TO BE A WRITTER

Chapter One

 The airport felt hot and stuffy with all the bodies rushing about, in a hurry to get home. It was understandable, though, with the Christmas festivities and all. I breathed in slowly, instantly regretting it when the smell of sweat and about a thousand different perfumes hit me. “I’m sorry,” a young lady bumped into me, she barely registered me as she continued her run-walk. I started towards the exit, Olive had apparently been too busy to pick me up, so I had to get a taxi to take me to the house. One stopped a few minutes after I had walked out of the busy airport. “Where to ma’am?” the cabbie asked as I settled into the back seat. I gave him the address and closed my eyes, dreading the moment I would have to walk through the front door of the house, it had once been my safe haven but now I couldn’t even call it a home.

 The street looked pretty much the same, unchanged, untouched. A few children played on the front lawn of the only house which seemed new, though it really wasn’t, it seemed to have just received a fresh coat of paint. The taxi stopped in front of the house, it looked exactly as I had left it four years ago. Olive in her usual bubbly manner had insisted on a ‘welcome-home’ party, but I had declined needing a few moments of privacy to collect myself and confront my past. I opened the door, and the familiar scent of books, paper and coffee hit me. I hadn’t smelt anything even remotely similar in all the four years I had spent abroad, and surprisingly it felt so surreal, it almost felt like home. 

The house, my house, looked exactly as I had left it, the antique bookcase I had gotten when I had first moved into the place was lodged in the corner, its golden brown color had always fascinated me, a few bookmarks sat on the top shelf, a box of key chains and a copy of Jane Eyre, the rest of it was filled it classics. On its right, the part that wasn’t on the wall, was a huge faded pink bean bag, suddenly the memories rushed back, me receiving my first owl crate package, me settling my bills, me talking to my mum and the strongest and most nostalgic memory: me deeply engrossed in an amazingly cliché romance novel or eyes glued to a screen and hands flying away at the keyboard as I typed and wrote my life out, while snuggled and almost buried in the warmness of the bean bag.

I left my bags by the front door and slowly made my way across the house, reliving each moment I had spent in each room: the kitchen, the library, the bathroom and my bedroom. My bedroom had been the last room I went into. My journal sat on my bed still open and my hurried handwriting scrawled across two pages. I picked it up to read the words I had written with tears in my eyes: “if you ever read this, it means you came back and that you are meant to be a writer.” My eye watered almost instantly and I clutched the journal to my chest, I had written those words thinking I would never hear them, never read them, but I had, I had heard them, Matthias had made it his life mission to tell me that I was meant to write every single day and now here I stood reading them. I sat down on my old comforter and opened the journal, my journal of ideas and abstracts. I flipped through it, crying harder as I looked at all the ideas I had never pursued, the books and articles I had never written. I flipped through to an empty page, grabbed a pen and wrote in big block letters: LETTERS TO MATTHAIS, my brand new pursuit, my brand new book. 

Chapter Two

“You want to write again?” Olive asked or rather shrieked. “Yes, a book,” we were sitting on the living room floor of my house with a container of chocolate-chip ice-cream between us. “What happened to ‘I’m taking a break from writing, I’ll probably never write again ’”she asked putting air quotes around my words. I sighed and gave her a pointed look, “I said break, and the break is over.” She opened her mouth to say something but quickly shut it. A look of concern flashed across her face and she immediately looked away. I knew what she was thinking, ‘what if what happens last time happens again?’ and although I was sure I wanted to write again, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to talk about what had happened four years ago, what caused me to flee the country and take a ‘break’ from writing.

“I’m going to be okay Liv” I told her softly. She patted my hand and smiled, “I know, Tasha, I’m just looking out for you.” I knew her well enough to know that she was still skeptical, but I also knew that she would be with me and support me all through the process.

“What’s the book about?” she asked.

“Love”

“Please do elaborate,”

“And loss” she folded her arms across her chest and looked at me the way a mother looks at her naughty toddler. I burst out laughing, I knew she hated vague responses. “Fine, it’s about Matt, and before you say anything I know what I’m doing, and I want to do it” I said. She sat quietly for a while before softly saying, “I know you know what you are doing, I just think you’re juggling too many painful memories”

“Matt’s not a memory, neither is my writing career. I’m not asking for your permission, I’m just asking for your support” I snapped a bit too harshly. I was fed up of people treating me like an egg, like one wrong word and I would break. “I’m here for you, always know that” Olive said, pulling me into a bear hug.

***********

I stared at the blank page in front of me and sighed. I had been sitting here for over an hour but nothing I wrote seemed worthy of Matt. I clutched the pen tighter and wrote ‘a love so true, is one so endless’ then scrunched the paper again and wrote, ‘the beginning of a love story should never be compared to the beauty of an endless forever of true love’ and scrunched that up too. And then finally I wrote ‘when a man and a woman fall in love, the world momentary ceases to exist for either of them, catapulting each of them into a world where only the other exists, into paradise,’ smiled turned the page and wrote, ‘Dear Matt: The day we met.’

**********

The day we met

“Tourist?” you had asked leaning over the counter and flashing your insanely handsome smile. I turned to look at you and pointed at myself, you chuckled and said “yes, you beautiful” you had always been such a flirt.

“I wouldn’t say so” I had answered

“So what would you say?”

“Perhaps, someone on the run” I had tilted my head and looked at you squarely in the eye.

“Should the police be informed?”

“No, absolutely not, let’s just say I’m running from myself”

“Interesting, care to share?”

