Timid

It had been years. Four years, five months, two weeks, and one day, to be exact. That was how long it had been since Lila had last sat down to write. It was also exactly how long it had been since her twin sister had died. 

Lila and Clara hadn’t always been close; they had only gotten close in the few years before Clara had died. Growing up, they had been in competition with each other so much to the point that they hadn’t been able to stand each other. After college though, their tempers had mellowed and they no longer cared as much about what the other was doing. Perhaps it had been the four years of college in different states and seeing each other every few months that had taken away their edge and allowed them to become friends. 

It had been odd, reconciling with Clara after years of being at each others’ throats. Their path towards reconciliation had started when they were both home from college during their winter break. 

Their parents had gone to a friend’s house for dinner and Lila and Clara were left home. Lila had been in the process of going through her books deciding whether to keep them or to donate them when Clara opened her door. She stood in the doorway looking confused before stepping in. 

“Can I help you?” Lila asked, glancing up from her pile. 

Clara didn’t say anything, and after a second Lila went back to sorting her books. 

“Caroline told me she was in love with me.” Clara sounded so confused like she couldn’t believe what she had just said. 

Lila dropped the book she was holding in shock.

“Caroline?! Your best friend?” She exclaimed.

Clara nodded, a small smile forming on her face. Lila couldn’t believe her ears.

“Caroline, the girl that has dated more boys than I count? Caroline, the girl that made out with at least 9 different guys at our sweet sixteen?” She reaffirmed. 

“That’s the one,” she replied, amusement lacing her voice.

Lila sat back on her heels.

“Did you know she was into girls?” She asked curiously.

Clara shrugged. “Now I do.” 

Lila shook her head, smiling. 

“That’s hilarious. What’d you say to her? What would your ship name even be?” 

“Well, I told her I appreciated her telling me, but that I wasn’t into girls.” 

"Claroline? That doesn't even work," Lila commented.

"Yeah,"

“Damn, who knew even the straightest appearing people might not be who they appear?” Lila asked rhetorically. 

“You never know. Do you want to watch a movie?” Clara asked randomly. 

Lila looked at her and found that Clara was studying the pictures on her wall. Lila may not have gotten along with her but she knew when her sister was nervous. Knowing Clara was nervous asking Lila to do something with her made Lila feel a little bit guilty. 

“Sure, what were you thinking?” she asked, getting up from where she had been seated. 

Ever since then, Clara and Lila had been slowing working on their relationship. It had been new to both of them; they were each trying to figure out their roles and how to act around the other. They stumbled through it, working out years of resentment and competition, eventually finding a path towards friendship and sisterhood. By the time Clara had died, she and Lila had been fairly close. 

Lila stared at her screen, the page blank except for the cursor blinking back at her. She didn’t even know where to begin. She was so out of practice from writing. After Clara had died, Lila hadn’t been able to even fathom the thought of writing. She had packed up her notes, her pens, the notebooks, everything that was linked to writing in any way. Lila had deleted every document that she had started, trying to erase the guilt that had eaten away at her. 

She sighed and shut her laptop. There wasn’t a chance in hell that she was going to write tonight, if ever again. She wasn’t sure how to do it anymore. Her manager, Indra, had been very understanding when Lila told her that she wasn’t able to write. Indra had been very patient, but after two years had passed, Lila could tell she was losing her patience. After Clara had died, Lila had canceled all publicity events, all book signings, and had even tried to cancel the release date for her book, but that one she hadn’t been successful in. Despite Lila’s attempts to essentially make her book fade into oblivion and never mentioned again, her debut book had been incredibly successful. Her intended audience had been young adults and teenagers, but it had expanded to people in their twenties. People all around the country, and then later the world, loved her book and begged for more. Except for Lila. She hated her book and what it reminded her of. 

Lila blamed herself for Clara’s death. 

They had been driving home from a meeting with Lila’s publisher. The meeting had discussed the release date, the final draft, and the end process to the final publication of the book. Lila could have gone by herself, but she had wanted Clara to come. Clara had been extremely organized and one of her strong suits had been taking notes on everything so Lila would never forget a small detail.

