Rock Bottom

**In an effort to sharpen my writing and encourage my creative mind, I want to start a series where I "complete the story". I have over a hundred open-ended sentences which are prompts for a story, short or otherwise. I want to keep each story short, teasers if you will. The Prompt will be shown in bold.**

Prompt One: Rock Bottom

It was that fleeting hour of the day when the moon and sun are high and bright at the same time. Like many things in my life, these summer nights wouldn’t last much longer. I sat quietly on a picnic table waiting patiently. It was ten minutes past the time she said she’d be here; I was beginning to wonder if I had naively accepted an invitation from someone who had no intention of showing up.

I knew I wasn’t so naive that I didn’t understand the duality of wanting something so badly you’d do anything to have it, while simultaneously being too scared to materialize your desire. I knew two opposite things could be true at the same time, just like the moon and the sun sharing the sky at once.

That’s it, five more minutes and I’m out. I spent over an hour psyching myself up before sneaking out to meet her here. I wasn’t going to let myself look like an idiot just sitting at this table, aimlessly flipping through my phone and pretending to text people to look busy and unassuming.

My paranoia continued to grow, feeling every eye on me but not wanting to check to see, in fear of looking nervous and suspicious. The sun had begun to set as the sky began to shift from a brilliant blue to orange, pink and red, like a Sherly Temple.

There was another duality, the warm, radiant and comforting glow of colours that reminded me of my childhood, carefree and innocent. Yet here I was, sitting and waiting to set in motion a plan that was dark, unsettling and dangerous at best.

“Colton!” I heard someone call

I looked up from my phone and saw her nearly prancing down the hill, coming towards me with a big smile on her face. I was taken slightly aback; I wasn’t expecting her presence to take up so much space. She was glowing. I was half expecting her to come quietly, looking over her shoulders, maybe wearing a hoodie with the hood up? Was that too literal? Maybe.

She came towards me wearing, along with her smile, a loose summery dress with little daisies all over it and worn black chucks on her small dainty feet. Her dark hair in loose curls framed her face in a way that made her look innocent, dare I say angelic.

Who was I kidding, her meeting me alone was suspicious enough for strangers to realize something was up. A girl like her, one whose outer beauty mirrored her inner beauty, would never be seen with a guy like me, skinny, sullen, anxious. I shook the thought and focused on her, who was now sitting across from me at the table.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said casually, completely unaware that for the last 15 minutes my nails were digging into my palms while my heart raced what felt like a hundred miles an hour.

“No problem,” I said without even thinking. An auto-filled response. Though, it wasn’t like I was going to give her any trouble.

“So, what’s the plan? Are we going to wait here until dark or?” My candour was a lot less confident than I had intended it to be. I didn’t want her to regret asking me for help because I just outed myself for being a wannabe tough guy. I didn’t want her to sense that I was a second guesser whose kink was genuine approval and words of affirmation.

“No,” she said, still smiling but with an air of coyness, “We’re going to go to Wendy’s and grab some food. After that we’re going to walk to your house and take your car back to my house where we will load up my dad into the trunk.”.

Her cavalier nature was off-putting, to say the least, but I could understand why. If I had to live with that man, I would be happy to see his demise too. Still, I worried that if anyone took note of how radiant and carefree she looked that she might become a prime suspect instead of a victim like we had planned. Maybe I was overthinking this. I’m 18, insecure, and about to help a girl I have a huge crush on, cover up the murder of her stepfather.