"Did you write this?" she demanded. There was a flower in her hair.
"I'm sorry?" he asked.
She slapped a tattered packet of papers onto his table.
"This," she said.
"My story for English class?" he asked.
His teacher collected the stories they'd written for homework and redistributed them among the students. They were meant to make notes in the margins and return them. Elliott had received a story about the joy of riding horses from a girl with a brown ponytail.
"God," she sighed. "Yes."
"What about it?" he asked.
"I need to know if you wrote it," she said. "All of it."
He wasn't sure what her question meant. He wasn't sure why she was even talking to him. Staring up at her, she was eleven feet tall. He felt small and the feeling was comforting. He'd never been this close to her before; he'd never wanted to. Now that she was so near and her hair was so blonde and long and cascading around her shoulders in the sunlight, she was kind of a sparkling behemoth. It was no wonder so many people hated her. She was breathtaking. The hems of all her clothing were just a little bit too short and all the slender parts of her body were visible. The effect might have been cheap on someone else.
"Well, I mean, yes," he said. "I wrote it."
There was silence for a long moment. He glanced behind her to make sure that nobody was watching them, that this wasn't some kind of cryptic joke. She stared at him and the corners of her mouth were turned down.
"Do you need something?" he asked.
"I need you," she couldn't quite make herself say.
photo by chuck d
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This post is an entry at Trifecta Writing Challenge. The deal is that you have to write a piece using the third definition of a given word in 33 -333 words. You should give it a try, too and link up here. This week's word is cheap.
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Makes you wonder what exactly his story was about. The dialog here - internal and external - was spot on, I think. The last line may have been a little intense (almost formal) for a high school girl, but then again, it's been a long time since high school, so who am I to say? :)
ReplyDeleteThe dialogue is so good. I felt inside the room.
ReplyDeletei enjoyed this.
In the paragraph with the marvelously conflicting descriptions, I could feel him getting turned on, Oedipal, and angry all at once. That was hands down my favorite part.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up this week. I love that your entire piece is centered around a piece of writing about which we know nothing. Great stuff here. Hope to see you back again soon.
ReplyDeleteMust have been some story! I like the way he describes her - so pretty it's no wonder so many people hate her.
ReplyDelete