AN: This needed to be written, for me and for Rory. Mitchum sucks, and that's just all there is to it. I hope you enjoy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cautiously, anxiously, she lifts the lid of her laptop, as though the monsters of her literary dreams might reach out and devour her. The tv is still blaring mindlessly and the chair digs into the backs of her knees where she has swung them over the arm. She ignores the noise and the pain, intent on the enormity of the task at hand.
She hasn't written since he told her she was hopeless.
Defiantly, tentatively, she opens a blank, white document. Its very pristine cleanness mocks her, as though it exists to highlight all the places where she is smudged and faded. She realizes the pedestal she has lived on for so long is one she helped to build. Blindly knocking it down is destroying part of herself too. The boys who adored her, the family that praised her, the town that pinned their hopes on her weary shoulders, they are disappointed by her fall.
She is simply broken.
Silently, hopelessly, she curls her fingers over the keyboard, but does not move them. Words are flowing down her arms, piling up at her knuckles, backing up until they almost choke her. She's not sure if they make sense anymore, or if anyone will care if they do.
She is afraid what she has to say doesn't matter.
Gently, longingly, she opens old documents – articles from the Franklin, an English essay, her story about the LDB. She remembers writing them, how she could feel their significance as she crafted them into coherence and order. The reality of her empty page seems even harsher in comparison.
She wonders if anything will ever make sense again.
Carefully, meaningfully, she closes the documents and mutes the tv. All that is left is empty space – on the screen, around the room, in her mind. She carefully types in the date and feels herself crawl back from the edge. She writes down a word, then two. She absently crafts a sentence, a paragraph, a jumble of everything that has been living within her since it all began to fall apart. She doubts it makes sense, but she can't bring herself to care. She is writing again, if only barely. Her real life still exists somewhere. As words fall on the page, blessed clarity begins to return, and she is able to focus on only one thought.
She will not let him win.