(Working Title)

Note: * This is directly from my draft folder, any astricks or other indicators for personal notes to self including underlines will be included. I decided to keep some of these so you can see that I'm aware of some of the ways that I need to improve. I'm sorry if this is distracting, but I would rather submit a work in progress than nothing at all. Otherwise I'd never submit anything at all. We can see how well THATS done me!

Prologue

The pickup truck, despite appearing to be more rust than aged metal raced down a narrow road somewhere between Maryland and California. The thing didn’t look like it should be functional. One headlight out, bulging tires, and both mirrors missing. It didn’t stop the trees from reaching after the physics defying vehicle. Finger-like branches grasping at the metal for fractions of seconds like wooden whips. Dark clouds seem to target the golden streak peaking between slackened treetops. The wipers lash back and forth in vain. From the inside, the windshield was all movement.

The young woman in the driver’s seat leaned as far forward as she could, trying to keep her eyes on the road. Damp hospital clothes cling to every inch of her body, mud hardening on the exposed skin of her forearms. Her left knee bounces, her hair dripping sporadically onto the seats. She squints through the distortion and tips her head back to finish the last few drops of her energy drink, tossing it to the floor where it makes a crashing noise with the others. She wipes her mouth on her shoulder, using the movement as an excuse to let her gaze flicker to the passenger seat. She eases her bare foot harder on the gas. She finds herself now wishing more than ever that she would have prepared better.

The small occupant didn’t look like she would be able to function half as well as the truck was. She barely looked like she could be alive with her sunken cheeks ashen complexion. She shouldn’t be alive. Neither of them should be. Her mother knew that much. She shouldn’t have been able to recover from what they did to her frail little body, The girl shook uncontrollably in her mound of blankets, eyes not just closed, but squeezed shut, oblivious of her mother’s panic.

‘If only you could be more like Malichai.’ She winces at the voice. She hadn’t heard her father’s voice in months... It was right, of course. Malachi would have never let any of this happen. Malachi could have made sure nobody was after him. He would have been better prepared, he would have thought things through. But she wasn’t Malachi. She was never as smart as him, or as strong. She never had been, and she’d never fooled herself to think she was. She never had to.

The young woman’s lips whisper her hopes to the empty road.

“You’re going to be okay.” She lies

‘You were selfish as a child and you’re selfish now.’ A shiver runs down her spine.

He’d never stopped being cruel. Even when she’d taken an oath to never speak to him again he continued to speak to her. She was sure of it. Her decisions were commented on by his high, stoic voice in her head as if it belonged there. Still, The voice in her head was a welcome guest compared to the handful of times she’d heard her father’s spoken voice.

‘Your brother would never kill his own child like this’

Her brother was just like her father in power and presence, but she was never scared of him. Over the years, she’s attributed that to his voice. While her father’s would sludge around like ice cold slime between her thoughts, Malachi’s would only ever be outside of her head; And it was always warm, and soft, and comforting. Any time it would turn searing and powerful, it was never directed at her. It was used to defend her.

And ice melts under heat if it gets too close

If anybody could fix her mistakes, It was her savior. She just had to get back to him.

Her eyes blink tears away and she looks at her child, shivering so violently that someone who didn’t know better would assume it was a seizure. The young woman knew better, of course.

Malachi didn’t have to hold her hand through this part. *Add more, clarify that there was nobody around to teach her to be a mom. Not even her own mother*This is the part of her that only she had. She stretches an arm back, and touches the too-plush-pillows.

“” and the cushions seem to quadruple in size, cocooning the unconscious child in warmth forged from her mother’s heart.

“Please hang on, baby. We’re almost there.” She lies. Licks her lips. Lies again. Her child would never hear her pleads. She would never know the wooden fingers grasping for her, or of the rain that followed the old car. She would never know how the trees ached for her. The child would know that they got lost in a sea of *color of plush pillows* warmth. *This scene needs more use of the senses.*

“Please be able to fix her.” Her mother says to no one. She allows her voice to disappear into the void. Maybe if the words left, they’d come back for her when she needed them more. She looks at her daughter again. She brushes the soft skin of her cheek with the back of her hand. The child stills, and the young woman now slumps. The lids of her eyes try to fall, but she uses the same hand to shake out her damp hair. It was already sloped to the side of her head in large, drippy clumps. When she shakes her head, droplets fly and splash unto her face. It’s the closest she can get to washing her face right now. Rolling down the window was too much of a risk when her child.

