Friday and a Blogfest

It’s finally here. Not just Friday, but Kelly’s First Page Blogfest. Make sure you head over and check out the awesome list of writers signed up to share their first pages with you. Here’s mine.

The sky is a blanket, grey and wet, no comfort at all against the wind that blows just enough to send the unseasonable chill bone deep.

December in Florida isn’t supposed to be like this. Nothing is supposed to be like this.

He shivers and shrugs himself deeper into his jacket in the face of the wind, picks up his pace as he turns the corner.

The street is empty and so is the sidewalk as he catches his reflection in a storefront window.

It’s been a while since he’s been here. He’s not even sure it’s still open. But he’d left the base early without much thought to where he was going, just running on empty.

Not because it was Friday, but because his apartment windows had been dark when he'd pulled up to the curb in front of his building and sat watching the first tendrils of fog roll in.

He’s pretty sure it’s better to be empty and cold outside than empty and cold in the front room, the kitchen, the bedroom.

He finds what he’s looking for and pushes through the door.

The bar is empty except for a couple of guys shooting a half-assed game of pool under a big screen. The bartender looks up from washing glasses and gives him a half-nod as he makes his way to a back booth.

“Hi, I’m Theresa.” The waitress materializes at the table, paints on a cut-glass smile. “Can I get you something to drink?”

He settles deeper in his seat, tilts his head. “You got Sam Adams?”

She flicks bored eyes toward the screen at the roar of the crowd. “Bottle or draft?”

“Bottle.”

She spins on her heel and bounces off toward the bar.

Almost Friday

It's been a long, ugly week, and my brain is dead. I thought about trying to put together something that would be pity and profound, but failed spectacularly.

So I'll leave you with this snippet instead.
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Sunshine streaming through the window coverings and the clock on the bedside table told her that it was mid morning. She was standing in the bedroom, pale and ill, arms wrapped tightly around her midsection and rocking.

Her head hurt from falling in the shower earlier that morning. Or maybe it was from something else; lack of food, lack of sleep, lack of sanity. She wasn’t quite sure and couldn’t quite remember. Suddenly she felt lost, threatened, vulnerable and powerless.

Her ears hurt from all the words. Words that people thought she didn’t take seriously. Words that they thought she didn’t understand.

Words that John didn’t speak.

She was aware of it all. So very helplessly aware of the fact that she couldn’t do or say anything to fix anything. She hated that feeling. That knowledge.

So she stayed silent.

Her mouth hurt from speaking. From trying to explain to people. To John. Her mouth hurt from trying to talk because she knew they wouldn’t listen.

Yet when they asked, she spoke. John didn’t ask anymore.

Her legs hurt from running. Running away from her life. Running away from everyone. And then from trying to run back. She’d run from questions, skirted issues, and shut everyone off. And then she tried to run toward something.

But her legs had grown tired and she seemed to keep running into dizzy oblivion.

Her body hurt from the truth, the truth that this place was not for her. That she had done nothing but make more mistakes, and that she had tried everything she could think of.

And that all of this was nothing.

That was the only truth she knew anymore. That this had been her apology and that it had been an apology unheard.

She realized suddenly that she was shaking, and rubbed her hands up and down her arms briskly. They were leaving today, she comforted herself.

She was going home.