"Did you write anything today?"
The message lit up Ethan's phone just past midnight. He blinked at it, confused for a moment, until he remembered the number — the scrap of paper from the café, still sitting on his desk like a relic.
Isabella.
He stared at the screen, thumb hovering over the keyboard. He hadn't written a single decent line in weeks, but something about her blunt question made him want to prove her wrong. Or maybe prove himself wrong.
"No," he whispered into the empty room. Then, against his better judgment, he typed back:
Not yet.
A reply came instantly. Then stop staring at your phone and start.
Ethan let out a nervous laugh, half-annoyed, half-thrilled. Bossy, he thought — but she wasn't wrong. He turned to the laptop, started typing. Slowly at first, clumsy, uneven sentences. But then something broke open inside him, and the words spilled out. For the first time in months, he felt like he wasn't dragging them out by force. They were coming on their own, tumbling faster than he could catch them.
Hours blurred. When he finally leaned back, five pages filled the screen. Real pages. He hadn't done that in months.
His phone buzzed again. Still there?
He typed back, Yeah. I wrote. You were right — I'm not okay with giving up.
A pause, then her reply: Good. Don't be. Want to meet tomorrow?
Ethan stared at the message. Every logical part of him screamed to be cautious — she was married, she'd said so. But the other part, the desperate part, the part that had just bled five pages onto the screen, didn't care.
Yes, he typed, before he could talk himself out of it.