No, the water from her hair would have to be enough.

Below the sounds of the trees, the rain… the shivers and the whispers... Sirens. Alarms, warnings. The methodic beat of helicopters searching in the wrong parts of the city.

About this book:

In the early 2000's, lycanthropes, werwolves stepped into the world and proclaimed their existence. In the 20 years since they have been all but eradicated in one way or another; humans having drained them of anything they could use with brute force and manipulation. 19 year old Aria Sinclair fell in love with 22 year old would-be Alpha of the would-be Shadow keepers pack, Ryder Solare and she never looked back. That is until she finds the body of her best friend beaten and bloodied on Shadow Keeper property. Despite Ryder having lost his abilitied as a punishment when he was a child he is instantly the top suspect.

As the investigation into her best friend's death takes place, Aria begins to learn about the secrets kept from her and things begin to untangle in a way that she could have never seen coming.

How I want to improve it:

The flow is off, I feel like I need the father thing to be less obvious and I kind of want to lengthen it a little but don't want to give away too much, it's a prologue of course. also i know the quality of the writing in general needs work... but that's why I'm here!

Why this book?:

I think this book is a good fit because it's moldable. Not every part of my book is written the way I want it to be written. If anything, most of it is written in a way that I'm almost ashamed of. I think this book is a good fit because I'm desperate to learn. The story isn't what I want it to be yet but I believe in it. I think I need help to get this story to the next level. I'm willing to do what it takes, change what I need to do, work as tirelessly as I have to to turn this project that I'm so passionate about into something I can be proud of. It just needs that extra nudge. I just need that extra nudge, I need to learn by DOING and unbiased eyes on my work. My word count is abysmal. but I think with some direction I can make something woderful. I just need the chance.

Because when you told me you were sleeping on the floor of your apartment, my first thoughts were of all the ways I could lay with you.

If you loved me, I would have brought all of the blankets I owned. We’d peel dryer sheets from them as we lay them out and we’d fall asleep in our makeshift mattress. Our breath smelling like bourbon; Our skin bathed in the glow of the laptop screen we forgot to pay attention to.

And the next morning...

When you told me that your back hurt too much to make your bed

I first thought of all of the ways I would have prevented your pain.

That night, I washed my sheets with extra fabric softener.

I made my own bed as comforting as I would have made yours.

I think people forget that homelessness is more than a short story, a poem, an anecdote. That it’s more than just sleeping on concrete and soggy blankets. More than wind that bites at your face and rain that doesn’t care when you have nowhere to hide.

It’s been a lot of things for me.

At first, it was the big bad thing that would happen if I didn’t work hard enough. I guess that’s what it is to most of you reading, too. I grew up with the threat of homelessless looming over my head. It stalked me, breathing down my neck, waiting to sink it’s teeth in. When I was fifteen, I was just barely able to fend it off by dropping out of school.

At eighteen, I did it again by getting a second job.

But that didn’t last.

At eighteen, it turned into something new entirely.

It turned into watching my little sister adjust to a new seventh grade class three times in one year. Hearing my mother cry when she thought I wasn’t listening. It’s contemplating getting rid of the dog I’ve slept next to for ten years because the only hotels within walking distance don’t allow pets.

It’s the little boy I saw at the day center who slept in a two-door car with his mother, father, and 100 pound pitbull who couldn’t stop smiling when he realized all of the toys in the common room were for him. Watching his parents fold his freshly cleaned clothes, and his tantrum when he saw he’d have to go back to the car. Or the man named Kal who has been waiting for disability from his cancer by living out of a backpack and panhandling with sunburns on his cheeks. It’s the young man with a mental illness talking to himself because nobody has so much as looked him in the eye in over a year.

It’s being followed by a man much bigger than you and having nowhere to run. Becoming nocturnal, because people don’t bother you as much when you sleep in their parking lot during the day. Reorganizing your entire life in front of everyone in the walmart parking lot - including the woman who avoided your gaze when she caught you shaving in the bathroom.

It’s putting sheets on your windows so people don’t watch you sleep.

Rats eating through everything you managed to salvage from your old life.

