He pushed the notebook across the table at her. “I told you I can’t. I’ve tried before, it’s always just bad, and wrong. I thought you were going to teach me how to do this, not just…” He stopped. He looked down at the table for a few seconds, then looked back at her. “Sorry. I interrupted you. Go on.”
She’d been sure he would leave for real this time. “It’s okay if it’s bad,” she said. “Just accept the badness now. For now, it doesn’t matter if it’s bad, it just has to be something. You can fix bad writing, you can’t fix a blank page.” Was she getting through to him? She had no idea. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be just right, and you don’t have to show it to me. I won’t even ask. Just get something on paper. If you get stuck, if you don’t know how to start, just write about me, and how annoyed you are that I’m making you do this, and then get back to it.” She pushed the notebook back across the table to him. “I know you can do this, Beau. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know it.”
He looked down at the notebook, then back at her. She held her breath.
Finally, he picked up a pen and flipped to a blank page. And started writing.
Izzy looked down at her phone so Beau wouldn’t see the relief on her face.
For the next thirty minutes, Izzy read through work emails, ignored Priya’s texts, and tried not to look at Beau. Despite that, though, she noticed when he sped up, when he stopped, when he put his pen down, when he took a deep breath and picked it back up. After the first ten minutes of stopping and starting, he wrote steadily, and she smiled every time she heard him turn a page and keep going.
Seeing him write like that made part of her itch to write herself. To turn a page in her own notebook, brainstorm that new idea that had come to her recently, unbidden, even after she’d told herself she didn’t have the heart to write anymore, didn’t have the strength for it. She looked down at her notebook and picked up her pen. Just then, the timer went off, and Beau dropped his pen with a sigh.
“Okay.” He looked up at her. “What now?”
She smiled at him. “I think that’s enough for our first day, don’t you? Go clear your mind. Go for a walk, or a swim, or something.”
He flipped the notebook closed and stood up. “Thank you.”
She laughed. And then she stopped him as he turned to walk to the door.
“One more thing. Promise me you won’t throw those pages away?” She gestured to the notebook. “Do I need to hold on to that notebook for you?”
She’d been joking, but he didn’t laugh.
“I’m not…I’m not sure I can promise that. At least, not yet.” He looked down at the notebook in his hand. “Can you promise me something? If I give you this, for safekeeping, promise that you won’t read it?”
“I won’t read it,” she said. “I promise.”
He held the notebook out to her, and she took it from him. “Thanks, Isabelle. I appreciate it.”
She followed him to the door. When they walked out, they turned in opposite directions, until she turned back around.
“Just so you know. My friends call me Izzy.”
She didn’t even know why she’d said that. She didn’t let anyone at work call her Izzy, except for Priya. Maybe she’d said it because Beau trusted her, and she wanted to let him know she trusted him, too.
He finally smiled. “Thanks, Izzy.”
On Friday, when she met Beau in the library, she handed his notebook back to him, like she’d done every day that week.
“I’m setting the timer, okay?” she said, and he nodded and flipped open the notebook, like he’d done every day that week.
Every day, as he sat there, writing in the notebook, she wondered what he was writing. Was this impulsive experiment of hers working? She had no idea. And what was it that was so hard for Beau to write about? She was so curious, but she’d promised not to ask him, so she didn’t.
And every day, when she sat there with her own notebook, she felt the pull to write, herself. How could she not, when she was in this perfect library, with her favorite notebook in front of her and her favorite pen in her hand? But even thinking about it felt scary. She’d thrown her whole heart into her book, and she’d hurt so much and for so long after she’d gotten those notes from Gavin. She wasn’t ready for that heartache again.
But as the days went on, she kept thinking about writing. Especially since she felt like such a hypocrite as she gave Beau all this encouragement and ignored every word that came out of her own mouth.