Undercover Badge; Next Generation

New Book

Excerpt from new book below, and under that there's talk about new chapters for Undercover Badge.

Please read and comment on if you like the preface.

***Forewarning: adult content.***

I'm not just talking about sex, because I am trying my hand at rougher stuff. But I actually mean more pain and heartache and really raw, current issues. Because of that, the prologue and some of the things the story will deal with may be triggering to some readers, so i ask you to use your own discretion in reading the prologue. I'm not going to give you and age limit and say "over eighteens only" because i think that's crap. I've experienced more in my relatively young life than some people will do in a life time, so i don't believe there's an age limit on maturity. So you decide, for yourself. Please, talk to me in the comments. I want to do stuff that matters, and i think with what i've experienced in life, that matters now more than ever. A big part of that is hearing what you have to say about it. So please, join the conversation and help me create a real, meaningful narrative. I would really appreciate it.

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PREFACE

So there I was, discovering that at twenty-one that I was piss-poor at three things; intoxication, reckless abandon and self-discovery. I mean, this wasn't news to me. I'd been aware of my predisposition - you know, sucking – for quite some time, but not so much with the self-loathing I was experiencing at that moment.

I was drunk, which, tragically, I was not enjoying in the slightest. I found the experience more annoying than liberating, God forbid. My second problem was the reckless abandon, another I would have preferred to have down pat. Third was finding myself, which was the one I figured I could cut myself some slack for. Twenty-one wasn't the age of having life all figured out, after all. But overall, the score was pretty goddamn pathetic. Intoxication, abandon and self-discovery were the three things I failed at twenty-one. Which, you know, added insult to injury because wasn't drunk, passionate and finding your way the covenant of being twenty-one? Piss poor. The whole situation.

The second problem was that in that moment, I found myself unable to commit. Blonde, blue eyed, athletic and female, commitment issues hadn't been a hallmark of my personality before, but in that moment, it was. And the thing I was trying to commit to was suicide. Which, sure, is kind of a downer.

I sat on the floor of my shower holding a blade to my wrist for ten minutes, squinting in a perpetual wince because I knew this would hurt and I wasn't drunk enough for it not to. This fact rapidly got me irritated because I had no interest in getting drunker than I already was. I tossed the blade with disgust. I rubbed my hurting eyes and then stumbled, with purpose, toward the medicine cabinet and yanked out all the painkillers I had. Anti-inflammatories and paracetamols and all the sleeping pills went onto the stack on the counter. I stopped for a few seconds and leaned over, giving the boxes the most critical eye I could. Well, shit. I also didn't know if it'd be enough. Because if I had to suffer the indignity of having my stomach pumped and then be asked why I wanted to kill myself, I might well die of shame. Whoahp, wait. That gave me pause.

I cocked my head quickly. Would that work; dead from shame? My prefrontal cortex (swimming in the haze caused by the unholy trinity of tequila, vodka and rum in one glass) spat up a few memories from the last few months. My bones rattled in a shudder and I snorted out loud as I realized that ship had sailed. If I could die of shame, I would have by now. Oh yeah, I definitely would have.

So, I left the stack of pills right there and went looking for a belt. The first problem was that I had none. I was the kind of person that just incessantly kept pulling my jeans up. Some more rummaging revealed one; a sturdy leather number I'd bought for my father as a gift but had forgotten to give him. Oh yeah, poetic.