My Recurring Interlude

You know that feeling, when you binge watch a show and in the middle of its lengthy seasons, you stop. Not in a ‘I’m done with you’ sort of way, but just a pause. A pause that excuses your boredom, and you keep telling yourself, ‘you’ll get back to it.’

And now, I finally am. No, not to a Netflix thriller, but my book. A book that has been hiding in my laptop files for years. I open my laptop, scrolling through the many documents I have kept saved. 

I have started many stories, but there was never a hope to finish them, or even dent into a few chapters. They were just ideas mixed with boredom, and boom, you have an okay introduction.

But this book was different, I had worked on it for almost a year, and I made it to the end. Yet, I didn’t finish it because I didn’t know how. How do you release characters you worked so hard on into oblivion. I could have left it on a casual cliff hanger and continued a second book, but some stories run out of fuel. There were no more words for me to use in order to expand the plot. So, I did what I do best, I ‘paused’ my book. 

The first thing I did was read it. 80,000 words had me shed a few tears, but not as many as the amount of edits I threw into the paragraphs. And then there was the ending, well almost-ending. I left it off with ‘How the hell do I end this?,’ a little author’s note to myself. 

My main character, Danny, was struggling a teenage life fronting against drugs, a problematic relationship, and childbirth. Once she gives birth to an infant, it changes her life completely, but for the better. 

At first, the plot sounded pretty cheesy and I honestly thought this would be another unfinished story and forgotten idea. But, I fell in love with my characters, just like in a TV show. It was so easy to write chapter after chapter, until the 79th one. 

Let me recap the events of the 79 chapters, to give you a little understanding of my pain. Danny, a nineteen-year-old who dropped out of high school at the soonest opportunity, finds herself in a bad situation with an addiction to heroin. 

Also adding to her steep list of issues, she has an abusive boyfriend who she doesn’t want to lose. Although he treats her with no respect and verbally abuses her, he is the only thing she has left. That is until she finds herself pregnant, which leads to more decisions on abortion, adoption, or raising. A long nine months pass by and Danny finally gives birth, using the money she saved up from working two flexible jobs to pay the medical expenses. 

A baby boy rests in her arms after a night of hard labor, and then the book pauses. I know I have to finish the last chapter, and maybe I can add a fulfilling epilogue once I am done, so I might as well start now.

Chapter 79

She lays on the stiff hospital bed, her head resting against the many plump pillows. A heart monitor beats with simple rhythm and an IV connects her wrist to a bag holding some kind of liquid. She holds him in her arms, Laurence, a blue-eyed baby with soft brown hair and a tiny bruised nose from birth complications. 

Although she had quit from her heroin addiction, the baby would still have permanent health issues because of it. This pained the young mother because now her decisions affected another life. It made her sensitive to reality, and how it wasn’t just her who she had to make sure survived. The baby boy’s hair was slicked back from the womb, as his lips let out soft whimpers.

A few days went by in the hospital, peaceful moments between mother and son. She was nervous to go home to no one, with an infant who she would have to raise by herself.

Whenever you write a book, considering the many stories I have only started, you write the characters’ feelings depending on your own. That way, you can validate their thoughts through their relatability with your own.

But, at this moment in the last chapter, I didn’t understand, I could only imagine. And it drove me slightly insane.

She arrived at her two bedroom apartment, entering a dark studio which mashed the living room, dining room, and kitchen together in the limited space. To the left was a hallway, leading to the two small bedrooms. 

The home felt lonely, but the infant’s quiet cries somehow lifted the eerie mood. The mother walked her sweetness into the nursery, cradling him in her arms instinctively. The walls were painted different shades, each wall a different blue. Although it showed a lack of resources, it also resembled originality.

The small nursery had a crib in the back corner and an old-fashioned rocking chair in the adjacent corner. They were both a polished wood, handwork done by Danny herself. A little homemade bookshelf stood next to the closet which held a small amount of children’s books the poor mother could gather. 

Although she couldn’t afford much, she felt pride in the newly decorated room. It was all of her hard work for him, the blue-eyed baby which stared so deeply into her own eyes. His eyes, a pearly ocean of mystery that were so mesmerizing, had no lack of confidence dwelling into the other’s soul when they looked.

I can’t get rid of these characters. So much hard work and dedication just for it to end, although this final chapter would be quite fulfilling. Even a young baby who I just created has so much character which I will miss.

But there are so many more creations I can make with just a few 80,000 words. I can just continue my other once ‘hopeless’ stories, and maybe find a plot line that I just completely fall in love with. 

I looked out the window, hair clumsily falling in front of my face, at dark gray clouds that were not filled with lighting or rumbling with thunder. Silent clouds, hovering over my slumped form on my couch.

My eyelids droop a little as I realize I should take a late nap. Sometimes when sleep comes too close to my conscious, I continue my story subconsciously and out of personal control. Then I have to delete half a chapter of ridiculous plot.

Well, I guess I will continue the chapter tomorrow, or so I thought.

Little did I know I wouldn’t open the story for another six months.