A/N: To those of you who read this before I updated the title, please note that this was originally titled "In Another Life." It was brought to my attention that there have been two recent works with similiar titles so to avoid the confusion, I decided to change mine to, now, "Novel Starts." Thank you everyone for your review, follows, and favorites; I'll try not to disappoint you. And for those who have just hopped on for the ride, strap yourselves in and enjoy!
Chapter 2
After apologizing to his students and teaching assistants, he glossed over a few terms before rushing into the core of the lecture. Once he really started, it was like a switch had been turned in him. All his thoughts and worries momentarily fleeted from his mind as he focused on his lecture. English literature was something he was passionate about and 50 minutes with his students every other day was hardly enough time to say anything. He wished he could have more earnest conversations with his students but for an introductory class, well, let's just say he should be grateful they're even awake to listen to him.
Before he knew it, what was left of his time with his students were up and he found himself back to where he was an hour ago—the entrance/exit of his university library. Could she? No… she wouldn't still be in the library. Without the distraction of his class, Alexander Rodgers found his mind inexplicably drawn back to the encounter he had with the strange woman carrying his novel.
Sure he has seen his novels all around campus before and it was no surprise to run into someone holding his novel in their possession (though he's never quite so literally run into such a possibility). Richard Castle has become a phenomenon in the murder mystery world, to his astonishment, and the fact that no one quite knows who the famous man is makes him even more popular. Richard Castle is the ultimate mystery in his macabre novels.
It's not that he purposely wanted to remain anonymous. When he started his novels, it was just a hobby he started for fun. As a professor in comparative literature, he's read enough novels to realize which archetypes work and which do not. On a whim, he decided to jot down a plot that kept replaying in his head and before he was even consciously aware of it, he had submitted the draft to a small publishing group under the pseudonym, Richard Castle.
Next thing he knew, Richard Castle was gaining international attention and people all around the world started asking, who is Richard Castle? He never included a photo to be published with his novels and the most he wrote for the bio section was, "In a tidal wave of mystery, passion stands there next to me."
Many have postulated that he is as young as one of his novice undergraduate students while others would argue he's as old as some of his superior colleagues with tenure and bifocals. Some even go as far to suggest that Richard Castle is actually a woman, using a male name to get more recognition. None however have been able to guess that Richard Castle is simply a New York University professor, teaching his diverse students on the importance of the classics but also to retaining some artistic integrity with their many liberties.
At the end of the day however, despite his gaining popularity, he was still a professor first and foremost and right now, this professor has been standing in front of the NYU library for ten minutes too long—not conspicuously though, mind you. Rodgers has been leaning against one of the large stone columns supporting the wide porch of the library, staring at those double doors, almost willing either himself to walk in or the mysterious woman who's been haunting his thoughts to walk out.
Rodgers glanced down at his watch again. 3:11pm. It's been a little over an hour since he was last here. What should he do? If he did walk in there and she was there, what would he say? Would he sit down next to her? How awkward would that be? "Oh hi, remember me? We ran into each other earlier, literally."
Shaking his head disapprovingly, as if the rattle would scatter these useless thoughts of his, Rodgers puckered up his courage and walked through the door. If I see her then I'll decide what to do next then; no point in getting flustered up for nothing.
And sadly, he realized with a pang of regret after he fully entered the building, that nothing it was. Even though he scanned the room twice upon entering the main floor, the woman he ran into earlier was nowhere to be seen. The double doors he entered through opens up to rows upon rows of those beautiful oak wood tables, but each one was occupied by some co-ed either studying or goofing around on the interwebs.
Dejectedly, Rodgers slumped to the nearest vacant table and spread out his work. Since he was back at the library, he might as well get in some productivity and double check his manuscript before he goes home. And with that, he took out his laptop and diligently worked to block out his surroundings and zone into his writing mode. So intent was he on his work, he failed to notice the woman who gracefully descended the side stairs that led up to the second level of library reserves. It was all for the best anyways, as she did not notice the man who had run into her and returned to the "scene of the crime." She only came to the library in an effort to get some peace and quiet as she worked on her latest case. As she had gotten as far as she could in the past hour or so, it was time to call it quits for the day. She descended her steps with her focus only on the double doors, briefly thinking she should be more careful this time around. That was the extent of her reflection however, towards the man who sat only paces from where she was exiting.
Both continued on their individual trajectories for the rest of that day. The woman moving on to finish out her errands while Rodgers, having stayed at the library for a few more hours, polished off his manuscript and sent it into his publishers. He exited the library near 6pm and rushed on home to prepare dinner, more or less forgetting about his (missed) encounter. With the manuscript no longer weighing on his mind, Rodgers's only plan for the night was to relax and prepare for the oncoming weeks of hell he was sure to face given the ending he wrote out for his, now final, manuscript.