People you used to love, the people who you thought were going to catch you telling you that you’re being too pessimistic, that your sadness is wrong and people lifting you up only to hold it against you.

It’s asking for handouts when you really need them, and feeling like a leech for needing them in the first place.

You can’t trust anyone. Nobody is there to help you, no matter how many times you call that one phone number they give you when they tell you that they’re sorry that they can’t help you.. The one you’ve called half a dozen times already, the one with the man on the other end telling you to just work more hours, to just get a job. The one that doesn’t understand that it’s impossible to get a job when you have to take care of a thirteen year old, a disabled mother, and a mentally unstable self that never had the chance to learn what it meant to be human before humanity was ripped away from you.

I just wanted it to end. I sobbed when I was alone. Even as an atheist, I started begging God to fix it. I was begging for the world to change. For me to change. For there to be a God so he could pluck me out of my body and take me somewhere that smelled like books and incense rather than piss and kitty litter.

I had a key to the lockbox that we had to keep away from my sister. I would unlock it and think about all of the reasons for my story to be over. It kept getting worse when I asked for it to get better. When I thought I was on the ground, demons scraped their way up and latched their talons into my flesh and started ripping in their attempts to drag me to hell.

I thought about how much money I’d cost my mother and sister that day. How much of a mess I made. How much space I took up.

I thought about how after I was gone, they’d be the ones to find me, and it would shatter them. But, maybe then, someone would help them. Maybe someone will pity them and with their burden lessening a whole person...

I’d stare at the bottles of pain pills prescribed to my mother. I’d picture how it would feel for my body to be numb, starting with a slight tingle at my fingertips. My eyelids getting heavier, and my lungs screaming with the strength it takes to keep my heart beating for just a few seconds longer.

The hollow feeling in my chest when they fail.

I’d stare at the blade of my razor and think about how easy it would be to take apart and slide across my skin… the color of blood staining the ground, proving that I was here.

And when I signed on the dotted line, I thought that was the end. I took a picture of my key, and I cried out of joy for the first time in what felt like a lifetime

But on that first night, when the lights turned off, and I was left alone… My relief turned into guilt.

That little boy was still sleeping in his car next to his dog the last time I saw him. Driving through Seattle, seeing tents under bridges and knowing that there are people - children inside. Knowing how close I was to being them. When you see a homeless person, you see the mess that they create and the tent that they live in. What you don’t see is their entire lives within those walls being ripped apart by people who don’t like to look at them.

That’s the part that really broke me. The part that sent me to stare into my mother’s medicine cabinet again. Why am I allowed to move on from the agony of uncertainty while children had to endure it for half of their lives?

The answer is simple enough.

I’m not.

You knew a lot of things.

You knew that my favorite ice cream was mint chip.

That I hated the color yellow

That I have a tickle spot on my hip.

That I dreamed to play the cello

You new my sister, my mom, my best friend.

There are plenty of things you didn't know.

You didn't know that the White lines on my leggings weren't a roadmap to your pleasure.

Or that the gasps you heard when you pulled my legs apart was never because I liked it.

Ot that I wasn't scratching your back because I wanted you on top of me.

That I wasn't quiet because it felt good.

It didn't.

-an old entry

I’ve been both hoping you will and won’t message me.

I’ve been hoping you want to. Hoping you don’t.

I’ve been wanting to reach out, for selfish reasons. I’m hurting and you were good at stopping that before.

I’m hurting for a lot of reasons. I’m sure you aren’t surprised to know that you’re one of them.

You aren’t the only reason. I have other things going on in my life that you have no part of.. But they would definitely be easier if I had you.

I’m so mad at you. At myself. At you agian.

I keep thinking about how fast things changed. One second you were perfect. I thought of a future with you.. The next, you scared me.

It doesnt make sense in my heart. My head seems to understand, but my heart... It’s

lost. It started to fall, and just started to enjoy flying when a glass wall appeared in it’s path.

On the other side, it can see what it was falling toward. It can see you, meeting my family, it can see you teaching me how to play video games, it can see us celebrating our anniversary with ice cream.. It can see us. It can see something good and wonderful, but it can’t get to it. Every time it pounds against the glass, against my logic it’s shown flashes.

Me on my back,

Me saying no,

You saying yes,

Me, praying you would finish so you’ll stop and my heart can go back to laying in your arms..

