The Boy Who Has No Faith (Soulless 5)

“Ooh…” Excited, she wrote down the note.

“Corina’s ship has a failed thruster, so she lands on Andromeda, the dead planet.”

“Got it.” She scribbled quickly. “If there’re no resources there, how is she going to leave?”

“We’ll get there.” I pointed at the board. “Commander Rodney decides to pursue Brutus because they’ve located him, but the peril causes his men to question him.”

“That’s perfect.” She wrote it down.

We kept working, brainstorming ideas, erasing concepts that didn’t work at that point in time. More and more was added to the whiteboard.

Her timer went off. “That’s dinner.” She silenced her phone. “You think you’ve got enough to get writing?”

I stroked the space bar with my fingers to get the computer to light up, and I started typing, forgetting about everything around me just like I did at work.

Emerson walked into the kitchen and completed dinner, and once she was done, she placed a plate and utensils beside me.

It smelled pretty good, and when I took a bite, I liked it even more. “You’re a good cook.”

“Thanks.” She set down her own plate before she worked in the kitchen to wash everything and clean up.

I kept working, eating at the same time. My fingers struck the keys and made descriptions and dialogue flood the page. My phone vibrated in my pocket, so I pulled it out to see who was calling.

It was Fleur.

I ignored it and set it on the table beside me and continued to work.

She called again…and again.

Emerson didn’t hide her annoyance. “You shouldn’t ignore your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” I snatched the vibrating phone and took the call. “I’ll call you later. I’m busy.”

“I’ve been trying to talk to you all day—”

“I’m busy. I’ll call you later.” I dropped the phone and tried to get back into the story.

“Well…she seems to think she is your girlfriend.” Emerson grabbed a stack of my papers and brought them to her seat. She opened one folder and started to go through it.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought I would organize your stuff.”

“It is organized.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “You think this is organized?” She held up the papers, and anyone could see there really was no rhyme or reason to them. “No wonder you’re so flustered.” She began to make different stacks, filing my lesson plan in one folder, student’s worksheets into another, and then the exams I still had to grade.

I kept typing.

We worked in silence for an hour. Now that my brain had been stimulated properly, it was a lot easier to get these thoughts jotted down. Like a child, I had to be forced to focus. Otherwise, nothing would get done. By nature, I’d always been disciplined and engaged, so this kind of intervention had never been necessary. But in this case…it was essential.

Eventually, my brain grew fuzzy and stopped working that way. I still had so many things to do, and I’d written three thousand words, which was a personal record for me. “I’m done for the night.”

“Great. How’d you do?”

“Three thousand words.”

Her eyes widened. “Holy shit. You wrote three thousand words in an hour and a half?”

I shrugged.

“That’s badass. Do you mind emailing me what you have so I can get started?”

“I’ll share it as a Google Doc so you can see my updates in real time. We can work on the same document at the same time.”

“Even better.” She carried the folders back to the other side of the table. “Busy tomorrow?”

I shut my laptop and leaned back in the chair. “Tomorrow is Friday.”

“I’m aware of the day of the week. I don’t have a super brain, but I know how to read a calendar.”

“Then what’s the rush?”

“Well…I may have told my boss this book would be finished in three months.”

I closed my eyes for a second and clenched my jaw. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Look, you already had a year and didn’t write a single word. So, it’s crunch time.”

“It’s not possible to write a book that quickly.”

“You just did three thousand words, so I disagree. Come on, we can do this.” She took a seat again.

I sighed loudly.

“I have complete confidence you can do this, Mr. Hamilton.”

“You don’t know me.”

“But I saw all those cogs working in your brain today.” She tapped her finger against her temple. “You’re still passionate about this story. You just have a hard time tapping into that part of your mind.” She glanced down to the edge of the table where the papers were. “All those formulas and calculations look like Egyptian hieroglyphics, so you’re obviously using the left side of your brain the most. But what’s so fascinating about you is—” she pressed her finger to the other side of her skull “—you’ve also got a powerful right side. It’s just a matter of switching gears and getting one side to override the opposite one. That’s extremely rare. Come to think of it, I’ve never met anyone who was so mathematically brilliant but also so creative. You might be the first.”