 And just like that I had told a Matt, a total stranger, how I had always wanted to be a writer, started writing stories before most kids could read or write and competing in writing contests by age 10. How everyone - teachers, friends, even strangers-who read my work said I was exceptionally talented. How I had saved up and bought a little house in a quiet neighborhood and set up my hive, or den as Olive had always called it. And then when I had turned 22, I had submitted my first manuscript to a small, barely recognized publishing company and to my horror, had been rejected, told my work was sub-standard and that I should consider anything other than writing. It had broken me so bad I didn’t want to be around anything that reminded me of books or writing, so I ran away from it all. Two weeks later, I was on a plane headed for Brazil, just to get away from it all.

Chapter Three

After my book got rejected for publication, my life had seemed to be on a downward spiral. I had traveled to Brazil to learn another craft, to make myself fall in love with something other than words, but in all the four years I had been in Brazil the only ‘craft’ I had been able to learn was Portuguese. The only good thing that had happened to me was Matt, but I had lost him too. Home-as I had learned to call it now-seemed like the only stable place and thing in my life, it had stayed and waited for me for four years.

Now, however, I was making myself a new stable thing in my life. My book about Matt and I’s love was halfway through, and writing it had been fascinating and daunting at the same time. I had relived many memories with Matt which had brought me joy but at the same time had tore me apart so much I had to stop and sob sometimes. The writing process itself, had proved freeing, to express myself in words, to express my love for Matt in words had been amazingly freeing.

I fell back on my bed and sighed happily, I had just relived Matt and I’s first kiss, it had been enchanting, under the pouring rain, both of us thoroughly soaked. It was a moment I was sure to never forget. I sat back up and continued to write.

**********

Dear Matt: the day I met your family

“How does this look?” I had asked you, turning to look at myself in the full-length mirror. “It looks gorgeous baby, you look gorgeous” you had picked me up and spun around until I was too dizzy to stand. Afterwards we had left for your parents’ house with my heart in my throat.

His parents’ house was a small bungalow in a suburban neighborhood. His mother, a petite woman with black hair and eyes so blue they looked like the ocean on a sunny day, had welcomed me with a kiss on both cheeks, while his father, a tall, muscular man, had shook my hand as firmly as if we were making a business deal, his eyes were the exact color of Matt’s eyes, a green so deep it almost seemed black. His parents had been hospitable and made me feel welcomed and loved in only the few hours I had spent with them.

**********

Dear Matt: the day I lost my Nanna

The phone had dropped to the floor and my eyes pooled with tears, you had come rushing towards me, not saying nothing, just shushing me. I couldn’t believe my nana was gone but you had whispered promises of hope and love to me all through the night. We had spent the next day in bed, me, wrapped in your arms, crying softly and you silently offering all the comfort you could give.

I could still feel the pain of losing nanna, she was my favorite person, and the one person I could tell everything to. She was the only person who had understood my reasons for leaving and had fully supported me.

**********

Dear Matt: the day I lost you

“Is this Natasha Malumo” the voice had said over the phone, it was late, really late. “Ye… yes” I had stammered out a reply. “I’m sorry to inform that Matthias Carlos, had been involved in a motor car accident and you must come to the hospital as soon as possible” after that even I don’t remember what had happened, it seemed as though my senses returned to me the moment you asked who I was. The doctor said the accident had caused you amnesia, probably never to regain the memories you had lost. You didn’t remember me anymore, all the special moments, the bad days, everything had been erased. I had cried for days on end, I visited you every day for two weeks until the nurse told me to stop, I had subtly tried to make you remember me, but it had all been in vain. You didn’t even want me near you. Finally, after two months, I decided to do the one thing you always told me to do, to write. And so I had left, knowing, you knew nothing of my existence.

I sobbed as I wrote the whole length of the last chapter, writing about my love for Matt and his for him, had proved conquering, like the perfect re-introduction into my career as a writer, a perfect way for me to unite with words after my ‘break’ from them. My book ended with a five worded promise to Matt, ‘I will always love you,’ then I clicked send and sent it to one of the biggest publishers in the world.

Epilogue

“Sometimes, you lose yourself and you lose what you loved and ran away from everything. I thought I would never write again, but here I am, a published author. My hiatus, had reminded me that I am a writer, that I was born to write, and now that I’m back, I’m not going to be stopped by anything anymore.” The audience burst into applause, the launch of Letters to Matthias had been a success, selling over a thousand copies. For once in my life I was sure of something, I was sure that writing had always been and will always be my safe haven, my safe place. I stepped off the stage and that’s when I saw him, tall and handsome. Matt was dressed in a black jeans and a black dress shirt, his hair jelled back with a few stubborn hairs standing at the nape of his neck. He looked so I handsome that I openly and shamelessly stared. He stayed the whole length of the launch and seemed so intrigued but spoke to no one. In the end he bought one unsinged copy and left the minute the launch ended.

One week later

The knocks on the door came in quick successive raps. “Coming” I yelled as I came done the stairs and ran to the door. “I said I’m –“my words got stuck in my throat as I looked at the man in front of me. Matt stood on my porch, a copy of my book clutched between his hands. I slowly lifted my eyes to look at his and when I finally met his stare, my legs wobbled and my throat went dry when I saw recognition sweep across his face. “You did become a writer” he said and pulled me into him, hugging me. I sobbed on his shirt not saying anything, just crying and holding on tightly to his shirt. “I remember everything, I’m so sorry I made you go through all that, I read the book and everything came right back.” He said softly, his chin resting on my head.

“I….i…” I couldn’t collect my thoughts. “Ssh, you don’t have to say anything, I’m back and I will always love you.” I don’t know how long we stood on that porch just embracing each other, but for some reason I felt like a different person, a complete person, I felt as though now that I was a writer, doing what I was born to do, I could love him better, because now I would be loving him as a complete person, no loose ends, no unsettled issues, just me, the whole me, Natasha Malumo.