The snippets on this page take a more emotional turn. Some of these started with a mood, more than an idea.
“I’ve done something stupid,” Di admitted, as tears washed down her face.
Honey gave her another squeeze. “We all do, sometimes.”
“Not like this.” She swiped away some of the wetness on her face with her hand. “It’s definitely over between me and Mart, but…”
“But what?”
Di’s tears turned to sobs and Honey had to wait some minutes for her to be able to answer the question.
“But what?” she repeated. “You can tell me.”
Diana made a noise like a hiccup. “I’m pregnant. And it’s Mart’s. But I’m not getting back together with him.”
“Does he know?”
She nodded. “He asked me to marry him, but I said no. I won’t be eighteen for nearly three months. I’m too young to get married!”
“Whatever you decide to do, I’m going to help you,” Honey promised, still holding her tight.
Trixie gently plucked the dandelion, lifted it to her mouth and blew. Most of its seeds lifted off, rising gently into the sky, some of them tumbling in the light breeze. She blew again to free the last few.
Behind her, Jim sighed. “They’ll grow everywhere, now.”
She nodded. “And then I can blow them again.”
“Do you wish on them?” he asked.
Trixie shook her head. “I don’t believe in wishes. I just like setting them free and wondering where they’ll go.” She turned to him. “I wonder where I’ll go, too.”
His lips twisted into a wry smile, but he did not otherwise answer.
She found a good place to sit on the grass, tugging him down beside her.
“Do you wonder that, too?” she asked. “Or have you got everything planned out – where you’re going to go in your life; what you’re going to do; who you’re going to do it with?”
He looked at her and his shoulders sagged the tiniest amount. “I can’t do that, Trixie. Life isn’t that certain.”
“But if you could,” she prompted, “would you have a whole master plan thing going, or would you see where the breeze took you? Would you look for specific opportunities, or take the best ones that arrive?”
He gazed off into the distance. “I think you know the answer to that already.”
Sometimes, to get rid of a mood, I need to write it out. This one only took a few paragraphs to deal with.
One little moment between Jim and Trixie.
“What did you see?” Dan asked. His expression was strangely blank.
Trixie started. “I… I don’t know. What do you mean, what did I see? What do you think I should have seen?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe, the person who did this?”
“What?” Outrage robbed her of more coherent speech, but only for a moment. “Do you really think I’d keep something like that to myself? What sort of person do you think I am?”
“Calm down.” He pushed her back into her seat, but with a gentle hand. “I’m not suggesting that you’re withholding evidence from the proper authorities – you wouldn’t do that now, would you?”
She winced at this jibe, but said nothing.
“I just got the impression that you saw something you shouldn’t have,” he continued. “Something… mysterious.”
Trixie frowned at something over his shoulder. “And if I did?”
He waited for her to look at him. “Who do you think you should be telling?”
“Not you!”
Once more, he gave that lazy shrug that infuriated her so. “Maybe not.”
She breathed a noisy sigh. “I don’t know who I should tell. The police wouldn’t be interested in what I saw. And saying anything that would get back to the one this is about would be less than ideal.”
He snorted. “I never knew you had a talent for understatement.”
“No. Exaggeration is more my usual thing.”
“I don’t want you to literally die.” His words were quiet and sincere. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
She nodded. “You, too.”
Di covered her face with her hands.
“I’m so ashamed,” she muttered, her voice muffled. “I’m never going to live this down. People are going to be saying things about me forever.”
“I don’t think so,” Dan answered. “There’ll be another scandal and they’ll forget.”
She dropped her hands to give him a look.
“They will,” he insisted. “Just watch. Tomorrow’s news will be that Jane Morgan was caught screwing her English teacher to try to get him to pass her so she could graduate.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” Dan smirked. “I told five different people earlier and swore all five of them to secrecy. It’ll be all over the place by morning. And, if it’s not, I’ll try five more.”
“Dan! You can’t just say things like that!”
This time, he gave her a look. “But it’s true.”
Di frowned. “I don’t think I wanted to know that. The next time I see Jane…”
“Forget about her.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “High school will be over in three weeks, right? And a lot of those people, you’ll never see again.”
She nodded, still not convinced. “But that won’t stop me feeling how I feel.”
“Yeah, well, all of us have things we regret. And we find ways to deal with it, don’t we?”
“No one will ever look at me the same way they used to,” she answered, in a small voice.
“I will.”
She turned to look at him, shaking her head slightly. “How could you? After what I did?”
His thumb ran over the back of her hand. “Because I know you. Because you are not just the person who made some mistakes last night.”
“Some mistakes! Dan, I–”
“Shh.” He laid a finger from the hand not still holding hers to her lips. “Just let go of it.”
She nodded and he dropped his hand back to his lap.
“You know the one thing I don’t regret?” she asked, a few moments later. “I don’t regret telling those girls I never wanted to see them again. Because I don’t. They can say what they like about me. It was a huge mistake making friends with them in the first place.”
He nodded. “Trixie and Honey will forgive you, if you ask.”
She stared at him. “You can’t know that, either.”
“Sure I do,” he answered. “Honey has told me roughly three hundred and eighty times. One time, it took her nearly half an hour to say it.”
Di frowned. “Well, that’s just Honey. She’s sweet. Trixie would rather throw me to the wolves – which is what’s going to happen in the morning.”
Dan shook his head. “She hasn’t been as vocal about it, but Trixie wants your friendship back, too.”
There’s no use asking me what they’re talking about, because I don’t know.
Would Dan be that devious? Yeah, probably.
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