Anne Riley

The lovely Francine over at Romancing the Blog is hosting an awesome blogfest today and tomorrow – the Bad News Blogfest!

The idea is to post a scene where a character receives bad news. That’s the only qualification! I love it when I have a lot of creative freedom!

This scene comes from the novel I have on sub right now, The Clearing. Ethan has just broken the news to my MC, Natalie, that his mom has died. Things get awkward when Ethan’s girlfriend (who also happens to be Natalie’s roommate) comes in the room. Enjoy!

*          *          *

He smiled, and put his hand on my arm again. It felt like my skin was conducting some kind of electric energy where he touched me. “Thanks for letting me talk to you.”

I smiled back.

Just then, the door burst open, and Michelle Donahue’s furious face came blazing into the room.

“What. Is. Going. On?” She fired each word like a bullet, her eyes burning with indignation.

I was suddenly very aware of the scene Michelle had just walked in on: Ethan and I alone together in the dorm room.

The two of us sitting together on my bed.

He confiding in me, and not in Michelle.

His hand resting on my arm.

“Michelle,” I said carefully, as if I were trying to talk her down from a ledge. “This is not what it looks like. Ethan’s mom – ”

“Shut up, Natalie,” she spat. I blanched at the venom in her voice.

Chelsea materialized beside her then, and observed the scene with narrowed eyes. “Well, well,” she said. “What’s wrong, Nat? Liam Abernathy just not man enough for you?”

I laughed in disbelief, frantically searching for the words that might get me out of this alive.

“You think this is funny?” Michelle snapped.

“No, I don’t,” I replied as calmly as possible. “I laughed because I can’t believe this is actually happening. Michelle, nothing is going on here, okay? Ethan was just – ”

“I don’t care to hear your lies, thank you,” she growled.

“Leave her alone, Michelle,” Ethan said. “She told you, it’s not what it looks like. I tried to call you earlier, but you didn’t answer, so I came here to talk to – ”

“You idiot!” Michelle snarled. “I told you I was hanging out with Chelsea tonight! Why can’t you ever remember anything? And what’s wrong with your face? Are you crying?”

My vision went suddenly red. Why couldn’t she shut up for two seconds so we could explain?

Slowly, I stood up. I felt Ethan’s hand slide off my arm as I lifted myself off the bed. Had it really been there the whole time?

“Michelle,” I began, my voice shaking with fury, “Ethan’s mom died today.”

There was a long pause in which the only sound was the faint buzzing of the fluorescent lights above us.

“Oh,” she said finally. She shifted her weight from one leg to another. “Well.”

I glanced over at Chelsea, who was staring at Ethan with a strange mixture of pity and disgust on her face.

“Um, when is the funeral?” Michelle asked blandly.

“When is the funeral?” I echoed, my blood boiling. “Is that really what you should be asking him right now?”

“What business is it of yours what I ask him?” she shot back at me.

“I don’t know, but you didn’t even answer his calls tonight, and now all you can do is ask him when the funeral is? How about comforting him? How about crying with him? How about saying you’re sorry for calling him an idiot?”

Michelle looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language, then shifted her gaze back over to Ethan.

“You know what?” Ethan said. “I don’t think I want you to comfort me, Michelle. In fact, I don’t think I even want to date you any more. So don’t worry about when the funeral is, because you’re not invited.” He brushed past her and out the door, leaving me alone with his ex-girlfriend and Chelsea Bennett.

I didn’t have long to feel awkward. Chelsea and Michelle made a quick exit, heading the opposite way down the hall from the way Ethan had gone – down the stairs towards Chelsea’s room. Michelle would probably spend the night there. I shut the door quietly and leaned against it, sinking to the floor.

Then I put my head in my hands and wept.

That’s right, I’m getting my blogfest on yet again! This fest is in honor of the beginning of a new school year… um… which is probably far less exciting to me as a high school teacher than it is to some of you, whose post-college lives are now blessedly untainted by academia.

But anyway.

Roh Morgan is the one hosting the Back To School Daze Blogfest. Be sure to click over to his site and check out the other entries – after you’ve read mine, of course!

This particular scene comes from The Clearing, which is the YA novel I’ve got on sub right now. It’s guaranteed to make you squirm and thank your lucky stars you’re not in high school anymore! Enjoy!

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One by one, my classmates drifted through the door until the room buzzed with their conversation. I kept my eyes fixed on my notes, trying to block out the sound of their voices so that maybe I wouldn’t get too freaked out. A multitude of butterflies erupted somewhere deep in my belly when the bell finally rang to start class. I shut my notebook and settled back into my chair, hoping we wouldn’t have to go first. I shot a nervous glance over at Liam’s desk, hoping to find him looking well-rested and confident, which might possibly have happened – except that he wasn’t there.

