The idea of writing entices me;
But the blank page torments me

After another useless day at school, Will sprawled himself out on his bed, letting out a hysterical groan. He was surrounded by crumpled up papers, notebooks turned every which way, pens that had been thrown if they were almost out of ink, and other various objects strewn about this way and that. In a previous state of anguish, Will had tossed his glasses to the end of his bed and his phone halfway across the room; his world was nothing more than a blur of worthless scribbles.

Alice practically sent Will's door off its hinges in her wake. She crossed her arms, walking in without asking if she could, trampling over papers as she made her way to Will's bedside.

"What is wrong with you?" Alice asked. She sat down next to Will, grabbed his glasses, and aggressively pushed them onto his face.

Will groaned, accepting Alice's help as he sat up. He groggily readjusted his glasses with a sigh. "Hello to you too."

"Sorry," Alice rolled her eyes. "Hello." She only slightly adjusted her tone.

"Hi," Will replied. "See, how hard was that?"

Alice chose to ignore him. "What are you doing?"

Will pressed his lips together. "I don't know, Alice. I need to have a poem done for class in two days, and all the drafts I've written are just... a load of feces."

"Barf," Alice furrowed her brows. "So... I assume that all of these papers here are the 'feces' in question?" She continued, gesturing to the disorganized mess around her.

"I don't do well with deadlines," Will replied, unable to keep eye contact with his sister.

"I hadn't noticed," Alice deadpanned. She leaned down to pick up the paper closest to her, but Will grabbed her arm to hold her back. "What-"

"No!" Will wailed. "You're forbidden to read those. I was a different man when I wrote them."

Alice furrowed her brows, turning toward Will as she clasped her hands in her lap. "Alright, Drama McDramaticPants, let it out."

Will looked around for a moment. "Let... what out?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "You can't write when there's something wrong. You need to let your feelings out, along with those fears of people judging you, or else the only thing you'll have to turn in is all your lame excuses."

Will raised a brow, almost defensively. "And how do you know there's something wrong?"

Alice's eyes widened, once again gesturing to the mess around them. "Are you kidding?"

Will sighed, thinking back to all the things that had gone wrong so far that week. The list seemed to grow by the minute. "Well... ok. The whole thing with Mom and Dad has definitely been a bit of a shock."

"Yeah, you can say that again," Alice nodded. "I knew that Dad was acting like an idiot, but I didn't realize it was this bad."

"Yeah..." Will rubbed his forehead. "I hate how it feels like walking on eggshells whenever they're in the same room."

"Do you really think it could end in them getting divorced?" Alice asked, seeking reassurance in Will's eyes.

Will sighed. "Well, I think as long as Dad actually tries to change, things may not turn out as bad as we think they will," he remarked. "But if he doesn't... I'm not sure what'll happen. I know that Mom isn't one to go back on her word."

Alice nodded slowly. "I know... I wish there was something we could do to help them. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it."

"Me too," Will admitted.

They sat in an uncertain silence together for a moment.

"So, what else?" Alice asked. "Is everything alright with you and Indie?"

"Uh—yeah, of course," Will replied, making the split-second decision to push that set of issues to the sidelines. "There's nothing wrong with Indie and I... but my friends—"

"Say no more," Alice stopped him. "I'm gonna go beat up James, that butthole," she huffed. "I knew from the very first day you started hanging out with him that he was a douche canoe."

"Alice," Will laughed.

"Sorry, it's true," she shrugged. "So? What happened?"

Will absentmindedly chewed his thumbnail. "It's really dumb, but..." he sighed, leaning against his headboard. "A while back, my notebook fell out of my pocket when I went to the bathroom at lunch. I didn't notice until it was too late, unfortunately, because just the other day, I found out that my so-called 'friends' rifled through it while I was away."

Alice raised a brow. "What? What made them think they had the right to go through your personal stuff like that?"

Will simply shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I haven't talked to them since, and it's been... weird," he sighed. "I don't know how I didn't notice it sooner. They've always just used Eddie and I as their designated people to pick on, probably talking about us behind our backs and calling us stupid nicknames that shouldn't even get under my skin, but, for some reason, they do."

"Because jokes at other people's expense aren't funny," Alice added. "I mean... sure, I'm guilty of it, of course, but... you're my brother. Of course we're gonna make stupid jokes about one another. That's just how we show love."

Will nodded, but remained silent, staring down at the pile of papers on his floor.

"If they were truly your friends, they would've known not to even touch your personal belongings. They would've respected that boundary."

Will shrugged halfheartedly. "I think Eddie was the only one who actually paid close enough attention to know that."

"I think Eddie's a good egg," Alice agreed. "James and Forrest, though? I don't like 'em."

"I couldn't tell," Will laughed.

"You shouldn't have to deal with their bullhonkey," Alice continued. "I've never liked your friends that well anyway, if that wasn't already extremely evident by the way I cursed their names under my breath every time I saw them."

Will couldn't help but laugh as Alice continued her rant.

"Since their brain cell count amounts to negative eight all together, their opinions are invalid. They didn't have the right to go through your private thoughts, and they shouldn't have the right to take up space in your head, because they're not worth it," she nodded definitively. "You shouldn't worry about what those undercooked shrimp think and what they may or may not say behind your back. They have the mental capacity of a cucumber."

Will shook his head, looking at Alice with a smile. "How do you come up with these analogies?"

Alice shrugged. "I dunno, guess I was just born a genius."

"That's for sure," Will replied sarcastically.

"Hey, I'm your therapist right now, not the other way around," Alice replied, snapping her fingers in Will's face. "Do you feel any better?"

