Bright - Chapter Six - Reflections

Emma talks with her mom and contemplates what to do about Danny.

Chapter Six

Reflections

Emma heard her mom laughing in the kitchen. Her mom was talking to a man. She walked into the kitchen and as soon as she did, her mom’s wide smile was replaced with a look of sheer terror.

 

“Emma! What happened!”

 

Emma was dazed, trying to figure out what Gus was doing sitting at her kitchen table, drinking wine with her mom. She could tell by the two empty plates and scrunched up napkins that they had just eaten dinner together.

 

Maggie got up and grabbed Emma by the shoulders, inspecting the blood stains on her sweater. Emma had forgotten that she must have looked pretty gruesome. Like a mother’s worst nightmare actually. Gus looked concerned as well, he stood up quickly, and braced his body, as if whoever was responsible was lurking outside. ‘That seems odd, and way too step-dad-ish.’ Emma thought.

 

“No mom, it’s okay, it’s not my blood.” Emma said, walking over to the kitchen sink to wash her hands.

Maggie followed her over to the sink, looking incredibly concerned.

 

“It’s Mike’s.” Emma said, drying her hands on the hand towel.

 

“Mike? Who’s Mike? What happened?” Maggie sounded slightly less panicked, but she still held her hand over her heart, standing inches away from Emma.

 

“He’s one of Ryan’s friends. He…” Emma looked over at Gus, he was still standing there, listening intently. “He got attacked by an animal.” Emma felt like she had re-experienced that scene enough for one night. That was all that she had the energy to say.

 

“Oh honey! Is he alright? What kind of animal? Was anyone else hurt?” Maggie had many questions.

 

“Yeah, the paramedic said he should be fine. We don’t know what it was. And no. Everyone else is fine.” Emma said, leaning up against the stove. She knew that she was wearing the hardship on her face, but her mom only knew half of it. And she really, really didn’t want to say anything more.

 

Maggie stroked Emma’s cheek softly.

 

“Oh honey. Are YOU alright?” Maggie asked. She could see the exhaustion in Emma’s eyes.

 

Emma nodded her head ‘yes’.

 

Emma saw Gus grab his jacket from the back of the chair. He slipped it on quickly and said that he had to leave. He thanked Maggie for dinner on his way out and rushed out the front door.

 

“Okay! It was nice…” Maggie said as Gus shut the door behind him. “talking to you…” She trailed off.

 

Maggie went to the kitchen table to gather the dirty plates and she blew out the candles.

 

“Well honey, I’m glad you’re alright.”

 

Emma stood there, watching her.

 

“Did I just walk in on a date?” Emma asked.

 

Maggie walked over to the sink and began to rinse the plates.

 

“No. It wasn’t a date. Gus just came by to bring us some apples, and I wanted to thank him for picking you up from school today.”

 

“Oh…” Emma said. “Cause it looked like a date to me… And he left in kind of a hurry.”

 

Maggie looked at Emma and turned off the tap.

 

“It wasn’t a date.” Maggie reiterated.

 

Emma glared at her.

 

“Whatever…” Emma had had enough upset for one night. She went upstairs without another word to her mom and got into the shower.

 

#   #   #

 

The warm water felt nice on her cold skin. And it felt even better to wash off the muck and the remnants of everything that had happened. There was dry blood stuck under her fingernails and she grabbed her loofa to try to scrub it away. She replayed the fight with Danny in her head, as she lathered her shampoo in her hair. Re-living it only fuelled her anger at him. Him and Keira.

 

Emma sat on her bed and brushed her wet hair slowly, listening to Radiohead. Rosie came into her room and jumped up, finding a comfy spot to lay down next to her. Emma gave her a pat and got up to look at herself in her mirror. She inspected her clean face, poking here and there with her fingers, pulling open the pores on her nose. She thought about what Danny had said to her. And she stared at herself with dissatisfaction. She thought about whether or not what he had said had any merit. She walked back to her bed and looked at the photos on her headboard. She found the one of her and Ryan and she looked closely at it. She looked happy in that photo. Ryan did make her happy. She was always excited to see him, and she thought about him often. Why would Danny say that? Emma wondered. She looked at the other photos that she had stuck to her headboard. Something was clearly going on with Danny and she didn’t want him to bring her down with him.