There was a second of horror-struck confusion as I registered his absence.

My heart jumped into my throat. Where was he? Had he somehow forgotten about the project? If he was out running around in that stupid forest, I was absolutely going to kill him. Mrs. Rosenberg had threatened us repeatedly about not showing up on presentation day – if one of us wasn’t there, we would lose a letter grade on the project. No excuses would be accepted.

And here I sat, staring at the empty desk of my supposed partner. My imagination instantly filled with visions of myself storming around campus until I found Liam, then giving him the chewing out he deserved. I pictured all the nasty, biting things I would say to him: How unreliable he was, how I couldn’t believe he had abandoned me like that. I would demand that he go to Mrs. Rosenberg and beg her to take another letter off of his grade instead of deducting points from mine.

“Alright, let’s begin,” Mrs. Rosenberg called from her podium as my life flashed before my eyes. Somehow, I knew what she was about to say before she said it. “I would like to begin with Liam and Natalie, please. The rest of you, remember to stay quiet and take notes on each presentation. Your behavior as an audience makes up a part of your grade.”

There was a pause as she waited for me to get up. I could feel my classmates staring at me.

“Um,” I said, standing up halfway and posing in an awkward crouch, “Liam isn’t here today.”

Mrs. Rosenberg glanced at Liam’s empty chair, then emitted a loud huff and threw up her hands. “What did I tell you about being here on presentation day?” She aimed the accusation at me, which somehow made me feel guilty even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know where he is.”

I sat back down in my seat; she would probably just make us go tomorrow, and that way I would have time to wallow in my humiliation before finding Liam and punching him in the face.

“You still have to go,” Mrs. Rosenberg said, her eyes cast down at what I assumed was our project grade sheet on her podium. She was drawing enthusiastic streaks across it with her red pen.

Surely I heard her wrong. “I’m sorry?”

She looked up at me then, giving me The Look that all teachers seem to have. “You still have to present, Natalie. You’ve lost a letter grade already because your partner didn’t show up, but if you don’t go at all today, you’ll fail the project.”

I felt my face freeze in a tormented expression. Someone sniggered behind me. I could feel the entire class struggling to hide their delight at my predicament.

Without saying a word, I picked my notes up off my desk and walked to the front of the room, turning slowly to face the class. My heartbeat pounded in my ears and I felt slightly off balance; it was like one of those dreams where you suddenly look down and realize you’re naked and everyone is laughing at you. Only I was wearing clothes, and they were still laughing.

“The poem Rhapsody on a Windy…”

I stopped and cleared my throat, then started again. “The poem Rhapsody on a Windy Night has long been…”

From the back of the room I saw Chelsea Bennett’s face alight with satisfaction. She grinned at the girl sitting next to her, and both of them dissolved into silent giggles behind their notebooks.

And suddenly I couldn’t stop breathing. My breath was coming in, then out, faster and faster, and I was getting dizzy….

“Natalie?” Mrs. Rosenberg’s concerned voice came from very far away. It was the last thing I heard before I passed out.

I missed the Haiku Blogfest? I MISSED IT?

But I’m the haiku queen! I love haiku! I write it all the time, especially when I can’t think of anything else to write!

Okay, wait, though. I have an excuse. No really, listen! I had to go to the doctor yesterday morning, first thing, to drink something that tasted like Sunkist with too much syrup, and then I had to wait an hour, and then they had to test my blood, and then I had to go to WORK (ugh) and then they called me and told me the results of my test were less than ideal.

That’s right ladies, you know what I’m talking about, right? The dreaded GLUCOSE TEST. Bane of every pregnant woman’s existence.

So apparently I kinda failed it, which means I have to eat like a rabbit (not really, I’m just being dramatic) all week and then go BACK this Friday for another test. But this one will take THREE HOURS. So I have to take the whole day off work because I have a feeling that, after spending approximately half the day with nothing in my stomach but extra-syrupy Sunkist, the last thing I’ll be capable of doing is teaching high school students. It would probably end up being one of those “sit down, don’t talk, and somebody turn off the lights” kind of situations.

So, I apologize. From the bottom of my heart. I can’t believe I missed it – I was so excited about it! But hopefully my doctor’s excuse will keep you from hating me.

And in closing, to make up for my transgressions, I leave you with a Glucose Test Haiku. Enjoy!

They give me Sunkist.

My body can’t handle it.

No! Bad glucose! Bad!