Chapter 36, Ketly in Author's Armor

To start the book: https://abetterpairofshoes.blogspot.com/2017/05/chapter-1-camies-secret.html

A Better Pair of Shoes, a novel

Chapter 36

Ketly in Author’s Armor


The knock on the door was unexpected.  I hadn’t ordered anything, but I could see that it was that new parcel carrier I’d seen around in the building.  I anxiously opened the door with a new sense of expectation.  I was a sucker for packages.  He handed over the small box, and I quickly signed.  It didn’t take me long to spot Jeff’s handwriting, and suddenly because of the shape of the box, I had an idea what it could be.  This time my anxiety was not filled with expectation, but fear.  I didn’t understand why.  Why would he play such an awful trick?  I had gone out of my way to avoid the book.  I didn’t want to know the release date, I hadn’t check online to see the cover, and I hadn’t fished for any reviews.  I had steered clear up until now.  Now here I was, holding this box the size of a pretty hefty, hard cover book.  I thought to just set it to the side, but now my fear was filled with curiosity.  I wanted to see just how cruel, cruel could be.  Most of all, I wanted to know how love had ever lend itself as a disguise to cruelty, because surely, I had felt love. 

When I pulled the book from the box, I was puzzled.  I tried to remember where I’d gotten my thoughts about the book, because I didn’t see the depiction of the urban drama I’d expected.  Instead, there was a beautifully illustrated image of a man and a woman dancing under a spotlight.  I tried to ignore the fact that she did somehow resemble me, while I also tried to hold myself together.  I opened to the second leaf and found more of Jeff’s small print.  “Thanks for coming.  Enjoy this, my Love.”  And just like that, no more composure, tears everywhere on my new book.

It was almost as if God himself had spoken to Shayne.  This day, his teething woes had subsided, and I remained in bed reading.  Three hours had already passed since I had gotten the knock at the door, and other than my stopping to let my heart rest, I couldn’t get enough of Jeff’s heart torn open for me in print.  I thought a couple of times to call him, but I also thought I should finish reading the book that had begun with the line, “Out from between all the thunderous laughter, clamoring voices, and busy bodies in a room packed with personality, I spotted her quiet but notable presence like a ray of sun cutting through the clouds.”  And thank God I had that line to hang on to, because Jeff had not thought to hold back on where he’d been, and the many bodies he’d taken with him.  It was rough in places, but I felt his heart.  It wasn’t the calloused one from the hospital room, but the one he’d showed to me in private.  Then there was chapter twenty.  The moment I read the scene, I became frantic.  I combed through all the pages.  I shook “Any Woman I Wanted” for its life.  But Jeff’s heart hadn’t gone that far.  Angela’s life was not my own.  I was still Ketly, and Jeff’s heart was still in another time zone.  I rested my heart again, and put on my author’s armor.  In that mindset, I understood that it was never meant to be a parallel road.  I tucked my heart back into its cage, and planned to pick back up where I’d left off.  Maybe the next day.     

A Better Pair of Shoes, a novel © Grace Call Communications, LLC Copyright ©2010, 2016, 2017 by Natisha Renee Williams All Rights Reserved