pauraque_bk | Fic a Week 33, Nano excerpt 1, hike!

Whoops, this was supposed to get posted yesterday, but the wifi kept flickering and I gave up.

My Nano's off to a decent start, keeping up the par pace for the first two days. It's going to be your standard sort of novel about regular people who frequently get emo about their problems. Exciting, I know! Since I did urban fantasy/adventure last year I thought I'd throw something different in the grinder.

++

The girl who couldn't stand up straight (excerpt)

She clears her place and takes the phone up into her room, amazed that she is not crying. She wants to cry, would love that release now, but the tears don't come. She calls Dad at work.

"Sun Microsystems, how can I direct your call today?" answers the secretary.

"Hi, can I please speak to J. D. Bay, if he's there?"

"I can see if he's available. Can you hold, sir?"

"Y-- yes," Robin stammers out. It is bitter in her mouth, but it's just a secretary, after all. Why bother? The hold music is staticky in Robin's ear.

"This is J. D.," says her father.

"Dad, it's me."

"Oh," he says. "What's the matter? You called me yesterday already."

"I know," she says, her voice shaky. suddenly feeling stupid for having done this. What good will it do? "It's just, Mom's being so horrible."

Dad crackles a sigh. "You know, I'm at work, Robin. What did she do now?"

"I know. I'm sorry. She's just-- She's always on me about... all that stuff, as usual." She can't name it out loud, still, not to Dad. But he knows.

"As usual," Dad echoes. The message is clear: Why are you bothering me with this?

"She compared me to someone who wanted to cut off their legs, or something." When it comes out of her mouth, she can't explain how bad it was, why the knife dug so deep. She feels helpless to explain it.

Dad sighs again, and lowers his voice. "You know, if you did go through with this, you'd have to deal with people saying that kind of thing to you all the time, and much worse. Nobody wants to see you get hurt like that."

"Well, except apparently Mom does!" Robin says, fighting back an edge of hysteria.

"Maybe she's just trying to tell you that you should look at the downsides of this before you decide anything. Because she loves you--"

"She doesn't love me," Robin laughs, the tears threatening now.

"Robin," says Dad in a deeper, warning tone. "She loves you. If she didn't love you, you wouldn't even be in this family or in this country, and I want you to think about that before you start talking about who does and doesn't love you."

Robin sits back on the bed, very still, like she's been dealt a ringing slap.

"Okay?" he prompts after a minute.

"Okay..." she manages.

"I'll talk to you next week. I have to get back to work. It's really a problem when you call me at work for no reason--"

"Bye," Robin mutters, and hangs up.