In any case, sometimes after I post snippets here my inspiration suddenly returns. So let's hope that happens again, cuz I'd really like to get back into my writing routine. I'd like to get back on track like last year, writing at least 2-3000 words per week until the first draft is done. I have a long way to go, considering I'm only at around 11k right now. Sigh.
Please enjoy this snippet and share your thoughts if you so desire. Feedback helps!! :o)
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“Janie! Oh my god,
what are you doing?”
I stand up abruptly, dazed.
I’d been peering down into the well, trying to glimpse Connor’s note in
its depths. No matter how hard I squint
and stare, I cannot see it; it has completely disappeared into the darkness.
Rina grabs me and yanks me away from the well. She engulfs me in her arms, which feels
strange. Rina isn’t the touchy-feely
type, and I am about six inches taller than her. My chin rests on the top of her head, her
silky black hair smelling of strawberries.
“You officially are scaring the crap out of me,” she says,
choking a little.
“What? Why?” I hear
the words come out of my mouth, but it doesn’t feel like I’m the one saying
them. I sound distant, my voice not
attached to me.
She pulls back and stares into my eyes. “Janie, it seriously looked like you were
about to throw yourself into the well.
You know. Like Gabby did?”
I blink rapidly. That
thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I
glimpse back at the well and wriggle out of her arms. “I wasn’t going to do that,” I tell her.
Rina’s almond-shaped eyes narrow a little. “What are you doing out here, anyway?”
I hesitate, feeling foolish.
Rina didn’t really believe the legends about Gabby’s ghost, either, and
would undoubtedly make fun of me for throwing Connor’s note into the well. “I just had to get out of the house.”
She cocks her head at me.
“And you came here. Of all
places.”
I look at the ground, slipping my foot into and out of my
flip flop. “Why not?”
“Because I know what this place means to you and Connor.”
I don’t answer.
Rina reaches over and takes my hand. “Janie, you’ve gotta be strong for him right
now. What happened was-“
“What happened was my fault,” I interrupt, wrenching
away. I stride back over to the well and
plop down on the edge of it, not caring if my shorts are being stained by the
mushy green moss coating the rim.
“I was going to say an accident. Like I’ve told you a hundred times, you
didn’t make him get in that car that night.”
I snort. “Yes, I
did.”
“Oh, right. You physically
shoved him in and locked the door from the outside, right? Is that what happened? My mistake.”
“You know what I mean, Ree.”
I run my hand along the edge of my shorts. “I-I didn’t believe him. And it devastated him.”
Rina walks over and sits down next to me. “You have to stop blaming yourself at some
point.”
“I can’t. Not until
he’s okay.”
Rina lets out a breath.
She won’t look at me, because she knows as well as I do that he might
not ever be okay again. “Have you seen him again?’
“Yesterday. Only for
a minute. It was…terrible.”
She nods. “I went
today. No change, by the way.”
I close my eyes. The
sun is shining right into my face and I’m beginning to get a headache from the
glare.
“They say we should talk to him. That if he hears familiar voices it might
help pull him back to us.”
“I can’t,” I whisper, picturing my strong, handsome Connor
weak and pale, hooked up to all those machines.
“He needs you, Janie.”
“I’m the last thing he needs.”
“He loves you,” Rina says simply.
I shake my head, my hair falling around my face like a
curtain.
Rina sighs. “I hope you change your mind. Because I, for one, truly think that if he
hears your voice, knows that you’re back and that you believe him, that’ll be
the key he needs to wake up. Call me crazy.” She stands, wiping off the back of her shorts
and grimacing when she feels the dampness the moss left. “You guys have something special, you know? It’s not a normal kind of love.” With that, she heads back into the woods and
leaves me to my thoughts.
Not a normal kind of
love. For so long, I’d believed that
about us. What we’d had together wasn’t
just silly teenage lust. Connor and I
had almost a sort of telepathy between us.
I could feel what he was
thinking most of the time, and vice versa.
We could speak to each other with just a glance. When we were apart I could still feel his
presence somewhere, like a magnet pulling me in his direction. He was the air I breathed, and without him, I
am slowly drowning.
I gaze back down into the blackness of the well to find it
is no longer completely darkened. A mist
is swirling up, reminding me of a fog rolling in over the hills. I blink, certain I am seeing things, but it
keeps rising and rising until I stumble backwards, watching it churn into the
air.
And then, suddenly, the mist is sucked back down, like the
well itself opened up its mouth and took a deep breath in, inhaling it
completely.
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut. Clearly, I’m hallucinating. I try to think when the last time I ate
something was and I find I can’t remember.
Yesterday? Two days ago? Time is passing by so quickly that all my
days blur together into one big mass of colors, looking like a photo taken from
a moving car. I open my eyes and decide
to go home. There is nothing else I can
do here, and my stomach feels queasy now.
Whether that’s because it’s empty or I because I feel ridiculous for
throwing Connor’s note into the well, losing it forever, I cannot say.
I am about to cross into the woods when I hear it. It could be the breeze, which has picked up
again, or it may just be my imagination.
But I swear I hear a voice calling to me from across the Patterson
fields.
“Don’t…go…”
