Page 23 of Plot Twist in Pelican Point
Fitting.
My fingers hover over the keys, waiting for the words to come. Instead, I type the name.
Sebastian.
My fictional hero has his arrogance now. His growly charm. His unspoken rules and contradictions. And, apparently, his vanishing act.
The ache in my chest sharpens, chased by the warmth of memory and the sting of humiliation. It burns low in my ribs, spreading outward like the echo of his touch, pulling at nerves I thought I'd numbed. The heat is too raw to ignore, a visceral reminder that last night wasn't just heat—it was hope. And now it's gone.
Fine. If he wants to pretend last night didn’t happen, then I’ll match his selective amnesia with a healthy dose of creative vengeance. Let him brood and hammer his frustrations into lumber—I’ll forge mine into paragraphs sharp enough to slice through whatever armor he’s hiding behind. I crack my knuckles and take a steadying breath. My heroine’s about to channel all my fury, betrayal, and unresolved lust. And this time, I won’t hold anything back.
I start slow, describing the weight of betrayal settling into the heroine’s bones. The way her hands shake as she reaches for a coffee cup that reminds her too much of him. The way her skin still tingles where he touched her, despite the fact that he left without so much as a whisper.
I write and write, pouring all my messy feelings into the scene until I’m breathless and teary-eyed. My fingers fly over the keys, crafting a passage where my heroine’s voice cracks with betrayal, her fingers trembling as she traces the outline of a love letter she never meant to send.
She fights the urge to cry, to scream, to let her pain consume her. She fights like a woman who knows heartbreak too well—who’s tired of giving men soft landings and second chances. Instead, she stands taller, chin high, and whispers to the man who broke her heart,"You don’t get to disappear. Not without a fight."
I pause, stunned by the sharpness of the words, their raw resonance. The emotional weight hits like a punch to the chest—startling, but satisfying. Then I nearly type the phrase"coils of tension"and immediately delete it.
Not today, Satan. Not today.
The kitchen smells warm and spiced—brewing coffee mingling with the sweet trace of yesterday’s muffins when I finally stumble in, pop in a coffee pod of the darkest roast and make a cup of coffee. Muffin crumbs litter the counter.
My body still feels wrecked, and my pride? Even worse. Because somewhere in that tangled mess of limbs and desperation last night, I forgot one very important rule: Never sleep with someone who makes your temper flare hotter than your libido.
I stare out the kitchen window and spot him—Sebastian, in the yard, shirtless, hammering something with the kind of intensity that should come with a warning label. The fog clingsto him like the aftermath of sin—softening the hard lines of his body but doing nothing to mute the sharp snap of each strike morphing it into something deeper, more primal. Every flex of his back, every controlled motion, drags heat up my spine and knots it tight at the base of my neck.
For a second, I forget to breathe—caught in the visceral punch of longing, frustration, and something raw I’m not ready to name. My chest tightens, breath catching like a snare in my throat as my fingers curl against the cool ceramic of the coffee mug. I stare, transfixed, pulse thudding in my ears, while heat blooms low in my belly, sharp and unwelcome. He looks like a memory I didn’t give permission to come back to life.
There’s a pinch of longing I didn’t authorize, curling low in my belly. Anger and attraction do a messy, toxic waltz inside my chest while I watch him like he’s a scene I need to memorize and rewrite all at once.
He doesn’t glance up, doesn’t so much as twitch in recognition. The golden morning light cuts across his face, casting his features in stark relief, but he remains perfectly still—deliberately so. Like I’m invisible. Like none of last night ever happened.
So this is how he's going to play it—like I don't exist, like last night was nothing more than a flicker of heat in an otherwise cold and calculated man.
I take another long sip of coffee, flexing my fingers around the handle of the mug. The ceramic is smooth and cool against my skin, a small but welcome contrast to the heat simmering beneath the surface. I breathe in the rich scent, willing it to steady the storm inside me—the frustration, the ache, the lingering pull of his touch I can’t seem to shake.
Then I grab my laptop and go back to work—because if I don’t channel this storm of emotion into something productive, I might just combust. The keys clack beneath my fingers like arhythm I didn’t realize I missed, each tap a lifeline. The familiar weight of the machine grounds me, the screen a blank slate begging to be filled.
I pick up where I left off. Not with Sebastian—at least, not directly. But the heroine on the screen feels what I feel—burns with the sting of abandonment, pulses with unresolved want. Her hands shake when she lifts a coffee cup that still smells like him. Her heart stutters when she remembers the way his mouth made promises his words never would.
The words come in a rush—fast, frantic, raw. I’m not just writing; I’m purging. Exorcising the ache, the fury, the deep well of longing I didn’t ask for. Each sentence is a confession. Each paragraph, a plea. She misses him. She hates him. She wants him to hurt the way she hurts. And beneath all of it, a dangerous truth: she still wants him.
I sit back, breath shallow, hands trembling. The room is silent but inside me, everything thrums. The story has teeth now. Claws. And so do I. I’m not writing about longing anymore—I’m writing about survival. If he thinks he gets the last word, he hasn’t met my keyboard.
Not when my heroine is primed to channel every ounce of righteous fury and pent-up ache into the next chapter.
I settle into the chair again, crack my knuckles, and let the words pour out like a dam finally breaking. The sound of each keystroke feels like defiance, like a heartbeat fighting to be heard in a storm. He may have ghosted me, but he’ll find his penance in fiction—and this time, the grumpy hero doesn't get off so easily.
Hours pass.
I lose myself in the words. In my heroine’s fire. In the justice she demands and the healing she refuses to ask for. By the time I surface, I’ve written more than I have in days. And for the first time in a long time, it feels... real. Like it matters again. Like Imatter again. Like I still have a voice even when he won’t give me one.
When I step outside for air, the light has shifted. The sun’s lower, casting long shadows across the lawn. Sebastian’s nowhere to be seen. The construction site is abandoned. Tools tidied. Order restored. Like nothing happened at all.
Except Iknowsomething happened, and I won’t let him pretend it didn’t. Not when my body still remembers every breath, every touch, and my heart still aches with the echo of last night.
I march across the lawn, notebook in hand. When I knock on his door, I half expect him not to answer. But he does. After a long pause. He’s wearing a clean shirt now, hair still damp from a recent shower. His eyes flicker to the notebook in my hand.