My heart sees this, and it only pounds on the thin glass harder!

It’s so close. It was so close to being ours, to being mine, to being...

It’s so close

“You’re gonna get this dick”

It’s right there!

“No”...“Yes”

It’s inches away! Seconds!

Repeat.

#assault

#love

#survivor

#confused

#hearbroken

My dads met in pretty much the most explosive way imaginable. According to them (and the numerous articles that were written about them) neither of them had ever planed to take their gloves off. Cedric (pops) and his wife had committed to a lifetime covering their skin to stay together. Lots of couples do this. They choose each other, and never touch a stranger to keep it that way.

Aaron (dad) always said that he honestly thought the world was overreacting about the whole "soulmate junk" and had committed to the life of a Perpetual Bachelor. He wasn't strict about gloves, but he never put much real thought into it. There was no risk in something that didn't exist, but socially, not being covered made people nervous.

One day, Pops and his wife of three years picked up his in-laws from the airport. Three miles from their home, the car directly ahead of them lost control. The driver later said that there was a plastic bag on the road, and read somewhere that it could be abandoned puppies or a baby or something. To avoid having dead puppies on his head, he swerved across traffic, sending pops into a tailspin. The other driver was fine, but pop's car ended up slamming into another car and landing on its head.

Dad was there too, just a few cars behind them. He had to slam on his brakes and watched as the little red car flipped over. As a trainee paramedic, he rushed out of his car and raced to help. He saw pop's wife in the passenger seat, unconscious. with his training ringing in his ear, he checked her pulse. He decided to start with her and pulled her out of the car through the window.

He says now that he could smell gas, but pops rolls his eyes whenever he says it. "It never caught fire, it would have caught fire if you really smelled gas" and pops says "You know it doesn't work like that!

Pops even think about the risk of skin to skin contact, but when Dad saw him brush her skin with his ungloved hand he went ballistic. I used to scowl at this, but I think I understand now. They had chosen their lifestyle very carefully, and maintained it for years, knowing they weren't soulmates. they'd built a life together, and a single touch could ruin everything!

Dad scrambled out of the car, fuming about the possibility of losing everything he built with his wife. In a fit of rage, he punched pops Square in the jaw, Neither of them noticed the tear in his glove over the knuckle.

The absolute millisecond the skin of his hands touched the skin of Pops face, both of their worlds shifted, and centered around one another. They both knew it before they even locked eyes. Pops didn't even try to swing back at him, just looked up at him and took a step toward him, overwhelmed with the way the man was all of a sudden everything.

Dad took a step away from him. He looked from his wife, who was now rubbing her head and watching the situation unfold, and to his new center of the universe. Pops touched the hand to his freshly busted lip and took a second stumbling, unsure step forward. Dad started to cry. Guilt, over hitting this man, over being so reckless, of being the reason his wife's hand fell from her head and landed on her mouth in shock. For this happening in front of his In-laws that had to wait for someone else to help them out of the car.

Love, for his wife, for this man. Sorrow, for knowing he was going to break his wife's heart... knowing this was going to be the worst day of her life. He was going to lose his life. She was going to lose her partner, and he was gaining one. The audacity.

He felt so foolish for thinking what he felt for her was love. He felt guilty for even thinking that.

He started to sob right there. Next to his totaled car, his concussed wife, his confused in-laws and his new soulmate. Pops took dad's hand and it only made dad cry even more. he'd never felt more comforted in his life, and he should have with his wife. When they hugged, his whole body relaxed until he looked to hid wife.

She, of all things, was smiling.

They left the scene hand in tentative hand, Each of them leaving everything they thought they were behind.

When they reported it, they had to bring all kinds of proof. They ended up doing a bunch of interviews, and to this day, you can find youtube videos of the first few weeks after they found each other. Fundraisers, articles, the whole shebang.

Now, Dad's ex-wife is my aunt, and she has four kids with her French soulmate Alexandre. She met him six weeks into her three-month sympathy vacation, funded by the public. My birth mother reached out to my dads and a year-and-a-half after they adopted my brother, they adopted me. Neither of them really wanted to have kids before, but when they found one another, everything seemed to fall into place for everyone.

My dads realize now, that the lives that they'd committed to was never going to work for them. In that case, neither did what they thought they wanted. I have six brothers and sisters now.

