This is my entry for the #BlogBattle hosted by Rachael Ritchey. I had a few ideas, but at some point the little comedy piece I had in mind decided it didn't want to be written, but it the end it turned out to be a Drama instead. I hope you enjoy reading it!

I just want to say thank you to everyone who voted for this story as the Week 59 battle winner! I appreciated it very much!
She’s crying again.

I know why she’s crying.

She’s been doing that a lot lately, ever since ‘The Accident’. She never cries in front of me, but I can always see the stains on her cheeks when she comes in. They're almost permanent now. I want to comfort her, but what would I say? How would I say it?

It was never meant to go this far, but... but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

It was all an accident. Just an accident.

We were young when we got married. We’re still young. We both have... had goals and dreams and careers; she once put a picture of me in the dictionary, right next to the word ‘ambitious’. It had been a joke then. Now… now it's not so funny anymore.

But I digress. We were young, and we were driven. The brief discussion we’d had about children and parenthood ended quickly with a firm decision from us both: ‘Not anytime soon.’ Neither of us were ready for the responsibility.

She told me she was pregnant that night. I’m not sure why she chose to tell me then; we were both more than a little drunk on wine, and I probably shouldn’t have been driving to begin with. I still hate myself for that decision. Things could have been so different. We were such a happy couple. Our friends always told us that if anyone in our group could become a ‘power couple’, we were…

I’m sorry, I’m wandering from my tale again. It happens so often these days, just can’t hold on to a single train of thought like I used too. Back to ‘that night’.

We argued, I lost control.

It was a stupid mistake. If things had been different… maybe I would have been happy to become a father. Or maybe the argument and the pregnancy would have damaged our marriage irreparably. Sometimes I think the miscarriage already has.

She still tries to talk to me. I know she still loves me – it’s one of the reasons why she hasn’t left yet. The other… well, she doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. Her parents died when she was young, and mine… let’s just say that they would have been happy to hear about the miscarriage. Once the slew of medical bills started coming in, our circle of friends quickly dwindled down to nothing.

Sad, really.

She’s still crying, quieter now. It means she’ll be checking on me, soon.

Sometimes I want to tell her to leave. To go and find a better life. She’s only twenty five, she shouldn’t be stuck here, in this life, because I made a mistake. She still has all that potential… and I want her to realise it. I still love her, too. I just don’t tell her that anymore. I don’t tell her much of anything.

Other times, when I can almost see her determination to just end it, I want to beg her to stay… and I feel guilty about that. But I don’t want her to leave me here, alone. I don’t say a word. Not even when she begs me to just speak to her. To say something. I wish I could, especially when I can see the beginnings of tears in her eyes again before she storms out of the room.

She always comes back, though. Always. She promises that she’ll stay, that she’ll never leave me. But I know she’ll beg again. She’ll get angry again. One day, she will leave.

So many times I’ve tried to talk to her, to give her what she wants. What she needs. But the words always get stuck, and I feel like I’m choking on them. Tears that refuse to be shed burn behind my eyes. We’re not living anymore. We’re barely existing. But it’s all we have.

Here she is now, coming into the room. Look at her. She’s a shadow of what she used to be. She looks half starved, with circles under her eyes, her hair in a tangled mess. I can see three stains on her dress. They were there yesterday, too. I see everything these days…

“Hey love.”

She always says that. I say nothing.

“Are you hungry?”

Her eyes are pleading with me.

Silence.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll get you something to eat.”

That’s how I know she still loves me. She takes care of me, and she never complains.

I watch her until she disappears behind me, grasping the handles of the wheelchair. She’ll take me to the bathroom now. She’ll bathe me, she’ll feed me through a tube. Then she’ll wheel me outside and sing to me. She sings beautifully, and she sings often… these days.

She’ll sing to me, for me, filling the silence with her voice…

…because I don’t have one anymore.

I recently started writing a fanfiction (oh close your mouth, for goodness sake) story, but after a couple of chapters I started thinking about turning it into a original story. There's something dark about the whole idea that just appeals to me. Here's an excerpt of the story, with the names changed, for your enjoyment. Let me know what you think - worth pursuing an original, or stick to fanfiction?

