I actually daren't even check the date of my last blog entry. I admit, no matter how many times I insist I will be better at blogging I just never am! And as far as lame excuses go I have that nailed hands down... I'm just very busy!
I think any wannabe author will tell you that it's really quite difficult balancing life when you have a full time job and write stories on the side, especially when you have a home to run, a husband to look after and a crazy beagle pup who is the most adorable thing you've ever seen!!
Anyway pathetic excuses over with, i've been so busy over the Christmas period trying to finish my next book. I've edited nearly half of it now so it shouldn't be too much longer until I can get it up on Kindle for you to enjoy....hopefully!
And the good news is (for me anyway) that I already have two other books completed in draft form so only have edits to do on those before I can upload those too.
Perhaps you would like to read a sample of my work? (Subject to slight changes through final edit)
∞ Chapter Three ∞
The party, as I expected it would be in
typical teenage fashion, is just another excuse for everyone to get drunk and
feel each other up. Not that I’m against either of those things particularly;
it just feels incredibly awkward following the conversation Daniel and I had in
the car.
“Eden!” Karen makes her way towards me
holding a bottle of wine loosely in her hand, a straw sticking out of the top
of it.
“Hi,” I smile. “Where were you today?”
Noticing in fifth period English that she was absent from her usual spot next
to me.
“Oh I didn’t do the homework and if I get
another detention for that my parents will kill me! And Vin said he was going
to cut class anyway to practice with his band so I went with him.” She stared
off into space dreamily talking about her new infatuation.
I laugh at my friend. She was one of
those girls who was brutally honest and yet ridiculously happy all the time,
and her obsession with boys was paralleled only by her love of drinking wine
through a straw!
“Ladies.” Daniel offered us the cups in
his hands as he approached us from the kitchen.
I took mine, just a plain beer, and took
a sip as Daniel opened the bottle top on his water since he was designated
driver tonight.
“So when are you two going to make it
official then?” Karen nudged Daniel playfully whilst looking at me with a gleam
in her eye to which I retaliated with a murderous gaze in her direction.
Daniel holds his hands up in surrender.
“Don’t look at me Kaz, it’s my little prima ballerina who’s digging her heels
in.”
I feel the blood rush to my cheeks
suddenly, I want to ground to open up and swallow me right now.
I raise an eye brow at him and he smiles.
Why does he like making me feel so damn uncomfortable? He knows I hate drama of
any kind.
“Come on Eden, you need to snap this one
up before someone else does. Guys like Daniel and Vin don’t wait around
forever, not where there’s like a million girls after them!” she says
dramatically, taking out her phone and laughing suggestively at a text that is
so obviously from Vin.
“You should really listen to Kaz, she
knows what she’s talking about.” Daniel says as he moves closer to me, forcing
me to take a step backwards.
“Daniel,” I squirm.
He puts his hands on my shoulders and
runs them down my arms in a move that I think is meant to make me weak in the
knees but actually makes me feel strange. I have to get away from him.
“Daniel, stop.” I plead and he instantly
steps back, looking at me with annoyance and I instantly feel guilty.
This is the precise reason why I’ve only
ever avoided the subject. If I agree to be his girlfriend then I risk feeling
that strange sensation in my gut that I’m doing something wrong and if I tell
him I don’t want to be his girlfriend then I risk losing him forever because I
get the impression that he isn’t going to take no for an answer.
I touch his shoulder gently and give him
a reassuring smile, coaxing the annoyed look off his face and hoping that this
will suffice for now. There’s no two ways about it, I’m being a coward and I
know it, but selfishly I’m not ready to deal with the aftermath of whatever my
decision may be.
“I’m going to get another drink.” Daniel
says a little frostily and I take it that he’s mad.
I nod even as he is walking away, leaving
me alone in the now over crowded living area with music blaring out through
some gigantic speakers by the equally large television.
I look around, hoping Karen hasn’t gone
too far but I don’t see her. Luckily though I spy Michael and Ellen, two of my
other friends who are as alien to these parties as I am.
“Was that Daniel I saw storming off to
the beer station just now?” Ellen queries as I take a seat with them on the
couch.
I smile reluctantly.
“When are you going to tell him the truth
and get rid of him?” Michael asks, taking me by surprise.
“What do you mean?”
“Well it’s obvious you don’t love him, if
you did you would have accepted his feelings for you a long time ago.” Michael
shrugs and I am loathe to admit he’s right.
“What do you mean get rid of him?”
“I don’t like the guy.”
“Really?
“Michael!” Ellen warns.
“What is it? What aren’t you guys
saying?”
