TBPA summer edition gold medalist 2016.
Alistair Flynn is a walking anxiety attack/accident waiting to happen.
Ridden by nightmares and peer pressure of being the jock of the block, his life takes a confusing turn when a hazel-eyed boy invites him...
The hard ground creeps closer by every millisecond I plunge to it, but I never really seem to reach the bottom. The ground is never in proximity, as if I'm tangling by a rope high in space; just too far out of reach.
It never sinks through my skin.
The cliff, however, is in reach. I could just stick my hand out to save myself from my falling death, but the lodestone is too strong.
I stick out my grip, my skin shriveling off my hand at the single touch. Blood spits from the damaged veins, staining my white shirt gradually.
I try to reach out again, try to save myself from splatting to the earth's crust like a mosquito on a person in bright daylight, but I only hurt myself more. There's no way I can grab onto the cliff's edge, leading me down to my promised death.
The cliff wall is chapped and bumpy with rock and shrubs growing between them. The color is drained. Nothing other than moss green and coal colors, as if the clouds above are absorbing all color. My shirt is stained with black, blood just pumping in abundance onto the material.
I try to reach out to grab hold of a shrub one more time, but I get a face full of branch.
I can't save myself.
Gravity just pulls and pulls me, closer to the earth. Air envelops me humidly, not any resistance to the speed I'm plummeting in.
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"Ally." The whisper is far fetched and fragile, as if the person is afraid if it's too loud that I might break down in a mental state of war.
I ignore it, hugging Prue's pillow tighter to my chest. Her bed was always somewhere I slept better in than mine, but she never liked it when I wanted to sleep with her. She always chased me away, but twenty minutes later she slipped beneath my sheets.
Her room is filled with purple and so many scents and memories of her. The linen, the sheets, everything reminds me of Prue [probably because it's her room]. The dark frame of the bed reminds me of her mop of short hair, messily tangled into her simple style. The blankets remind me of her simple way of wrapping her thin, robust body in materials not meant for her gender and it never bothered her. She was so confident strutting around in clothes from my dad's closet.
Portraits of her adolescent years are scrapped over the wall, framing a TV she bought with her first paycheck.
She is not dead.
The foot of the bed sinks down to the weight of a lightweight person, but I feel quivering rippling through the bed. I feel her hand rub up and down her arm, shaking the entire bed by the simple movement.
"Ally, I know you're awake." It's Malarkey, her voice trembling, just like her body.
I can't open my eyes. My body doesn't want to obey whatever order I give it. I roll over, turning my back on her, curling into a fetus of hopelessness.
