About Alondra:
Excerpt:
In a dark corner in the ugly three-story building we call the Taylor Library lies a secret enclave known only to me and a select few nerds matriculating through Hawthorne U. I’m sitting alone there in one of the brown leather recliners, with dim lights overhead, studying my textbook. That’s when I notice small pieces of white paper floating down like snow onto my page. Then comes more. I look up and my girlfriend is standing over me, holding two books under her arm and letting torn paper spill over my book. Her long black hair is fixed in a ponytail, and she’s wearing a black button-down with a checkered skirt and black leggings. She’s makeup-less. Even her lips are red. The getup would almost be preppy, if it weren’t so black.
I shouldn’t be that surprised to find her. See, she’s one of the nerds who knows about my secret spot. And she’s got a big irritating grimace.
I glower at her. I’m really pissed. She pouts.
Then I look back down at my book and ignore her. She grunts.
“Found you.”
I lift an eyebrow. I sigh, shake my head, and turn to the next page.
She walks over to the recliner across from me and tries to slide it over. This is really funny because the chair must weigh, like, a thousand pounds. She sighs and gives up. Then she comes back over and sits on the couch beside me, but a bit too far—which I like—and heaves a big sigh.
“Sorry, Liam,” she says. “Didn’t mean to disturb your studying.”
“I’m not mad about that.”
“Oh… good.” Then she irritatingly puts one of her books to the side on the couch and opens the other one. She scoots back, pulls out a highlighter from her purse, and starts studying, as if we planned to study here together all along.
I look at her, but she doesn’t look up from her book. She just says, “Hi.”
“What are you doing?”
“Studying,” she says with a shrug, staring at her textbook.
I get up.
She grunts again, thinking I’m leaving, I suppose.
“I’m mad that you two didn’t say a damn word about what happened last night the whole drive home,” I confess, falling back in my chair. “When I awoke in the morning, dazed like last time, Jane was back to being your best friend and yapping with you about clothes and the newest fucking movie that just hit theaters. Why? You never explained anything. It was like Hilltop Bluff. I woke up to you telling Alice that the ghost was gone and all was well.”
“It was.”
“Jane fell into my arms terrified as if needing protection,” I say, shaking my head. “Protection from you.”
“Maybe you dreamed that?” Alondra quips. She laughs at my expression. I don’t. She seems like she’s in a really good mood, which actually upsets me more. “Oh, come on, Lee, Jane and I have had our differences. We fight and we make up. We made up. It happens all the time. Now it’s over. I heard her argument and I agreed. I won’t do that to her again.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Well…” She stops because, right then, a student with glasses and a backpack walks down the steps.
Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Apple | Google Play | Smashwords | Paperback
About A.L. Hawke:
No comments:
Post a Comment