An Eclectic Writing Class - Prompt Writing

Prompt: "My co-author is going to kill me"

{35 minutes}

Tasha laid her head down on her desk and groaned. "My co-author is going to kill me."

Skye just laughed. "What did you do now?"

Did she even want to tell her? Tasha wasn't so sure. Sometimes Skye would bring up her writing weirdness around their other flatmates and the result was always blank stares of confusion. And that was when they weren't high.

Whatever. There was no hiding her [strangeness?] {there has to be a better noun. I just can't think of it right now} from them anyway. Tasha was pretty confident that they thought she had crawled out of the ocean anyway. But at least they paid their share of the rent—and that was the quality most necessary in a flatmate anyway, especially when she wasn't quite working full-time. The in-between stage of a published but not full-time author was even more exhausting than working full-time and writing for fun had been. Maybe she should go back to work and tell Brad they had to slow down their production schedule.

"So," Skye said, getting right up in Tasha's face, "What did you do?"

Tasha pursed her lips. "I may have accidentally—" She paused. How to say this delicately?

"Smeared a guy's brains across the wall."

Skye's face took on a serious expression. "I thought you were writing a middle-grade book."

Tasha glanced down at the candy wrappers strewn around her desk. "We were. I was. I mean, that's what it was intended to be."

When she looked up, Skye was squinting at her phone. "How do you unlock this thing?"

"What?" She'd thought Skye had her own phone, but should have known better. Practically everything Skye owned was covered in pink sparkles, so there was no way she'd have the same black Otterbox as Tasha.

Tasha shot to her feet and reached for the phone, but Skye lifted it up out of her reach. Blasted shortness.

"Oh, c'mon," Tasha said, jumping up to reach it.

"Got it," Skye said and turned. She dashed for the door.

Tasha thought, too late, of how she should have stepped on her friend's foot to make her drop the phone. Now Skye was out the door and probably skipping down the hallway to the common area.

"She is so dead." If Skye thought she could just hack into Tasha's Google Docs and show it to all of their flatmates without some serious repercussions, she had something else coming. Let's see, {insert some reference to one of Skye's weird secrets that characterizes her}.

When Tasha reached the common area, Skye was gone, but so was everyone else. Maybe Liz and Nina had gone somewhere. But where was Skye?

The toilet flushed and Tasha whirled around. She'd been completely wrong about Skye's direction. What the f$#& was she doing?

"It's done." Skye emerged from the bathroom with a triumphant look on her face.

"Please tell me that you did not just flush my phone."

"Nah." She was beaming.

"What did you do?"

Skye strode into the living area and gave Tasha her phone before plopping down on one of the couches they'd picked up at Goodwill six months ago.

Tasha had her phone now, but somehow that wasn't reassuring.

"What did you do?!"

"I just opened up the communication between you and your partner."

Tasha scowled and unlocked her phone. "Did you text him?" She opened her texting app. Her most recent contact was her mother. It was pretty rare for anyone else to get into contact with such a social recluse.

"Nah, I sent him a hangouts message. You don't have cell service in the bathroom."

As if Tasha didn't know that.

"What did you—oh, my God!"

"It's not like I used any words you hadn't already said."

"I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do."

Then her phone dinged.

It was from Brad.

"Thank God! I've been thinking for a while that we might want to change this to a new-adult or higher."

Her phone dinged again.

"I've got a couple of sex scenes I've been afraid to show you. Don't laugh. They're a little guy-centric, but I guess that's what I have you for?"

"What did he say?" Skye sprung up from the couch, but Tasha pocketed her phone before she could see.

"What?"

"I hate you. I hate you when you're right."

She left Skye in a fit of giggles on the couch and scowled the whole way back to her room. She wouldn't mind smearing someone else's brain across a wall. In fiction, of course.

***

You can find the blog post that accompanies this prompt by clicking the external link below.