A/N: This is a heads up that this chapter contains spoilers for Heat Rises. As always, thank you for reading! :))
Dear Kate,
I shot Rook. I know this is considered a bit of a spoiler and I'm kind of hoping you've read the book already, but it just seemed right, Rook taking a bullet for Nikki. You can analyze it all you want to (everyone else has), but I was at the Old Haunt late one night and I knew it had to happen that way. It's how I would've written it...how I did end up writing it.
It looks like the summer is winding down and I can't say that it flew by like most summers usually do. My book tour kicks off tomorrow; or maybe I should call it my first of a few appearances in New York. I told Paula I didn't want to travel for this book and she surprisingly respected my wishes, but for a small price: I have to do a reading for the appearance tomorrow. Which isn't so bad, and she's even picked out the passage she wants me to read, but it's not the passage I would've chosen. The one I would've selected can be found on the last couple pages of the book, specifically when Nikki sits down by Rook's hospital bed and starts to read to him. That's the passage I would've picked because these characters, as loosely based on us as they are, end up hitting similar roadblocks, but they face each one differently than us.
So I shot Rook, just like you were shot by that damn sniper we can't catch, and one of the reasons that I take pride in Nikki and Rook is because they have always kind of represented our chance (well at least in my mind). But then I had to go and shoot Rook and mess that up because that's how it should have gone that day, Kate. I project my hopes, my feelings onto these characters, and it's only right that I gave Nikki and Rook something to fall back on, some kind of hope too. And that's why I created, 'Castle of Her Endless Longing,' by Victoria St. Claire (aka Jameson Rook, as you know). Rook is part me, and it was only fitting for him to create Lady Kate and the ruggedly handsome man on horseback that offered to ride along with her; it's a new beginning. Because that's how it began for us; how it began for Nikki and Rook, and maybe Lady Kate and the mysterious rider will get a happily ever after. Just maybe this version of us can.
I know it's very meta, and my words were probably hard to follow at times. But, these are my letters and I have yet to send a single one of them to you. Yes, I address them to you because I wish to God that I could send them, but it's too much of me and I don't know where we stand (I never really do). I'm a writer Kate, there's no way I could have survived the summer with all of these thoughts trapped inside my head. And to be put simply by quoting Ernest Hemingway, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed". My words are honest, unedited rantings of my mind. These words came easily for me, and they will-we will-forever be alive on these pages, whether we're present in each other's lives or not. Everything I've shared in these letters are a part of me, are the windows into my very being, and as of right now I can't trust you with anything but my life.
So maybe I'll see you soon; you must be getting strong by now, I knew you could do it. Or maybe I won't see you. I've come to accept so many things over this past summer and you have unknowingly made me a more patient man because of it. And as the book launch starts tomorrow, I will sit on whatever makeshift stage or wobbly chair they put me in, read what I'm told, and the part of me that loves you, Kate, will take a moment to glance up at the crowd. And you know what I'll see? I will see you walk through the door in that gorgeous red dress with those legs that go on for miles, and I will remain rooted to my seat as my eyes finally land on that devious smirk that plays across your face because you know exactly the kind of effect you have on me, and in that moment, not a single part of me denies it.
Castle