Page 72 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
‘Why, thanks.’
‘Girl, you’ve been hiding in this bedroom for days – and quite frankly, it smells like a rotten farm. It’s time for some tough love. When life gives you pumpkins, make pumpkin pie.’
‘I’m sorry. What?’
‘Rosie, you were in your element at Autumn Meadows – even when life was testing you. You were making things happen, rather than ducking behind the foliage. You were full of ideas; you were finding yourself.’ Flick was counting off reasons on her fingers and she was on a roll. ‘You were writing your best ever novel. People are talking about you running writing retreats. Oh, and you and that Zain guy had thehottestchemistry. You two were ablaze.’
‘Once.’ Rosie sniffed. A lot had changed.
‘And you’re going to throw that away over a misunderstanding? Yes, what you told me about the Kimberkoo Chat stuff sounded tricky. But what if there’s a simple explanation?’
Rosie pondered it – again. ‘He was mad at me too, for snooping through his stuff and not being honest with him. Things are just too broken.’
‘For God’s sake, Sis. Words don’t just belong in books. Sometimes it’s OK to say things out loud. Now you’ve both had chance to cool off, maybe you should talk.’
Rosie shrugged and rolled over, her back to her sister. ‘I’m tired. Can you give me a break?’
Flick jumped off the bed. ‘I’ll leave you alone, on one condition. I want you to write something.Anything.Because I know writing helps you to make sense of the world.’ Flick was already setting up Rosie’s laptop at the bureau by the window. ‘It breaks my heart to see you throwing it all away. Don’t let the chatbots win.’
Rosie sniffed. Perhaps her sister had a point, even if it did sound kooky.
Feeling a slight spark of something, Rosie moved to the laptop. ‘Fine. But only because I want you to go away.’
‘Understood,’ said Flick, trying not to look smug. ‘And if you’re writing another novel, please cast me as the really awesome half-sister who saves the day.’
‘I’mnotwriting another novel,’ said Rosie. ‘Just for the record.’
‘Whatever.’ Flick held up her hands and backed out of the room.
Rosie had no idea what she was about to write, but somehow her fingers were twitching again. Whether she wanted to hear it or not, it seemed her creative soul had something to say.
46
It was growing dark in Rosie’s room. She’d been sitting at her laptop and hammering its keys for so long that her bum was undoubtably seat-shaped. She hadn’t stopped to put on a light or take a break and her poor stomach was growling. But she didn’t care. At last, she was deep inside a flow of words, and she had no intention of letting them disappear.
Although her heart felt heavy and the room filled with the melody of her sporadic sighs, as she typed, a world of revelations was opening – each one making her lighter.
If she’d once thought she could only write like magic in the peace and quiet of the pumpkin farm, that was no longer true. Even with her sister bounding up and down the stairs, her mum constantly nagging, the gardener mowing and the cleaner trying to polish every surface including her head, the words had kept on appearing. Like her whole body was under a spell, ideas fizzed and crackled, then shot through her tingling arms until they danced to life on the screen.
She didn’t need candles or fairy lights, or an old-fashioned typewriter, or even a dark and handsome muse across the lake.Shewas the creator. And from the romantic tale she’d begun to weave, she didn’t need to steal ideas from her own love life either.
Rosie hadn’t planned to start writing another novel. When she’d told herself‘never again’she’d meant it. The number of years she’d been failing to write a suitably swoon-worthy story was too large to admit.‘Have you ever even been in love?’incredulous publishers had asked. When she’d started falling for Zain, everything had felt different – like a new gateway had been unlocked. Then discovering that her best-ever manuscript had been unwittingly orchestrated by her nemesis Kimberkoo Chat had seemed like the death of everything.
Clearly her mind had other ideas.
She wasn’t sure who these characters were, but they wouldn’t stop speaking to her. They were filling her ears and spilling onto the page like they already knew the master plan. And surelythiswas what being a real writer was all about.Thiswas the thing that couldn’t be recreated by any AI chatbot. Because love stories came from real, beating hearts – not software.
Though somewhere deep in her subconscious, she felt the whisper of something else coming to life. When she wrote, it helped her to escape her troubles – and when her head wasn’t obsessing, answers came.
‘Oh mygourd. That’s what I need to do.’
Rosie clicked open a fresh document and began to type. At last, the knot of problems was untangling itself. She had no idea if she could fix everything, or what others would say or do, or how they would feel. But the truth was finally rushing in.
Rosie had her own dreams to fight for. She didn’t want to bejustRachel’s stand-in orjustAgnes’s pumpkin retreat saviour, as much as she’d enjoyed those roles. Her soul was destined to write. And the opportunity that Zain had flung at her, which on the auction night had felt like throwing her under a bus, could be the stuff of dreams, if she dared. Something else was taking over her mind too.
She still had feelings for Zain.
Huge, ginormous ones that had grown arms and legs that had wrapped themselves around her and were threatening to squeeze the air from her lungs. Of course, there was no way she would let this be another Cassius or James situation, where she mentally hoovered up all traces of odd behaviour in the hope of a ‘happy ever after’. Though her instinct screamed that she needed to dosomething.
