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...
This was by far one of the worst chapter to write in the entire novel.
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The tie around my neck is too tight, slacks around my waist is too loose and the shoes around my feet are too stubborn.
Instead of feeling heat exude from my collar, wrapped around my neck like a noose, I feel a non existent body head. My nails are barren, but in an ombré of blue from my cuticles to the jagged white tips.
I haven't chewed on my nails in a while, I don't know why I had to relearn that nasty habit now.
Charlie rests a hand on my shoulder, but her belly isn't in the way of her tight black dress. A fishnet veil blocks away her eyes, her mouth twisted in a sad smile.
"It's okay," she whispers, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.
I don't know what's supposed to be okay. All I know, is that we're in a chapel, there's long pews dressed with velvet pillows and pamphlets on small tripod coffee tables next to the podium.
The entire clergy is at the back row, I saw them when we passed them. There's a reverend up front, his collar even tighter than mine, his clothes even looser than mine. He flips open his bible, clearing his throat loudly.
He was one of my father's friends.
My mother slumps down next to me, clothed in a long black gown. It's a plain dress touching her ankles and it scares me. One day, when I was about eleven, my parents went shopping at really expensive designer stores and of course, I tagged along. My mother called this dress, the one she bought and the one she's wearing, her funeral dress.
It was a dress put away for her own funeral when she was fighting breast cancer.
No one believed she was going to make it. I cried myself to sleep, because kids at school, especially Braxton, told me that cancer will send my mom to heaven. Cancer will take her away from me, and I couldn't stand the fact that I had to go to bed without her kiss on my forehead and her hands tucking me in. I couldn't stand the idea that she wouldn't be there to mend my injuries, be it a small slice or a broken bone.
It hurt.
But when she fought cancer off with a big middle finger, my dad baptized that dress as the dress she has to wear at his funeral and no other.
My dad's dead.
It makes sense, especially with his portrait in front, a white coffin [he thought white coffins are so elegant and diverse, even though he didn't want to be exotic in that aspect] and the Neil Diamond music softly beating in he background.
