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Two days until my deadline, and the words refused to co-operate. I sat in my small office, in my small flat, staring at the cheerfully blinking cursor on my computer screen, silently damning the writer’s block that had plagued me for the past month. Finally, I gave up and shut off the monitor.

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The alarm buzzed loudly the following morning, telling me it was time to get up and face that damned computer screen again. Sherman was curled around my feet, in his usual spot, sound asleep, despite the noise from the insistent alarm. I reached over and shut it off, blinking at the sunlight that was pouring through the windows.

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When the phone rang, I was ready for it. I settled myself at my desk, with my list of ideas and requests in front of me, just to make sure I had all of my ducks in a row. I wanted this movie to reflect the book as much as possible, and not become just another bastardized “based on” piece of shit. And I wouldn’t back down on that.

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A few days passed before I heard anything from Orlando about the audition he wanted to do for me. I managed to get some writing done on my new book, but the casting for After Midnight was always in the back of my mind. I’d done some online research, and rented some of Orlando’s non-epic movies from Netflix, just to see if Olivia was right, and I found that, while stiff in some places, he had potential as an actor, not that I’d really be a good judge of that. I really worked him over in my mind as Jesse, trying to fit him to the character, but there was just something wrong.

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Over the next week or so, I managed to meet my extended deadline, and it felt good to be able to just relax for a day or two. I was waiting to hear from Georgie to see what she thought of the pages I’d sent her, and I didn’t want to go on with the book until I’d had her in-put, just in case she wanted something changed.

I was attempting to clean my living room a couple of days after my deadline, when the phone rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone to call, since I’d talked to Olivia and my mom that morning. I threw the pile of books I’d been sorting onto the coffee table and dug around in the sofa cushions for my portable phone.

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The following day found me no closer to having a clean apartment than I’d been when I’d hung up from Orlando. After our conversation, and the picture in the magazine, I’d found it very difficult to settle to any one task, and so had sort of floated from one area to the next, not really accomplishing anything. I’d tried to at least get the recycling ready for my landlord to take to the road for me, but couldn’t even get that done. The piles of magazines were still all over my carpet, and the recycling box was still half-empty.

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Now my concentration was really shot to hell, and all thoughts of cleaning flew out the window. I paced the living room floor, well, what I could see of it, for a few minutes, my mind spinning over and over the idea of a wedding, and a step-father who probably wasn’t even my age yet. Mom had said he was in his twenties, but that was a pretty wide gap. He looked like he was at least 25, and it’d be a relief if he was older than my own 27 years.

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I spent the next few hours pouring over my own notes and making the necessary changes. Though I still had my original manuscript for After Midnight saved on my computer, I chose to pull my dialogue from the hardback copy I was cradling in my lap. To the tune of Sherman’s rhythmic purring, I tweaked the script into what I wanted it to be.

Around two o’clock I was forced to take a break when Olivia called, almost in a full-blown panic.

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Once I’d submitted my After Midnight script revisions to Olivia, I locked myself in my bedroom with a pint of chocolate ice cream and a warm cup of tea. Orlando’s rejection haunted me, and I couldn’t even face my own apartment now. I needed to be alone, without even Sherman for company, to binge on food that was bad for me and thoughts that were worse.

I’m not sure how long I wallowed, staring mindlessly at the TV, with the sound off, ignoring the phone and Sherman’s pathetic whimpering outside the door, not even noticing that the ice cream had turned into a chocolate puddle in the carton. Orlando’s voice at the end of our call spun through my mind, and I played it over and over again, the vulnerability, the trust, the warmth, followed by the awkwardness and distance that had come so quickly.

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Olivia was over the moon when I called her back and told her that Orlando was back on board. Listening to her prattle on about how wonderful I was, while slightly enjoyable at first, quickly started to grate on my nerves, which in turn made me feel very, very tired. I told her in no uncertain terms that I had to go, and went into my bedroom to get some sleep.

But sleep eluded me. I laid in my bed, with Sherman purring contentedly at my side, staring out the window at the sky that would never be completely black because of the light from the still-bustling city, waiting for the blessed unconscious to take over, but it just didn’t come. My mind whirred, replaying the things Orlando had said, the way his voice changed when he was being charming, the flush I’d felt at his admission that he wanted to meet me.

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