Teaser Tuesday
Happy Tuesday everyone!
I found out who my roommate is yesterday and I have her number and though we're encouraged to call each other, I'm really nervous about calling her because I might just squee into the phone or do something really really weird. WhatshouldIdo?
Haha. In other news, my rewrites/revisions are under way! I am almost finished rewriting the first chapter and it is A MILLION TIMES better than the original one. Trust. Me.
I'm also working on writing a pitch for Things Left Unsaid to enter this contest for teen writers that I am super excited about entering, and let me tell you...pitches are so hard to write. It seems easy if you think about it. 35 words, 3 sentences. A piece of cake, right? NOT. I have a pitch written but as it is now it sucks and I only have five days to get it right. FIVE DAYS.
*takes a deep breath*
Okay.
Since it's Teaser Tuesday and I wrote 4K yesterday (squee!), I'm going to post an excerpt from Things Left Unsaid.
---
I fished my phone out of my pocket
and answer the call. “Hello.”
“Claire where are you?”
“I’m with Danny. We just picked up
Tucker, so I should be home in a few.”
I could picture a look of relief
washing over her face. “Okay, that’s good. Your uncle wanted me to ask you if
you liked Karen.”
Karen? Karen? Karen? The name
didn’t ring a bell. “Oh, yeah, she was really nice.” My voice squeaked a little
at the end. I hoped she didn’t notice, but knowing Virginia she probably did.
“Maybe you and her daughter, Sam,
can hang out sometime.”
“Yeah, yeah.” And Danny said I wasn’t good at lying.
“Claire,” Virginia breathed.
“Yes?”
“You didn’t go talk to Karen, did
you?”
There were two approaches I could take. The first would be to get on the offensive, pretend like I was hurt that she would call and check up on me, which is what she probably did. The second was to give in, add a few sniffles into the equation, and pray to whoever was listening that she wouldn’t come down on me too hard.
I chose the latter. “I just don’t
think I’d like it there. I’m not good at painting.”
Virginia sighed. It was a tired
sigh, one that was usually followed by a gaze so wary it made her look older
than her thirty-nine years. When my sister died, she and Pierre dropped
everything to come live with me and my mom. They only lived a few hours away,
so it wasn’t hard for them, but it wasn’t easy either. I know me refusing to
get help wasn’t a piece of cake for them, especially since my mother was a lost
cause. She hardly ever came out of her room, and when she did decide to grace us
with her presence she looked empty - like everything inside of her had been scooped out. I wasn’t
breaking into a million pieces. I didn’t lock myself in my room and cry myself
to sleep. But that’s why they’re worried about me. My sister is gone and I don’t
feel a thing.
“Your uncle and I just want the
best for you, Claire. Karen is a wonderful person. She’s a retired therapist
who doesn’t believe in the traditional methods of therapy. Plus she has a son
who knows what you’re going through.”
“I’m not going through anything,” I
tell her.
“Claire, you’re in denial. Karen
said that it’s normal for…”
“I don’t care what Karen says.”
“We’ll talk about this when you get
home.”
I hang up.
Lately, that's how all of our
conversations end.
“Are you two…” When I turn around,
Tucker and Danny are looking at me; both of them wearing the same pitiful look
on their face that everyone who looks at me seems to wear. It’s like there’s a
store somewhere around here that sells I'm sorry for your loss masks and people are snatching them off the shelves just so they can put them on whenever I'm around.
I want to find that store and burn it to the ground.