Clara had been driving, Lila in the passenger seat. They had been chatting about how the meeting had gone when Lila had gotten an email from her publisher. The email contained three options for cover designs. The covers had been designed by a local cover artist who had just started cover designing. Despite her novelty, she was actually quite good. Lila had been showing Clara the designs on her phone. Neither of them had seen the oncoming car that had just rounded the curve at a dangerous speed. In the couple of seconds that Clara had taken her eyes off the road, the car had gone straight into the driver’s side of the car, making it spin out of control. 

Later, the doctors had said that Clara had probably died in the collision since her side of the car had been hit straight on. It had taken two seconds of a mistake to forever change their lives. 

Lila had never forgiven herself for showing her sister the pictures. Everything would be different if she had just waited until they had gotten home. Clara would still be alive. 

Her readers wanted a second book to continue the journey of the characters they were so enamored with. But there was nothing left in Lila to write a continuation for characters and a story that she detested. She wanted nothing to do with the story ever again. 

Lila stared at her laptop. She just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t write anything. But it had been over four years and Lila had promised Indra and herself that she would try. She had to try again, just once. She had to give it a fair shot before truly giving up writing. 

Lila fidgeted and set her laptop on the couch next to her. She did some jumping jacks and grabbed a water bottle from the kitchen. She tried changing positions, first laying down with her laptop propped up on her knees, then sitting cross-legged on the floor, then lying with her legs up against the wall. Nothing worked. She was still stuck staring at a blank page with a blinking cursor that seemed to mock her. Lila wanted to give up. She desperately wanted to give up. But the stubbornness in her wouldn’t allow her to unless she fully gave it her all. She wasn’t sure how to do that, but she had to keep trying. 

Lila finally decided to give herself a change of scenery. She packed up her laptop and charger, grabbed her wallet, and headed out the park around the block from her apartment. The park had many park benches she could sit on while watching children play, the cars whizzing by on the highway, and the water flowing through the bay. 

She found a bench to sit on and pulled out her laptop but made no move to open it. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. Lila tried to do avoid doing this a much as possible. If she allowed herself to think, the guilt would consume her. But she forced herself to keep her eyes closed, tentatively allowing her mind to think about things that she had forced deep into the depths of her brain where she had shoved them so long ago. 

Memories started trickling in, slowly at first and then all at once. They swirled through her brain and her body, surrounding her until it consumed her. There were memories of Clara laughing, her looking at Lila across the table at dinner, her hugging Lila. The more recent memories were replaced with older memories from when they were kids. Clara and Lila at the playground, Clara and Lila at the school. The memories kept flooding through the barrier that Lila had opened. Surprisingly, the only memories she had kept locked away had been the good ones. There were no memories filled with bitterness or resentment. No jealousies or anger, just memories of Clara that made Lila’s chest ache. She tried to fight to lock them away again but there were too many and too strong. Lila eventually stopped fighting and let the emotions wash over, filling every piece of her being. 

Tears slid down her face and Lila found it hard to breathe. She missed Clara so much. Her heart physically hurt from the aching. Their time together had been cut short, their closeness even shorter. Lila regretted spending most of their lives fighting and competing with each other. If she had known how it would end, she would have cherished every moment she had had with Clara instead of cursing her existence, as she had often done when they were younger. 

When the memories and emotions had come to a gradual halt, she opened her eyes. She had kept all of those emotions tightly locked away for so long because she had been so scared of the pain and heartbreak it would have caused. But Lila felt relieved, which shocked her. She felt lighter and a little bit looser. 

Suddenly, she knew what she was going to write about. It wasn’t going to be a sequel or a book that related at all to what she had written in the past. She didn’t care whether Indra or her readers wanted a continuation; that was a chapter in her life that had been closed for a long time now. There was no point in continuing it. Her fans would have to deal with it. 

She was going to write something new, something different. Something that had been hidden and brushed aside for far too long. She was going to write her story. A story about the loss of a loved one that badly damages the main character. The character would grow and come to accept the loss, growing to be a person that was able to continue on with their life. The story would hopefully be enough to guide Lila through her own grief. In time, she hoped that she could grow with the protagonist and process her grief, just like she planned for her character. 

For the first time in a long time, Lila was able to open her document and actually type. Words became sentences. Sentences became paragraphs. The words flowed out of her fingers. For the first time, Lila felt free. A weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She would move on. She couldn’t’ allow the grief to control her life as it had been for the last few years. Enough was enough. She needed to start a new chapter in her life.