The End

The End.

Even at 15 years old, I knew that writing those words would be cliche as hell, but I truly didn’t care. I’ve been writing since I was in second grade because of a story my teacher had us write about an elf or something. I don’t really remember what it was, but I do remember that I loved telling the story and that, since then, I’ve written as much as I could. 

The downside was that I usually gave up an idea halfway through it. I’d get stuck on an idea and want to make come out exactly right. It had to be right. I mean, I rarely ever had to edit my school papers aside from some basic proofreading, so what was wrong with me that I couldn’t do the same when it came to writing stories? I didn’t realize for the longest time, despite years of reading acknowledgments in my favorite books, that pretty much every writer had to have an editor. It simply hadn’t occurred to me as something I would need.

Or maybe it was that I was afraid I couldn’t get one. That, despite how much I loved writing, my work would never be good enough to others. Ooof, too real. Couldn’t go down that path.

Sitting back and staring at the blinking cursor next to the last punctuation mark of my first ever actually fully completed start to finish story, a surreal feeling came over me. Scratch that. A mixture of feelings. 

Sure, pride was there. I finally got over myself to the point where I could actually write “The End,” even if the extra capital letter made me cringe a little.

Giddiness, abso-frigging-lutely. I wanted to hop up and down and whoop at the accomplishment. Who could blame me? 75,302 words was not something to scoff at!

There was something else lurking there at the back of my mind, though. Something that always made it a point to rear its ugly head whenever I dared to be happy about something. Doubt. That nagging, lingering feeling that maybe I was just fooling myself. That reminder that maybe I had wasted all the time that could have been spent out with my friends or even just reading other books. Because what on Earth possessed me to think that I could actually compete with the likes of those authors I loved?

This was dumb, and I was an idiot. Everything good I felt started fading away, edged out by the monster threatening to eat every ounce of positivity in my heart. What was I thinking?

My fingers hovered over the CTRL and A buttons, the temptation to just delete everything so strong. A car door outside slammed shut, making me jump. I chewed on my lip and debated. Finally, I decided to pull out my cell phone and snapped a picture of the words. I sent it in a group chat with several of my friends from school.

I guess I did a thing!

They never let me down before, so I knew that my reaction to what they said would tell me what I needed to do next. It only took a couple of minutes for my phone to vibrate and trill with the notification of a reply.

Allison: That’s so cool!

Another trill. 

Mattie: What?? When do we get to read it??

Ron: I’ll leave the reading to y’all, but I’ll totes watch the movie when it comes out!

A tinge of heat flushed my cheeks as I continued reading my friends’ texts, each of them equal parts supportive and demanding with their praise.

Thanks, guys! I texted back.

 Piece by piece, the light inside started to shine again and pushed the doubt and shame out of the way. The bubbly feeling returned, and I allowed myself a tiny squeal of excitement.

“Dammit, I said shut up!” came my father’s voice from down the hall, even though there was no way I was louder than the TV. 

I clamped a hand over my mouth before another sound escaped. The last thing I needed on this special day was a screaming match with him. Last time that happened, he took away my laptop for three weeks, and I had to write everything out by hand, even the History paper that my teacher said had to be typed. That had been embarrassing. Mr. Dugarty took off points for it too. I didn’t blame him for it, even though my laptop was taken away only two days before the paper was due. Allison tried to tell me to go explain the situation with my father to him, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to it or I’d probably lose my laptop for even longer. And that would have postponed the writing which wouldn’t have been beneficial at all.

I vaguely wondered what the next step was after finishing a book. Did I have to rewrite it? I’d heard of some people doing that, but I wasn’t quite sure I could stomach that much of an undertaking. I could look it up, but, now that I had the moment back, I didn’t want to ruin it again by seeing how much more work lay ahead. I was curious, though. No, I’d better not risk it. I’d probably just end up making myself upset all over again.

I leaned back and looked at the page again. No more talking because I had finally done it, finally finished a project after what felt like years of planning and jumping around from story to story. Satisfaction. That’s what it was that played on my heartstrings. I wasn’t just a writer anymore but an actual author. Right? That’s what finishing something meant, didn’t it? I thought about looking it up but I didn’t want to break the spell that settled over me as I read that last line over one more time, followed by the two little words, even with the irritatingly messed up capitalization. 

The End.