“Honestly Eden it’s nothing, it’s just…
There’s just something off about him sometimes that’s all.”
I must give her a puzzled look because
she goes on to explain.
“He’s so protective of you, and not in a
good way. It’s almost like he sees you as a possession of his. Do you have any
idea how many guys have wanted to ask you out this year alone?”
“And everyone one of them has ended up
with a black eye!”
“What?”
“I can’t explain it Eden, it’s just that
he has been weaselling himself into your life since the day he arrived here and
some of us think it’s weird that’s all.”
I’m speechless. I had no idea my friends
thought of Daniel this way. I’d always assumed that they liked him as much as
me and Karen did, because he’d been hanging around with us for the best part of
two years now.
Now, the fact that Michael and Ellen
hardly ever came to these parties with us made sense, they didn’t like Daniel.
Why hadn’t they told me how they felt before though?
Maybe because I wouldn’t have listened.
Part of me thinks it’s silly to see truth
in what they say about him but there is definitely a small part of me that
doesn’t want to admit the truth in their words.
“Please don’t hate us.” Ellen pleads in
her angelic voice.
“I could never hate you. Thanks for being
honest.”
“Anytime,” Michael says with a smile.
“Have you seen Karen?”
“Last I saw her she was walking through
to the kitchen, laughing at a text from Vin.”
“Now there’s a drama waiting to happen.”
“Michael when did you become such a
bitch?” Ellen laughs.
He shrugs. “Just calling it how it is.”
“I’ll go find her.”
I make my way to the kitchen, hoping I
won’t have to turn right back round again if Karen or Daniel aren’t in there.
I want to die the moment I step foot in
there. There’s a game of suck and blow going on and Daniel is up next. Without
noticing me he turns to Polly Kent who goes to take the credit card from his
mouth before he blows it to the floor and plants his lips on hers hungrily.
I try to look anywhere but at them as
they suck each others faces off.
Polly pulls back from him and drunkenly
falls into Daniel’s arms, proceeding to feel his biceps, giggling at him like a
little Justin Bieber fan.
I back away slowly, feeling a mixture of
hurt and relief, and I’m not sure how to take that feeling. I’m kind of hurt
that he’s spent so much time trying to convince me that he’s the one for me and
yet can so easily kiss another girl. And I’m relieved because maybe this is for
the best? I mean I don’t feel for him the way he does for me, or the way he
says he feels for me so surely him kissing other girls is only a good thing?
Luckily, and I use the term loosely, another half hour later and I get another
headache as I’m sat chatting with Michael and Ellen. So I decide to make a
quick exit before Daniel attempts to escape Polly’s wandering hands, if he
wants to that is.
Ignoring a few drunken leers from some of
the boys standing around on the front lawn I walk home briskly, hoping the
fresh autumn air will sort out the throbbing pain in my head.
The headaches started the day after my
sixteenth birthday, just over a year ago. At first they were infrequent and
hardly registered on the pain scale, more like dull aches in the back of my
head now and again. But lately they had become not only more frequent but also
heart stoppingly painful too.
By the time I arrive home, truly
regretting my decision to walk the thirty minute walk back to my house across
town in the blistering October wind, my vision has become blurry with the pain.
The only relief I can get is to shut my eyes and drown out sounds by cupping my
hands tightly over my ears.
I climb into bed fully clothed, choosing
not to respond to a message from Daniel asking where I disappeared to and once
again reiterating his intentions for our relationship.
My guess is he started drinking after I
left the party, probably even before then when he became angry with me and I don’t
want to deal with that can of worms whilst battling the mother of all
headaches.
In the time since the accident, my
father, when he isn’t in the kitchen cooking whatever recipes my mother loved
to make, he’s off in his workshop crafting pieces for his carpentry company. So
he doesn’t see me almost stumble through the front door and race up the stairs
to make it to my bed before I pass out.
My room feels hot, and I reprimand myself
for closing the window earlier. But as I cross to my bed I place a hand on the
radiator and discover it is stone cold, and I wonder how I can feel like
there’s a volcano heating up inside me when the heating isn’t even on.
I rapidly change for bed, opting for
shorts and a cami top and fling myself down on the bed, not even bothering to
get changed or get under the covers. And
I do what I discovered is the only thing that helps me sleep when the headaches
hit me, I sing to myself.
What do you think? I hope you're intrigued to want to read the book? It's still a work in progress (a slow progress...) but I appreciate any feedback. You can contact me on my blog, on my Facebook page (Lindsay Michaels) or on my Twitter page (@LindsayBooks)
TTFN xx
