I didn’t wait for three. I threw my shoulder into the metal door, and it slowly creaked upward—six inches, a foot. With both feet on the steps and our shoulders against the door, we pressed upward to provide more leverage.
“A little more,” Mrs. Lassiter said. “There.” She extended the metal bar to hold the door open. My shoulders relaxed as the brace clicked into place. I rubbed my arm and stepped into the eerie gray light.
Sixteen-year old Cori Reigns learns that not all tornadoes take you to magical places. Some take your house, your school, and life as you knew it. Struggling to put the pieces of her life back together, Cori learns to rebuild what the storm destroyed by trusting family she didn't know she had and helping friends she never appreciated.
EXCERPT
When I knocked on the front door, I could see that I was still well within the penalty phase. Slim answered with an upward nod, his guitar in one hand, a half-eaten microwaved chimichanga in the other. He turned and receded into the trailer leaving the door open as if to tell me it was okay to enter. A wave of stale air blending dirty clothes and burnt popcorn hit me square on.
Going to Slim’s was always an exercise in personal restraint and focus. The doctors had told my aunt my “tendencies” to enforce order onto chaotic situations wasn’t Obessive Compulsive Disorder. I really had no trouble being in others people’s mess— just my own. If it was mine, it had to have a place and be in it. Slim’s house, however, pushed the limits of my territorial boundaries.
I pushed a pile of dirty clothes to the side and sitting down on a chair with the padding showing through. “So how’ve you been?” I asked.
He strummed a few chords then adjusted one of the tuning pegs and strummed again. “Fine,” he said. “You?”
I hated this. And in that moment, I remembered just how much I hated it and why.
Toto was never much of a fighter. Always pretty docile. Leo, I’d recently learned, would come out swinging if you backed him into a corner, but Slim? He was a case study in emotional constipation. Tick him off and he clammed up, locked up, whatever you wanted to call it. It took patience and a type of compassion recently in short supply to “restore” him—trying left me exhausted.
“I’m sorry I drove off and left you. I just—I just have a lot going on right now.”
“Most of us do,” he said.
What did he have going on? His house hadn’t been hit, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted it to, no matter how much he said so. But I was eager to make amends.
Even if it meant falling on a blunted sword. “I had no right to act like I did. Can you forgive me?”
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About the author:
Married to my bride for twenty-four years, I have an amazing son and a wonderful daughter.
Born and raised in central Oklahoma, I work in education, first as a teacher now in technology curriculum. I write. I read. And in the summer I make snow cones.
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5 comments:
I look forward to reading your book. Keep up the great work.
The book sounds great, thanks for the giveaway.
sounds like a great read
Looks like a great read!
I'd like to read it!!
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