Will nodded. "Yeah, I do. Thanks, Alice."

"My pleasure, but my work is far from done here."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Will asked, raising a brow.

Alice waved him away as she stood. "We need to declutter your space if we want to make room for new ideas," she began grabbing papers one after the other, crumpling them all up into one large ball. "I assume these are all trash, then?"

Will heaved a sigh. "Yes..." he mumbled.

Alice tossed the papers into Will's tiny trash can, which overflowed in seconds. Alice grabbed a pile of fresh lined notebook paper from Will's desk.

"So, first, lay out the instructions of this particular assignment," Alice sat back down, clasping her hands together.

"Yeesh, you sound like Mom," Will noted.

"Any relation to Betty Whitlock is merely coincidental," Alice rattled off.

Will raised his brows. "Um... alright," he chuckled quietly. "So, basically, we have to write a full-length poem that spans a few stanzas long about something we're passionate about," he scratched the back of his neck. "Except, the catch is, we have to present it to the entire class on Friday."

Alice nodded. She closed her eyes as if she was thinking deeply on the issue. "Well, can I give you my professional advice, Mr. Whitlock?"

"I don't think I have a choice in the matter."

"Indie Argyle," Alice pitched.

Will raised a brow. "What about her?"

"Your poem, you dweeb!" Alice shrieked suddenly. "Sorry... got outta character for a sec there. But, seriously, you can't be that dense."

"Apparently I can. Also, not gonna happen."

"What?" Alice blinked rapidly, unable to believe her ears.

"What do you mean, what? I can't pour out my heart and soul to a girl who isn't even in the room," Will complained.

"Well, then, what do you think you should write about? Your top ten most embarrassing moments leading up to your 18th year of life? Because, by golly, this is one of them," Alice rolled her eyes playfully. "You act like you haven't been writing ever since the moment you were able to hold a pencil! Obviously you're not gonna flat out say, 'I love you, baby girl, let's go get cheesy tater tots at sunset.' You cover up your feelings with metaphors and symbolism!" She hid her head in her hands. "Goodness gracious, it's like I'm talkin' to an amateur."

Will sighed. "It's not that easy, Alice... I can't properly express my feelings for Indie. Not in a few stanzas, anyway."

"So we'll work it out together. You write, I'll read, just like old times," Alice said, a soft smile creeping up on her face.

Will recalled memories he hadn't thought back on in years: he would write out the most ridiculously dramatic poems he could, then Alice would throw on an absurd costume—Betty's clothes that did not fit her whatsoever—and read the poems in front of her family in the living room. Will's face would always be tomato red, but he was also simultaneously proud that other people were hearing the words he'd written and happy that he wasn't the one who had to present them.

It was moments like that, now frozen in the looking glass of the past, that Will had come to miss more than anything.

Will nodded. "Alright. Let's do it."

Draft after draft fled from Will's hands. The words were sent directly from his heart to his fingertips, displaying themselves in flowing cursive letters on the page. Alice read through each one, giving Will critiques along the way, acting as his personal thesaurus and unpaid editor.

"What does this even say?" Alice asked as she tried to decipher Will's chicken scratch. "'Each hopeful sunset, each... waxing cream?'"

Will's face flushed with embarrassment. "Waking dream."

"Right, right. That makes much more sense in this context," Alice pushed her hair behind her ear. "I dunno, bro. I think you need to think quality over quantity. I mean, these have all been very good, but they're sort of..."

"Flat?"

"Yeah, that's it!" Alice replied. "I mean—no offense."

"None taken. I felt that way, too," Will ran an unsteady hand through his messy hair. "I'm not good under pressure. I just need to write as if I don't have a deadline."

Alice cringed. "Well, if that's the case, I might be here for another four hours. My schedule won't allow that."

"And what matter is so pressing that you can't be here a little longer?"

"I have other clients, y'know," Alice rolled her eyes playfully. "You poets can be so selfish at times."

"Oh, shush," Will laughed. He pressed his pen to his chin in thought. "I need to put myself in my own shoes. Back when I saw Indie in Redding's the very first time."

Will closed his eyes, letting the memory of he and Indie's awkwardly adorable first impression wash over him. He could nearly smell the scent of newly bound books, the squeaking of his sneakers against the hardwood floor, and, of course, the highlight of the day: the sight of Indie. Her hair was a cascading waterfall of blonde waves and her deep brown eyes were strong enough to pull Will into a trance.

Alice twiddled her thumbs. "Should I leave, or...?"

Will opened his eyes. "No, don't leave," he replied, grabbing his pocket journal and readying his pen. In all caps, he quickly scribbled, "STARSTRUCK."

"I've got it."

After what felt like ten years of writing and revising, Will handed Alice the final draft of his newest idea.

Alice's mouth hung slightly agape as she stared blankly at the final words written on the page. It took her a moment to come back to reality.

"Will, this is..."

"Rubbish?" Will offered. "Cliche? Flowery? Cheesy?"

"Incredible."

Will was slightly taken aback, slowly taking the paper from Alice's hands. "You're kidding. You're kidding, right?"

Alice shook her head. "No, Will, this is one time in my life I've actually been sincere in regards to you," she replied. "It's perfect. Don't change a thing."

Will blinked. "Really?"

"Really," Alice nodded. A smile graced her lips. "You did it."

"I guess I did," Will chuckled quietly. "Oh, crap."

"What? What is it?"

Will bit his lip. "I made a promise to Indie that I can't break," he replied as he hastily grabbed his phone out of his pocket. "She has to hear this poem before anyone else."