 

Emma took off every single photo that had Danny’s face. She lumped them together in a small pile and put them away in her top dresser drawer. She took the one of her and Ryan and relocated it, directly in the middle of her headboard. She stood back and looked at the bareness of it and felt satisfied.

 

Knock, Knock.

 

Emma turned down her stereo.

 

“Come in.”

 

Maggie opened the door gently and peeked her head inside Emma’s bedroom.

 

“There’s still some lentil Shepperd’s pie in the fridge, I can warm some up for you?” Maggie said.

 

“No, that’s okay, I’m really not hungry.” Emma said, sitting back down on her bed. Maggie entered the room and sat next to Emma.

 

“Honey, are you sure that you're alright? Did something else happen tonight?”

 

“No mom, I’m fine, really.”

 

“Ryan didn’t… you know… try something?”

 

“Oh god, no, mom!” Emma squinted her face.

 

“Okay, okay. I just. Well I’ve been working so much, and you're so busy with your friends and Ryan. We never have a chance to talk. I feel like I don't know what's going on in your life.” Maggie stroked Emma’s wet hair behind her shoulders.

 

“There’s nothing to tell really.” Emma said.

 

“Alright. And I know, you’re a big girl and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I just want you to know that I’m here. For anything. Anything at all.”

 

Emma smiled at her mom, she saw that she was concerned. And this interaction felt extremely comforting. “I know. And I will tell you, if anything.”

 

“Promise?”

 

“Promise." Emma smiled, reassuringly. "But, I’m really tired. Right now, I just want to go to bed.”

 

“Of course, you are sweetie.” Maggie got up and kissed Emma on the top of her head and walked toward the door. “Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight."

 

Emma’s desktop computer had a flashing orange light at the bottom. “3 Messages” It blinked. She clicked on it, assuming that it was Danny sending her many apologies.

 

RYAN - Hey beautiful. Mike is doing better. Sort of. He wok up at least. But he’s talking nonsense. Other than that, the doctors say he needs surgery and he will be able to go home in a few weeks. I still can’t believe that happened! Before that happened though, I had fun ;) I hope you did too! See you at shcool :D <3

RYAN - ***woke

RYAN - ***school

 

Emma closed the message box with Ryan and clicked on Danny’s name. He was online. She looked out her window, across the field, into his dimly lit bedroom. She stared at the screen for a while, watching, waiting for a message to appear.

 

She read a page of her Physics book and looked back up at the screen. Danny’s status read; “OFFLINE”. Emma looked out her window again and saw that his bedroom was dark. She felt the hurt in the pit of her stomach.

 

She closed her computer, turned off her stereo and her light and laid down beneath her big, warm comforter. She stared up at her ceiling, trying to imagine what it would be like when they saw each other at school. She definitely wasn’t apologizing. She imaged how satisfying it would feel to walk past Danny in the hall and avoid him altogether. And then, she fell sound asleep.

 

 

#   #   #

 

 

 

Author's Note

All opinions welcome!

Reviews

[emipoemi]

.......I don't think I need anymore to iterate how much I'm enjoying this novel/novella (don't know and can't tell how long it's going to be). It's sooooo goooood. It's all so compelling, and so real, I can see it all in my mind. So yeah, you can always take it as read, that I will have at least a page or two specifying why I simply love this story, and how it reads so far (just want to say one factor in the LOVE category, and that is how real the "online - waiting - offline" bit was for me. That happens all the time! I see people online, and not being one to always start the conversation, I on occasion wait until they start it.....but no....they go away....so I felt her pain there. It was soooo real).

