his hard, slick abs while swinging his hips and crooning 22 songs in all the ways it’s possible to melt your bones. His concert was two hours of his smooth voice and cool hip hop swagger, ending with you as a puddle of satisfied fangirl on the floor. His voice belonged with the stars. His songs were earworms that lived with you for days on end. Price of admission…

It was the howling wind. You’ve heard it said that way before, how the wind howls during a storm. But you didn’t understand it until last night, or was it already morning, when the sound, angry and cold and demanding, hurled through the gap in your window and pulled you out of slumber. Did it save me from a bad dream? Was it a chase or a free fall into an abyss or a scuffle with zombies this time? You think about crawling out of bed to shut the windows, secure the bolt in the door, because of course the…