Back To The Start by Peter Styles

Author:Peter Styles [Styles, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-23T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Rain falling. The sound of glass crunching. A coppery taste in Greg’s mouth. Woozily, his eyes open as he tries to puzzle out what just occurred. His vision is blurry. But it is evident that he is now upside down. Alarmed, he struggles but is restrained. His breathing comes hard and fast. There had been lights. Impact. Metal grinding on metal. The world reversing itself, exploding into a thousand different stars.

Greg realized he is restrained by his seatbelt. Malcolm is slumped against the wheel. There is a dark substance smeared across his face that makes Greg’s chest tighten painfully.

He is grappling with the seatbelt, trying to break free so that he can go to his father. The rain is coming down so quickly that it is spilling in through the broken window, running against the roof of the car which is dashed against the road. The sight of the water panics Greg for some reason and he struggles again to get his seatbelt unbuckled…

*

The hot water pounded against Greg’s skin. He had been in the shower for too long. If Jewel were here, she would be banging on the door and yelling at him for hogging the hot water. But it was ten in the morning and she wasn’t home yet.

He tried to push past his thoughts of Jewel and Stephen. He was going to work this morning, finish a painting for a client and then head over to his mother’s house. For the first time since his father’s death, he would prefer being around Mark instead of Jewel. At least with Mark, he knew to expect disdain. With Jewel, he was no longer sure —what he was going to get.

Something else was nagging him this morning, something pointless and trivial. Ben hadn’t texted him back. It shouldn’t have been anything he gave a thought toward… yet he was. There could be a thousand reasons why Ben didn’t reply. Were they even friends? But Greg awoke that morning and checked his phone first thing only to feel disappointment at nothing from him.

Wayne had texted him. The message had been short, expressing his delight at how the evening went and wanting to see him again. Greg had stared at the message as if it were written in alien script and put his phone down.

He had gotten out of the shower when the front door slammed open so hard that the walls shook. There were angry voices, shouting over the top of each other so that Greg couldn’t hear anything they said. Startled, he quickly pulled on his t-shirt and sweatpants and hurried out into the living room.

To his surprise, Ben stood in the middle of the room. Jewel was there as well, her arms crossed and a sullen expression on her face. Ben’s back was to Greg but he could see the tension in his shoulders.

“Out of all the stupid and pointless life choices you have made, this one really takes the cake. Were you looking for first prize in stupidity?” Ben shouted at his sister.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.