Anyway, I can go on, but what I really want to touch on hereon in is things you can improve on. First of all: in the last sentence: "image"? I've never heard that used as a synonym for "imagine" maybe that was a typo, can't say, but "imagine" is what you want here. Also: "She thought about what Danny had said to her. And she stared at herself with dissatisfaction" (this needs to be joined together by a comma, not separated by a period). Now, more importantly, I would like to give you a small lesson on pronouns and punctuation- yay! -..... You don't need to constantly be saying "Emma", "Maggie", "her mom", etc.....once you've established the subject and/or the antecedent, you DON'T need to say it again two words later.....or in the next sentence. I don't know, if your teachers ever taught you that when writing an essay you have to play the reader for dumb. NO! And that's especially not true for fiction and story-telling. Readers are smart, you should play them for smart. They'll understand what's going on if you paint the picture carefully (the imagination is an amazing tool).

Let's take the first lines of this chapter:

"Emma heard her mom laughing in the kitchen. Her mom was talking to a man. She walked into the kitchen and as soon as she did, her mom’s wide smile was replaced with a look of sheer terror."

So, this is how it reads now. First mistake is saying "her mom" in the second sentence. No need, because you already used that as the object in the first sentence, so that becomes the antecedent. Replace it with a "she"...so: "Emma heard her mom laughing in the kitchen. She was talking to a man!" (and add the exclamation for emphasis). What do we have next? "She walked into the kitchen, and...." Ok! so now, because we've changed the second sentence to "she", we need to return to "Emma" again, but the problem here is "kitchen". You've already established "kitchen" in the first sentence. What we need to know is where exactly did Emma come from. The front door? Give us a bit of bearing so we know the layout of the house a bit. What does she need to do to get to the kitchen? Cross a hall? Cross the living room? Is it right beside her? Little details like that. Furthermore, avoid phrases like "and when she did"....this is weak writing that could very well be fixed by simply saying something like "and when she opened the door" (or whatever partition you have separating the kitchen from the rest of the house) OR "as she poked her head through the door" (or whatever), "her mom's wide smile....."
So apply this to the rest of the chapter. If a subject and/or antecedent have been clearly identified, there's no reason to be repeating it (so no need to be repeating "Emma", "Maggie", "her mom" all the time....), especially when the scene only contains two people. Only repeat subjects/antecedents when necessary. Play with it. You'll see how much power a single pronoun can have on the magic of story-telling.

If you'd like some more examples, I have two short short stories recently uploaded (they're sister stories, which I wrote with the same theme, but took different directions with them). Take a look at them, and analyze how I use the pronouns when the subject/antecedent has already been established. You can also read them for fun...for it's always good to take a little bit of a break from writing once in a while....helps the Muses recharge to work their magic more ;)

This is getting very interesting, J! Can't wait to find out what happens next!

[J.L.Q.]

Yes! You are absolutely right, and I feel like you are somehow able to read my mind? Because lasts night I realized that I needed to rest to let the well fill up. All of the chapters that I have written thus far and published on writerscafe, have been basically to reassure myself that my basic ‘idea’ could possibly be rivetting enough for readers. I am 100% not a writer. I never really have been. And I have sooooo much to learn, but I am sooooo willing to put in the work. Because I am extremely sloppy at the momen, not really committing myself fully yet to the ‘craft’ itself. I have been listening to a lot of ‘Ellen Brock’ on YouTube, for tips and of course YOU! You are amazing at reviewing and editing. I know that I have said it so many times already, but it is true :) I am taking a break for the moment and I will absolutely read the stories that you mentioned above!

[J.L.Q.]

And that is a typo! Lol it was supposed to say “imagine”

[emipoemi]

Well it always makes my day to "hear" you "say" ;) I'm always glad to help.....been in the game for 10 years....and have been trained by the best of mentors. So all I know, I owe to her, and am willing to pass on to any willing to learn.
And don't cut yourself short....YOU ARE A WRITER! You've proven yourself to be blessed by the Muses. I've read some pro-writers who are not half as good as you, mark my words. You have an innate talent, and just need to hone it. You just need to be taken under the right wing ;)