Serial Fiction
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The fan whirred over me. I think it had made at least 600 laps by now. The blades wobbled slightly, and the base shifted more than it should have. I should run it on low—the landlord said as much when he showed me the house, but there was something satisfying about the noise and
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Kyle. Kyle was here. Standing in front of me. Staring down at me like he hadn’t been missing for months. I knew it was me that I was seeing reflected back in his eyes, but the shape didn’t feel like me. The me staring back was who I had always been. Kyle’s. “Hello?”
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I was sitting in the parking lot of The Watershed, the blood from my knuckles draining down the fingers still curled around the leather of the steering wheel. You can do this. My brain had been whispering those four words for the better part of five minutes, but somehow, they weren’t enough to allow
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Typing out a message to my mom proved far more difficult than I thought it would be. I was on my tenth draft of essentially a long-winded “Hello. How have you been,” when there was a knock at the door. I clicked the lock button and watched the phone screen shift to black, sucking
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Ava left the room still talking about her final three college choices. After the door shut, I sat there for another moment, staring at the clock, trying to shake the ghost of a boy who wasn’t a boy anymore. It was honestly embarrassing the hold Henry still had on me. I was a grown
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It had been five years since I’d seen Henry last. I’d walked across the stage at graduation to the deafening sound of my father’s air horn and my mother’s shrill voice screaming “That’s my daughter,” as I clutched my high school diploma to my chest and smiled. The sound of my mother’s pride tore
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The click reverberated in my memory as I twisted the key in the lock. My morning walk had left me chilled and oddly unsettled, the empty streets and drawn curtains of my neighbors’ houses feeling more oppressive than peaceful today. I felt my dad’s hand on my shoulder as I leaned into the door;
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The next few months were largely spent explaining to my mother how I had never been it for Kyle and desperately trying to convince her that he had never been it for me either. That our love for Aunt Jules and my mom had been the chain holding our futures together. Without one of
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The next Monday, second hour came the same way it always did. I felt lightheaded as I approached the door to Mrs. Whitaker’s room. It was wide open for passing period, allowing me to peer inside the room before having to physically brave the space that, for the past eight months, had been my
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Author’s Note: Hello readers! I’m excited to share the beginning of a story that’s been taking shape in my mind. “Chapter one” is the first installment of what I envision becoming a longer work. I’ve decided to publish this story chapter by chapter, week by week, as it develops. This is a project that I’m
Ink & Interruptions 