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“My book. Need to finish my book.”

“You will finish it, Jude.” Her voice was soothing, making him feel like a child throwing a fit. “Wait until your head is better, and then you can finish it for sure. You’ve just got that one last scene to write.”

“Need to. Now.” He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “Now!”

“Jude, sweetie, you can’t write right now. You’ll be able to write when you feel better.” She sounded weird. Stretched. Uneven.

“I won’t…” He tossed and turned and pushed down the covers impatiently. This was an emergency, and she didn’t seem to understand it. “…won’t feel better. Need to write it now!”

She made a gaspy sound. Then a couple of long, slow breaths. He still couldn’t see her because he couldn’t seem to turn his head. “I can bring your laptop up here, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Please.Please.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m going now. Please try to relax a little.”

He didn’t want to relax. He wanted to fix this devastating dilemma.

He’d waited too long.

His book wasn’t finished, and he might die before he got it done.

It felt like forever before Eve came back upstairs. She had his laptop hugged to her chest. “You can try, but I don’t think it’s going to work.”

“It will. It has to.” With a supernatural reserve of strength, he managed to sit up. Eve helped him prop up on the pillows against the headboard. Then she set the laptop on his thighs and opened the lid.

It came on immediately. He must somehow look like a different person because his face wouldn’t unlock it. He had to use his finger.

It took several tries before he could manage to open the correct file. He couldn’t focus clearly on the words on the screen, couldn’t figure out how to scroll down to the end so he could start writing after the scene break.

He choked on a weird, rough sob when it finally registered he couldn’t do it.

He pushed the laptop away, but fortunately Eve grabbed it before it fell to the floor.

Slumping back onto the pillow, he squeezed his eyes shut and shook, trying to fight through waves of nausea that were starting to rise up again. “I need to… I need to…”

“You will, Jude. I promise. You’re going to feel better again. At least for long enough to write that last scene. You said it would just take a few hours. You’re going to have that. It’s only been two months. You should have more time.”

“But my brain… My brain will… will stop working.”

It felt like it already had. Like he’d lost his ability to think. To shape insights and observations and narratives. To craft meaning out of language. To put words on a page.

No loss had ever hurt worse. The man he’d always been had slipped away irrevocably.

His life was over for real.

“It hasn’t yet, Jude. When your head isn’t so bad, you’ve been able to think just as well as you always have.” She was stroking his head. There were tears in her voice.

“But I have to… I can’t die before I finish…”

“You won’t. Jude, listen to me! I’m not going to let you die before you finish your book. I promise.”

It felt like she was telling him the truth, so he finally stopped tossing.

“If you want, you can tell me what to write and I’ll type it for you.”

He opened his eyes. Tried to focus on her.

She was holding his laptop again, tears streaming down her face. But her gaze was steady, and she meant what she said.

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