I hope you enjoy this snippet from my young adult manuscript 'Exposed.'
Exposed was shortlisted for the Matilda Children's Literature Prize (HarperCollins Children's Books Australia).
(For background, Exposed is about 16-year-old Skeeter, who starts having strange flashbacks about drowning and becomes obsessed with the need to know how her heart donor - a girl named Indiana - really died. In this scene, Skeeter is talking with Ash - who had been Indiana's boyfriend).
I shake my head, watching the wind trickle in bursts through the long grass that no one ever bothers to cut.
‘No. I don’t know…I was just trying to clarify what happened…’ I trail off. ‘I mean…who was it that found Indi in the swimming pool? Was anybody at the house when…it happened?’
‘Damn it, Skeeter.’ Ash stands up, pulling his box of ciggies out of his back pocket. ‘Don’t you think the police have asked all these questions? Nobody was at the house. She was alone when it happened. You need to let this go.’ His voice has a rough edge to it, and he kicks at a clump of dirt on the path, sending it flying in a cloud of dust.
This is the closest I’ve seen Ash to losing his temper.
I stay silent, sitting on the bench, my arms wrapped around myself to protect me from the wind. And from Ash’s anger.
There’s a silence, as Ash turns his back to me, running a hand through his hair. I want to close my eyes against his anger, and I feel guilty that I’m the one that’s caused it.
‘Maybe you should talk to your psych about all this,’ Ash says into the silence.
I feel my jaw tighten. ‘I have.’
‘And?’ Ash turns back to look at me. ‘You told him you were having memories…about Indiana’s death?’
I nod.
Ash rolls his unlit cigarette between his fingers. ‘And what did he say about that?’
I hate the way his voice sounds so distant.
I look away from him, my throat feeling tight. ‘He…told me it was probably the meds giving me hallucinations. And maybe the trauma of…the whole transplant thing.’
My voice is flat.
Ash shakes his head slightly and lights up his cigarette, hand cupped around it against the wind.
I feel an emptiness creep through me. So now he, like everyone else, just thinks I’m imagining everything.
(Illustration from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/461196818072222798/)
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