“…May’s hazel brown eyes glimmered like twinkling stars shining in a moonless night as she searched for him. Panting, she took a few half-breaths in the brief moment she stopped to look around the town square once more. Her trembling hands held onto a crumpled letter as tear drops rolled down her bright red cheeks in the frosty cold of December. He was gone. Forever was just a fantasy now…”

The rapid clicking and clacking of the keyboard stopped abruptly as two tired hands carefully removed the spectacles and placed them next to the laptop. Kezzy’s messy hair were all over her face. Her eyes, bloodshot. Her right leg, cramped.

She hurriedly looked out the window behind her computer screen to see that hues of the pink and orange dawn had already replaced the dark moonlit sky. Sunrise was just on the way and her body signaled her that it was time to sleep.

Only a few short hours had passed when mom came knocking at the door in a hurry. “Kezzy! Wake up. It’s already 7:30. The bus is going to be here soon.”

Kezzy quietly pulled her pillow over her head, twisted and turned in the bed and finally let out a grumpy, almost angry shriek as she pulled the pillow still closer to her mouth, she screamed again so mom couldn’t hear her. “Ughhhhh!”

She slowly opened her eyes with her long blonde strands of hair covering most of her face and saw the white curtain blowing chilly winds through the window. Dazed and sleepy, she closed her eyes slowly, suddenly shot up and sat straight on the bed.

She looked all around her. This was not right. She never had a window overlooking the garden. She didn’t open it last night after completing the last line of the novel she’d been writing for over a year. She could only remember typing before she went to sleep. When was the last time she ate anything, she wondered. With a puzzled look on her face, she looked at her messy hair, but just last night she had beautiful brown locks. To her, the messy hair seemed to be the only thing that hadn’t changed. For now.

The knocks came at a thudding pace now. It was 7:45 am and the school bus was supposed to come at 7:55 am. Kezzy hurriedly fished out a pink sweater from the cupboard, grabbed a backpack resting on the desk and closed the bedroom door behind her.

“Honk! Honk!” Little Sid ran past her while eating his banana as he went out the door. She looked at everything with surprise. Puzzled, Kezzy did not understand what was going on.

When the school bus pulled in, a strong wave of realization washed over Kezzy. The name of the school printed on the bus was “The Charleston Academy for Higher Studies”. This was the school that May and Garret, the lead couple, attended in the novel she had finished writing just last night.
She hadn’t even had a chance to name her novel yet, and now this unwelcome development. This was a plot twist she had never even imagined.

The ride to school was particularly uneventful. The hamster wheel back in Kezzy’s head was running faster than ever, constantly overthinking and overanalyzing the situation.

How was she here? What had happened between the time she went to sleep and woke up? How did she become a part of the novel? These were just a few of the questions that kept running in the back of her head, but the main question was—Who was she?

She entered the school, with her head down, to not attract any unwanted attention to herself.

“May! May! Wait up for me.” An unfamiliar voice tapped Kezzy’s shoulder and greeted her. Kezzy looked up in absolute horror. “M-M-May?” she blurted.

“What is it? Are you not feeling good, babe?” asked the beautiful voice again.

“What? No. I mean-I am okay. Its nothing. I need to get to class now.” She said and left hurriedly while the guy just stood there, thinking what was wrong with her.

As she hurried towards the library, only one thing kept spinning in her head. Who was that? She started to wonder immediately if that was Garret. May’s Garret!

“But last night, in the last paragraph, May was never able to find Garret and that was where the story ended. So, what’s happening here?” Kezzy kept talking to herself, hitting her head softly against the library desk, surrounded by countless books that smelled like a little slice of heaven.

Kezzy loved books. All through her torturous school years, books were her only escape from reality. It was natural that she wished to be an author ever since she could remember. She still remembered that sunny Spring day when she received the call that her first manuscript was selected by the review team within a month. The process was smooth and her first book was published before she had graduated college. This however, was the second novel that she had been working on ever since.

After overcoming a lot of setbacks and creative blocks, Kezzy managed to come up with a beautiful story which was loosely based on her own story. She tried very hard to make it a happy ending but alas, not all stories can be happy in the end. She realized this when she lost Aden, a few months ago in a road accident.

