{777 challenge}

 

 • reach •

•write•

• find •

Sliver from my novel After Ever After:

At home, Mom is humming, which means she’s in a good mood. “Hey, Aria, cookies on the counter,” Mom says. “How was school?” she asks like she always does. Not that she really cares, just out of habit. That’s my mom. Every move she makes follows habit. The world she lives in is just built off the world she has always known.

   
 “I’m going to be a librarian,” I tell her. 

   
“Sounds good,” she answers absently. Same answer she gives to so many things, and I wonder if she ever means it. Do words really sound good like music notes?

   
The cookie makes me feel a little better. Cookies are yummy, especially these ones that Dad brings home on Fridays fresh from the bakery at the store. 

   
 I don’t feel like doing homework, but I have to get it done some time or other. I start by pulling out my Literature textbook, but my mind won’t stay on my work. 

   
“Want some help?” Mom offers, like I’m still in elementary school. I don’t mind though. 

   
 “I can’t pay attention,” I groan, as if she could make my mind focus. I turn to her, “Mom, what’s the point of life?” It’s something Bobby asked that keeps nagging in the back of my mind. 

   
“Turning Bobby on us?” she teases. “The point of life is to be happy.” 

   
“So we were just made to be happy?” I’m not trying to be like Bobby, but I hear a similarity in my tone that scares me. 

   
“I guess so,” Mom shrugs her shoulders. “And to get to Ever After.” 

 
  “Ok,” I smile at the floor and try to sound like Mom has answered all my questions, but she hasn’t. She’s only made more questions. 

   
 “Aria,” Mom looks straight in my eyes in a way that means her full attention is on me, and for a sliver of time, she’s snapped out of the cycle of habits.“Sometimes we don’t need answers. We just need to make it to the end.” 

   
So we are just surviving and trying to be happy. My heart feels empty, like a glass with no water. A glass with no meaning. A glass that has no reason to exist, and is just there. There to be happy. 

Tears fill my eyes, but I won’t cry. I turn to my school work and try to take refuge in it, but nothing works. I think of my friends. They’re all just empty glasses. I am one of them. Empty.

~~~

My lovely friend and fellow blogger, Isabell tagged me for this challenge. I've never done a challenge, but this one looked kind of fun. 

{rules}

~ share 7 lines (I totally went over 7) from the 7th page of one of your manuscripts

~ tag 7 bloggers

I tag:

Ester

Rachel

Gabrielle

Lydia

Abie

Embers

Caroline