Claire set down the glass. Walked back to the desk. Didn't sit.

Write one sentence , she told herself. Just one. It doesn't have to be good. It just has to be true.

She wrote: The moth kept trying.

By midnight, she had six pages. None of them were for the manuscript. None of them mattered. Except they did—because somewhere between the first sentence and the sixth, the knot behind her ribs had loosened.

Claire pushed back from the desk, the chair's wheels squeaking across the hardwood. The apartment felt smaller tonight—bookshelves leaning inward, ceiling lowering by the inch. Her manuscript sat at page ninety-four, same as last month. Same as last year.

She picked up a pen instead—blue ink, cheap Bic—and turned to a fresh page in her notebook. No cursor. No delete key. No spellcheck whispering doubt.

Then another: And maybe that was enough.

The cursor still blinked on the screen. But now, it looked less like a demand and more like an invitation.