More of my time than I’d like to admit is spent staring into space and flipping through the pages in my mind until I land on a place to add a scene, but when it clicks, I jump out of bed and type furiously, unaware of the time or my body, completely lost in my work.

The words fly from my brain to the keyboard almost faster than my fingers can keep up. It’s a high unlike any other, and I’m addicted to the feeling. This is exactly as it used to be, when I would write and write and never need to come up for air. No, writing was the air, and I needed it like I needed to breathe.

I don’t know how I lived without it for five years.

The truth is, I didn’t really live for those years. Not well anyway. Giving it up was akin to cutting off oxygen. I had thought writing was like a drug and giving it up cold turkey was best for me in the long run. And who knows. Maybe it was for a while. If the way I’ve fallen right back into old habits is any indication, there might not be a way for me to do this job with any kind of balance.

But it’s different this time in one very important way—Ryan is only involved at the surface level. The emails we shared at the start of the week were exhilarating. Bouncing ideas back and forth with him again was as easy as…well…riding a bike. But that’s all this is. Even though I unblocked his number and texted him that it would be okay to come by again, he doesn’t. He wouldn’t have any notes yet anyway, since I’m still working through the first round, but that never stopped him before. His absence is all the reminder I need to keep my head down and the words flowing.

Different book. Different Scarlett. Different outcome.

Even if they are the same late nights and early mornings. The same dwindling groceries and forgotten meals. The same lost count of how long it’s been since I’ve showered.

The same man. The same emails. The same quips and repartee.

I loved him once. But I loved writing once, too. Love for the latter has crept back slowly, in the lines and the margins, but love for him was never meant to be. The loss of my love for him is so completely intertwined with the loss of my love for writing then. Despite all the work I’ve done to separate the two, there’s still a thread that holds them tightly together.