Chapter 36 – Ink in Her Veins
The typewriter was old. Heavy. A gift from someone who knew nothing about writing but everything about surviving.
Nova placed it on the center of their little wooden desk, fingers grazing the keys as if she were meeting an old lover in a dream.
Bea stood in the doorway, wrapped in one of Nova's oversized shirts. Her hair was a mess, her smile soft. "You're awake early."
Nova didn't look up. "I couldn't sleep. The words started calling."
Bea walked in, barefoot on the cold floor, and slid behind her. She wrapped her arms around Nova's waist, pressing her cheek into the curve of her back.
"Then answer them," she whispered.
Nova exhaled.
Outside, the sky was a watercolor of promise—blue bleeding into gold. Morning birds. Distant traffic. Life.
Inside, it was silent except for the slow, rhythmic clicking of keys.
One letter.
Then another.
A sentence.
A world.
---
They were writing their book.
Not just a love story—but a story about love. About pain. About the fire they crawled through and the truth they found in each other's arms.
It was part memoir, part myth.
"I want it to feel like poetry and thunder," Nova said one night, sprawled on their shared bed with notes scattered across the sheets.
Bea nodded. "And I want them to bleed when they read it. The kind of bleeding that heals."
So they wrote it together.
Nova poured her trauma onto the page, raw and sharp like broken glass. Bea shaped it with her softness, her clarity, her truth.
They argued.
They cried.
They kissed between chapters.
They told the story of Flames in the Night—the garden, the alleyways, the betrayal, the fire, the yes. Every twist, every kiss, every aching moment of fear that still hummed in the corners of their bones.
---
Weeks Later
They printed the final manuscript in their tiny apartment, the sound of paper sliding out like whispers in a chapel.
Bea held the stack in her hands, her fingers trembling.
Nova looked at her and said, "Are you ready to let the world see us?"
Bea answered, "We were always meant to be seen."
They self-published it.
No agents. No begging.
They sent the link to no more than twenty people.
The next morning, it had been shared over a thousand times.
By the end of the week, they were on fire again—but this time, not alone.
Readers wrote to them—letters from women who never believed they were allowed to love this deeply. From men who had been silent their whole lives. From survivors. From creators. From dreamers who thought their flame had gone out.
NovaBea had lit them again.
---
Late One Night
Bea sat on the balcony, legs tucked under her, laptop glowing.
Nova came out with tea and that familiar sleepy smile.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Bea looked up. "Planning our next story."
Nova laughed, setting the tea down. "Can't we breathe for a second?"
Bea grinned. "We'll breathe when we're dead."
Nova kissed her, long and slow.
"I love you, you little storm," she whispered.
"I love you more," Bea answered. "Now shut up and help me write."