Sometimes I wish I'd had an explosive meet-cute as they did. But Lachlan and I have always been a simple couple in comparison. We don't need the fireworks and things, we just need each other, time difference be dammed.

Sure, we've never touched, but when we do, I know what the result is going to be. He's been a part of my soul since I was fifteen years old, and he will always be part of me. He's my soul mate.

We're in our early twenties now, and we'd planned to have been together years ago by now, but we're both in school, and it's become virtually impossible for one of us to fork up the amount of cash it takes... plus, to be honest, we're comfortable in our routine.

In our situation, you guys are our only chance to have the opportunity to make the wait worth it... so, please consider helping us make our first day together as amazing as my dads's story.

I look forward to hearing from you,

-Dove

Dedicated to:

                          A baby sister who saved my life

                                         My mother, who gave it to me

                                                         And a best friend who taught me how to claim it.

-I love you more

346 days ago, I met a boy.

346 days ago, we ate ice cream together.

Mint chip, even though he didn’t like it.

and party city, where he bought me a stuffed owl.

we named it together.

I took it home and told my best friend about him.

About Dr. who... about when he took my hand... when he put his arm around me to move me away from traffic.

About the moment I spread my arms in the sun, and he called me a “Goddess” and I caught him staring at me a few times.

326 days ago, he sang to me. He knew all the words and it impressed me.

we talked about our past, our pain

We bought coloring books and colored pencils and we spent hours coloring with an earbud in each ear, showing each other our favorite music.

We cozied up in a coffee shop and he put his arm around me, I put my head on his shoulder for the first time.

He finally worked up the nerve to kiss me for the first time.

I went home and I told my best friend about how he told me he’d never kissed anyone before.

about how we both giggled before it happened.

How he surprised me with asking to kiss me before he did, and it impressed me.

I told her I couldn’t have written a better love story.

310 days ago, I took him to my favorite coffee shop.

He bought me my favorite coffee.

at his place, I drew a line.

I said no.

310 he didn’t listen.

310 days ago, I went home and told my friend about it.

About how unsure I was about it

about how excited I was for my future with him.

I never told her I said no.

In the following few weeks, he was easy to avoid. I had two jobs, he was in the army, and he had to travel a bit. I cried because I thought I was asexual. What happened was normal. It was what happened at the beginning of relationships, but I hated it. Something had to be wrong with me.

I only saw him one more time. We had what I thought was my dream date. Breakfast, a book store, a movie. The food was good, the book store was perfect, the movie was amazing.

I flinched when he put his arm around me.

I cringed when he told me he loved me.

I didn’t let him kiss me.

And when I went home that night, I told my best friend about it.

“I mean, it sounds like you’re scared of him... did anything happen?”

I start to cry. I couldn’t ignore that it’d happened anymore, and I felt crazy.

My therapist later called it rape. I’m a virgin, so I’m struggling with this. How can I both be a victim and a virgin? How can he be both a boyfriend and an abuser?

310 days ago, I could have cancelled. I could have said no and pushed him off and had a conversation about boundaries... but 310 days ago, I froze. I froze, and it ruined the story.

And that’s it.

I could go on for years about what I want.

I want independence, and I want a life of my own, and I want to claim it as such.

I want to graduate from high school, and I want to go to college.

I want my mom’s pain to ease, I want my sister’s dark clouds to clear, and I want my dog to be five years younger so I can have her five years longer.

I want a house, and I want the house to have a fridge. I want my food to stay cold without effort.

I want my own bed. I want my sister to have her own bed, too, no, I want her to have her own room. I want her to have her own room to decorate with Eiffel towers and old-fashioned cars and I want her to have her very own cat named Ponyo.

But, what I desire?

I desire to make all of that happen.

I desire to be the reason my mom’s legs don’t swell anymore. The reason her joints don’t stiffen as much, and the reason she won’t have to cry when she thinks I’m sleeping.

I desire to be the reason this middle school will be her last.

I desire to be the reason we don’t have to share a bed in a dingy hotel room anymore.

I desire to make the promise that one day, we’ll have a house. One that has a bathtub, a fridge, and a bed for each of us.

So, if I had to say exacly what I desire, it could all boil down to one thing.

I desire to promise my sister a cat.

#homelessness

#hopelessness

#family