CHAPTER 43
When I got home after the shift, there was something that had been niggling my memory right from my first sight of that news report. I pulled it up on iPlayer on my telly, and paused it at one of the clearer views of the team and scanned along their faces. They were a right mix of types, some clearly more ‘physical’ than others.

CHAPTER 18
I watched the two of them dancing round each other, and felt my worries start to ease. Jacky had timed her visit to coincide with Mary’s summer break, and I would have two weeks in the middle of it, but it had still been a worry, leaving them together without me there to moderate, or perhaps shush one of them when I could see a secret about to be divulged that I would rather keep private. A bit like having your parents to stay, knowing that as soon as you leave them alone, they’ll be looking for your more embarrassing possessions.

CHAPTER 42
Not good news at all, I thought, wondering if we were going to see a repeat of schooltime fallings-out, where friends were pushed hard to take a side, pick the ‘real’ friend over the ‘false’ one, but Amina had been clear on that issue. Same people, just no longer a couple.

The weather wasn’t helping, my birthday having flown past as unnoticed as I could manage. There was too much bound up in such an occasion, none of it calling for celebration. I was off the next day, so it was another evening of tears before and during bedtime, as well as waking up in a chair again, as the light slowly emerged outside my living room window.

CHAPTER 41
As we walked off towards a nearby pub, Elf and Wildcat drifted back so that they were walking either side of me.

“Elf says good things about you, Jen. You ever ride?”

“No, not my thing, really”

“Well, be welcome at the clubhouse---ah”

This chapter includes part of the inquest on Angela's death, and may be upsetting for some.

The wrongness starts on Wednesday, a persistent pressure sitting low behind my pubic bone. It feels like I pulled a muscle doing deadlifts on Tuesday morning, except the ache is internal. I spend the afternoon walking a client through his municipal bond yields. His name is Vance, a guy who made three million in commercial logistics last year and now wants to talk about buying a marina. I sit across from him in the glass-walled conference room, keeping my face relaxed, smiling at the right intervals.

There was an extreme screaming sound in my ears as I opened my eyes to see Coach Register yelling at me.

“Dennereck! You alright?” He barked in a voice that would never sound calming to anyone.

I nodded and stood up.

I was back at school.

“That was a major hit,” Keith replied as he brushed at the dust on my shirt.

“Yeah,” I answered as I looked around and saw about every other guy in PE playing soccer, turning the center of the track into a mosh pit. “What hit?”

Magnolia Blooms & Sakura Petals
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

-8-
Inspiration to Write Again