Through a Brother's Eyes

The first time he'd killed, he'd been nine and in his freshman year at senior high. It'd been an accident, and he still can't really remember what'd happened. Something about velocity, impact, and the mathematics of aerodynamics... He'd always known that he was different – genius they called him – but when he had looked at that dead chick, feeling only disappointment that his hypothesis had been incorrect, it'd been the first time he'd wondered if different was wrong.

He hadn't thought about that chick again until five years later. He and his brother were graduating – and everyone was so proud. His parents were so obsessed with taking pictures of their young genius; they hadn't noticed when their eldest son had slipped away. But he had. Tony loved his brother. Even though they were never that close, Mikey had always been there when he really needed him. He protected against bullies, and held him through the nightmares. And hugs... hugs were precious – precious because they came from his brother, and they came very, very rarely. Yes, he loved his older brother very much, and he knew him very well... so when he saw Mikey slip away, Tony knew that his older sibling was unhappy at being left out again.

It wasn't difficult to distract his parents. Soon enough they were in deep conversation with a college professor who wanted to 'recruit' him for their program, and he was out hunting Michael down. Today was a hug day. His brother, Tony found out, had the same thought. Only, Michael wasn't hugging him today. Instead he was hugging a strange girl, hidden in a dark corner far away from the crowd. He'd seen her before... She was a cruel girl, often making fun of him and his equations, looking down on everyone around her... and now she was stealing his hug! But it wasn't just the hug. He could hear them moaning as he crept closer, watching with wide eyes when he realised just what Mikey was doing with the girl...

Two days later, as he watched the blond corpse sink into the depths, Tony realized something interesting. The numbers were quiet. Not silent, never silent, but instead of being a near blinding chorus in his mind, they had become a pleasurable, comfortable hum... but he also realised something else. She was never going to touch Michael again, because Michael was his Michael, and maybe, just maybe, he loved Mikey a little more than he technically should.

When Mikey had left, he'd thought it might just be a good thing, even if he almost hated him for it.

The next few years, Tony threw himself into his work. He threw himself into several other things as well, but they always had dark hair and dark eyes and he never knew their names. He didn't want to know their names. But it wasn't until the trip to give a lecture on his groundbreaking Convergent Hypothesis in Los Angeles when one of his faceless, nameless Michael's thought he could break the rules. He heard something on the news when they got back two days later, but he already knew the cops weren't going to find anything. Just like he knew that he liked carving the bastard up.

He'd had to face the truth after that. He thought he cared about them. About dad and Melissa and Harry... and mom. But when mom was dying, and his dad yelled at him almost every day to go and say his goodbyes... he still couldn't leave his study. They would all believe that he'd lost himself in the unsolvable equations he so loved to tackle, because he couldn't deal with his mother's death. It was a lie he let them believe. He didn't work at them because he wanted to ignore his mother's illness, but because he just couldn't understand why the thought of it didn't frighten him, or make him sad. He knew it should...

The truth was, he worked on them because maybe, just maybe, solving someone else's unsolvable problem would help him solve his own.

Heartless. That's the word he'd ascribed himself during those months. Emotionless. His father had certainly told him that more than enough times – and Tony almost believed it, too. Until Mikey came back. So different... and so the same. The same dark hair and dark eyes, the same voice, same rough hands and powerful body... and when those hands jerked him away from his blackboards, shaking him in anger, Tony knew it was time to leave the study. He wasn't heartless or emotionless. He'd found the solution to his problem, the other side of the emotional equation. He wasn't too surprised by it either.

 The answer could only ever have been Michael.

Very slowly, their lives began to settle into a pattern. Michael was still Michael, and Tony still turned to faceless shadows. Sometimes he even thought it was funny, how no one could see him for what he was. They all thought he was sweet and funny and so intelligent, if a little socially awkward. Professor Tony Bennes, who can't see the way Melissa looks at him, who's probably still a virgin, and who could never hurt a fly. If only they knew...

Then, one day, everything changes and suddenly Tony is involved with the NYPD, helping them on their cases. No, not helping them... helping Michael. He'd walked into the building, expecting to feel a certain... fear. There were, after all, still cold cases in this very building that related to things he'd done. But when he stepped off the elevator, there was nothing but excitement to see and help his brother. And did they ever work well together, just like Tony had always known they would.

