This week on the Romantic Writers Weekly Blog Hop we're asked to try our hand at some flash fiction and celebrate the equinox by writing. "a scene set in Autumn using the words Leaf, water, and coffee. Try to keep it to 500 words."
I think the scariest thing about that is the last part. Five hundred words? Daa-yum! It's gonna take more words than that just to intro this piece!
Anyway, this little gem is told from the POV of Giada (haven't decided on a last name for her, yet) one of the characters in my Atlas Beach series. I think the reason she sprang to mind was probably because her (as yet to be written) book is called,
Whole Latte Love and is set in Autumn.
Autumn has always been my favorite season. Which, I know, is a horribly basic to say, but there it is. I used to think my it was because it coincided with the start of the school year. Every year, when September rolled around, my foolish heart would stubbornly insist that this year things would be different. Then I’d get to school and, of course, things never were different. There were no new opportunities, no fresh starts—well, of course, there wouldn’t be! I lived in a small town. I went to parochial school. My world was vanishingly small. And nothing was ever going to change that.
Still, there was always shopping. New clothes, new books, new school supplies—I was there for it all! Even when the clothes were wrong, and I didn’t like the way any of them looked on me. Even when I wasn’t allowed to pierce my ears, when I was forced to cut my hair again, when the looseleaf binders I picked out caused all the adults in my life to second-guess my choices.
“Are you sure that’s the one you want? Are you really sure? Wouldn’t you much rather have one like this?”
No. Thank you. I would not rather.
Look, it’s not that their choices were bad. Primary colors, space exploration, dinosaurs, construction vehicles—all very solid choices. For someone else. Someone like my best friend, Ben, for example, who loved all those things. But they never spoke to me—the me that I always was inside.
by which I mean that, if they spoke at all, which of course they didn’t, their words would just be reflections of other people’s beliefs about who I was, rather than the reality.
And I know—boy, do I know—that there are people out there, including an author whose books I grew up reading, who believe that I’m the one with the reality problem. That I’m the one in denial. The one who doesn’t know her own heart, mind, and soul. They think they know who I am better than I do.
And all I have to say about that is, walk a mile in my shoes, biatch. Better yet, buy me a pair of Jimmy Choos—since your ass can afford to and mine never will (not on my salary) not to mention that HRT don’t come cheap—and I’ll walk that mile, come back, and tell you all about it.
Seriously. I’d walk a lot farther than a mile for some stylish new kicks.
All of which is a very roundabout way of saying that Fall has fallen. If I'm even allowed to say that. I mean…people say Spring has sprung all the damn time, and usually weeks before they even ought to. But the only things ever said to fall in Fall are leaves and temperatures. And, so far, not a single leaf has fallen. But still, it feels like Fall, you know?
There’s a uniquely autumnal fragrance to the air. When I pass the beach on my way to work, the water is a different shade of blue than it was just a few weeks ago. MacIntosh apples have started to appear in stores—the only apple worth eating, in my not-so-humble opinion. And, the most obvious sign of all, my favorite seasonal coffee flavor is back on the menu.
Think what you want, but I’m bringing basic back. It’s gonna be the new sexy. And I am all about the PSLs.
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