It was like the world had stopped moving, she had lost all will to do anything, meet anyone or even live at all. If it was not for Sheela, her best friend who stuck with her through everything, Kezzy might not have been able to overcome Aden’s loss.

It was only a couple weeks ago when Sheela barged into her house, on Aden’s birthday and knocked some sense into her. Her exact ways were, “Don’t you think that Aden would be happy to see you happy? Do you really believe he would like to see you like that?... You really need to get up, detangle those messy beautiful hair and get back up on your feet. I am giving you 2 weeks to finish the story and send me the first draft, or else!”

It was motivation and fear of Sheela that drove her to finish the novel well within her deadline but at what cost?

“Thud!,” echoed a loud bang on the table with a pile of books startled everyone around her when Kezzy decided to get up and threw the pile of books next to her, in a fit or disappointment and rage.

She knew what was happening. She was the author after all. She knew her book wanted May to be happy just like Sheela wanted her to be happy!
Kezzy recalled the events of the last chapter that led up to Garret’s disappearance in the book in her head.

…It was the first day of school. Final year… Garret got a hold of May before the first period and told her something shocking… He had recently found out that his father was shifting to London for work and he had no choice but to leave… The two had a huge fight… They spent the day apart. He kept trying to reach out to her but she would pay no attention. In the evening, she looked for him everywhere before leaving but there was no sign of Garret. She was sad and could not think straight… At the school gates, she remembered that she left her essay in her locker and went to get it back. A small handwritten letter stared at her as she opened the locker… It said that he regretted talking to her like that in the morning. He needed to talk to her because he was leaving the same night. He wished to tell her that his phone number and emails were all changed, as per his parent’s instructions. He still wished to see her once and look for a way to make it work… He wrote in the letter that he would wait for her at the Town Square till 5 pm, where they used to meet quite often… By the time May read it, she hurriedly looked up at the clock through her watery eyes which saw that it was already half past 5 pm. She left everything and ran as fast as she could, but it was already a few minutes past 6 pm and the sun had set… Her eyes glimmered like stars in the night as she looked for him… She took multiple laps around the town square looking for him. Her trembling hands held onto his letter as she cried… He was gone. The End.

Kezzy knew she had to do something. She started looking for Garret everywhere from that moment on—the cafeteria, the music room, the library, the classroom, the track field and all other places she could think of. But Garret was nowhere to be found. Something struck her and she hurried towards the Admin wing of the school.

There he was, dark blue eyes, deep like the ocean and thick wavy blonde hair, that looked like they were styled by professionals every morning. And a smile that could light up any boring room he walked in.

She took in a deep breath and let out a long sigh of relief upon finding him. She looked up to see that the time was almost 4pm already. She was happy she found him before 5 pm.

“May! You don’t know how long I have been looking for you. I need to talk to you about something important. Can we go some place quiet?”

“Sure.” She said with a slight smile on her face, as she followed him up to the terrace. “What happened?”

Garret softly held both her hands in his and said, “Kezzy, the times that we have spent together, the moments of my life that have been filled by you are more than I deserve in life. I cannot imagine my life even for a second, with you not in it.”

“Me neither, Garret.” She said, with longing eyes.

“I don’t know how to tell you this. My dad, he got a job offer from London. It was something he applied for on a whim with no hopes of getting it, but they want him to start immediately. I don’t even know what is he going to do there, where will we be living, which city. Nothing. I would even have to change my phone number now and you don’t even use social media or your email ID so I don’t know how to contact you anymore. Ever since I found out that we are going to leave tonight, I have been wanting to talk to you so that together we could find a way to keep in touch.”

Kezzy was practically sobbing at this point. She felt overwhelmed with the memories and emotions she had kept bottled up for the past month, had come pouring out.

Garret hugged her and handed her a piece of paper with his email ID written on it. May looked up at him, took the little piece of paper, and wrapper her arms around him tightly. The two walked back home hand in hand.

That was how Kezzy was able to change the ending to her own story. She was sad when she got home and she missed Aden, but knowing that May and Garret would make it work somehow helped her sleep peacefully.

Soon, the sun rose again and Kezzy slowly opened her eyes. She took a look around and took a breath of relief. Turns out, it was all a dream. A quite creative dream with realistic plot twists!