Neon Afterlife

"You're this gorgeous, ballet-dancer-poet who knows the bartender at the sexy underground club where you take this girl you just rescued from a slimeball at the bus station." She stunned herself with this revelation as she paced back and forth. "This can't be real. You can't be real. Are you secretly a prince too? Or maybe just a wealthy CEO of a big corporation?"
"Did you say gorgeous?" he smirked.
His charm was so disarming, but she couldn't let him in. She had too much to lose, too much to do. She couldn't let a boy get in the way of her promise to her mother. She mashed her palms into her eyes then looked at him to confirm he wasn't a mirage. He was still there. "Either you're a bad cliché or too good to be true. Neither one is what I need right now." She backed off further, "I've gotta go."
He stepped towards her and she retreated more. "Don't," she said as turmoil swirled in her mind.
"Clichés aren't all bad," he pleaded.

NEON AFTERLIFE
Alex's mother died when she was 15 and her father checked-out, turning to drugs and alcohol, so the day Alex turns 18 she leaves home. She wants to follow in her mother's footsteps as a dancer in the Miami City Ballet. She expects to have to work hard to achieve her dreams, but she doesn't expect her dreams to change. That's what happens when she's refused admission to the Miami City Ballet Academy and meets Jason, a dancer at the academy and aspiring poet. He helps her find her way in a new city and a way to get in front of the decision makers at the Academy, until a life changing injury causes Alex to re-think her future and her relationships. Can she hold on to love when everything she knows about herself is changed? How can she become a professional dancer when she's in a wheelchair and the doctors say she'll never dance again?