 He allowed himself to get a little... closer, every now and then. Like after the shooting. He'd practically folded himself into Mikey then. It wasn't so much because of the shooting itself, but when Michael had rushed forward and held him, he took advantage. Life went on, but sometimes Tony could almost believe that Mikey felt something for him, too. A look that lingered, a touch or a squeeze that lasted just a second longer than it should between siblings...

 And then came Elizabeth Darro.

When he'd found the box and the ring inside it, Tony had stared at it for a good, long while. Someone had come very close to stealing his Michael away... Three days later, Tony showed up at Michael's door with the box. He'd settled in on the couch with him, a happy little smile on his face. Michael had chosen to stay here, with him, even if there had been a woman waiting for him. And Tony knew that Michael would always be his.

Thirty eight hours later, Michael and his team were informed that Elizabeth had mysteriously disappeared. His brother had nearly killed himself in an attempt to find her – but Tony knew he never would. She would be just another cold case... Instead, when Michael finally broke two months later, it was Tony that sat with him in the dark of the apartment. Tony who made sure that Michael didn't drink too much, that he ate and took his showers while they waited for him to be approved for active duty again. It was Tony who comforted him, running his fingers through his brother's soft hair as Michael lay on his lap while they watched Gulliver's Travels together.

 And he knew that, if anyone was ever going to catch him...

 ...it was going to be his Michael.

HAPPY 2015!

It's been a while since my last post, and those of you who pushed through NaNoWriMo probably understand why. November was NaNoWriMo, and after that, just about any kind of writing is too much for to handle in our sensitive states. Especially when it comes to the horrors we'd forced ourselves to finish during November. Novels that we hope never to see again. But I've come to an amazing realization!

You see, December for WriMo's is almost...cursed. You start the month off on a tired 'high', feeling proud that you've managed a novel, but exhausted from the constant pushing. But now you know you can write! That is, until you go back to read a little bit of what you've written.

There is no faster way to put a damper on the aforementioned high than trying to read your NaNo Novel. It's horrible. No matter how you look at it or squint at the pages, every single page, paragraph and sentence is an atrocity! A damnation! A blight on novels everywhere! Not one thing is salvageable. And in that moment you want nothing more than to press the delete button and never look at it again. If you managed to resist that first impulse, you probably shoved that first draft so far into the storage of your computer drive that it would take an expert hacker years to get to it.

And so, for the rest of the month, you don't write. We don't even think about writing. Heck, you even hide the book on your nightstand in the back of the drawer. The written word becomes your greatest enemy, and you can't help but wonder why you decided to write in the first place. You're obviously no good at it.

Slowly December goes by. You start to feel a bit better. Finally you can pick up that book you were reading again. You don't shudder when you look at the keyboard any more. And finally, the nightmares start to fade. Christmas comes and goes, and finally, the new year arrives. And with it comes the realization that it's time to go dig out that horrible first draft. No matter how quickly you've recovered from the 'Post NaNo December Blues', you're still going to feel that chill down your back as you go dig it up.

Your heart beats faster as you open up the document, and after a few seconds the first page comes into view. And finally, after weeks of cold sweats, chills and despair, you stare at the pages of the very document that haunted your dreams. You start to read... and suddenly you realize that it's not quite as bad as it was before. Sure, it still needs a LOT of work. But there are salvageable parts. Paragraphs - whole pages even!

And slowly we start to fall back in love with the story that we spent four weeks writing. We start to remember how much we cared for it, how much effort, time, blood, sweat and tears went into it, and you start to see the beauty in it again.

The point here is that nothing is ever as bad as it seems at first, especially not when it comes to writing. We are our own worst critics, and the worst time for us to look at our novels is just after we've finished them. But looking at them with fresh new eyes, you can quickly start finding the beautiful bits again, all those little treasures amongst the dung.

It's time, my friends. Dig up those NaNo novels and start reworking them. Face your fears, take a leap of faith - you'll be the better for it! And who knows, you might just find the diamond hiding in the rough of your first draft!

I felt a little creative today and decided to make this little poster!