Monthly Archives: July 2020

July 4, 2020

25 December 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Yesterday’s Past – Part 2.
24 December 2018: Added The Best Thing, Epilogue
5 December 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 19
3 December 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 18
1 December 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Yesterday’s Past – Part 1.

28 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 17
26 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 16
21 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 15
19 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 14
14 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 13
12 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 12
7 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 11
5 November 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 10

31 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 9
29 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 8
24 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 7
22 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 6
17 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 5
15 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 4
10 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapter 3
8 October 2018: Added Mad World, Chapters 1 & 2
5 October 2018: Added Fool Me Twice, Part 12
3 October 2018: Completed Bittersweet, Chapter 33 & Epilogue
1 October 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 32

26 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 31
24 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 30
19 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 29
17 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 28
14 September 2018: Added Death Becomes Her
12 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 27
10 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 26
5 September 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter 25
1 September 2018: Added Fool Me Twice, Part 11

31 August 2018: Added Kismet, Part 2
30 August 2018: Added Kismet, Part 1
25 August 2018: Added Smoke and Mirrors, Part 4
22 August 2018: Added Smoke and Mirrors, Part 3
17 August 2018: Added Tequila Surprises, Part 2
16 August 2018:Added Flash Fiction, Fool Me Twice, Part Ten
15 August 2018: Added Fallen From Grace to Fiction Graveyard
14 August 2018: Added In Your Shoes to Short Stories
11 August 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Fool Me Twice Part 9
3 August 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Fool Me Twice Part 8
2 August 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Count On Part 3
1 August 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Count On Me Part 2 and reorganized Flash Fiction & Workshop page.

31 July 2018: Added Flash Fiction, Count On Me Part 1
25 July 2018: Added Collision, Chapter 1 to Workshop Section, Discarded & Deleted
18 July 2018: Updated Bittersweet, Chapter 24
11 July 2018: Updated Bittersweet, Chapter 23

1 June 2018: Added Smoke and Mirrors, Chapter 2

26 May 2018: Added Smoke and Mirrors, Chapter 1
24 May 2018: Added Smoke and Mirrors, Prologue
6 May 2018: Added A Sign of Life to Workshop

3 April 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Twenty-Two

31 March 2018: Added Years Go By (Short Stories)
13 March 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Twenty-One
11 March 2018: Added Dirty Work to Ficlets.
6 March 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Twenty and Excerpts from Mad World

28 February 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Nineteen
25 February 2018: Added Fool Me Twice, Take 2, Part 3
23 February 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Eighteen
17 February 2018: Added Bittersweet, Deleted Scenes
16 February 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Seventeen
7 February 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Sixteen
4 February 2018: Added Fool Me Twice, Take 2, Part 2
1 February 2018: Added Fool Me Twice, Take 2, Part 1

29 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Fifteen
28 January 2018: Added Workshop – Fool Me Twice, Part Seven
24 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Fourteen
22 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Thirteen
21 January 2018: Added Workshop – Fool Me Twice, Part Six
17 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Twelve
15 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Eleven
14 January 2018: Added Workshop – Fool Me Twice, Part Five
10 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Ten
8 January 2018: Added Bittersweet, Chapter Nine
7 January 2018: Updated Bittersweet, Chapter Eight, Added Workshop – Fool Me Twice, Part 4
6 January 2018: Cleaned up Workshop and Previews and updated Bittersweet, Chapter Seven
5 January 2018: Added Workshop – Fool Me Twice, Part 3 and updated Bittersweet, Chapter Six
4 January 2018: Updated Bittersweet, Chapter Five
3 January 2018: Updated Bittersweet, Chapter Four
2 January 2018: Updated Bittersweet, Chapter Three
1 January 2018: Updated: Bittersweet, Chapter Two.

Your Update Link: Whatever It Takes, Part 8

Hey! Another short & sweet update for you. I finished Chapter 14 yesterday, and have hit about 17k for NaNoWriMo, and 85k overall. I’m taking the weekend off from writing so I can plan the rest of the novel because we’re about 40% of the way through (I think, lol). I hadn’t completed any chapter breakdowns past Chapter 14 because I wanted to stop, take stock of what was working, what wasn’t, and how I want individual story beats to go. I’ll let you know how it’s going when I do flash fiction tomorrow.

If you want to know when I start my timer for Flash Fiction, make sure to follow me on Twitter @crimsonglass. I generally write between 10-11 AM every morning. You can also check my Twitter feed in the sidebar around those times as well. I try to start very close to either the :00 or :30 minute mark.

This entry is part 8 of 16 in the Flash Fiction: Whatever It Takes

Written in 20  minutes. No time for edits.

Jason didn’t know what he was going to say to his sister, but was relieved when she agreed to meet him quietly in the gardens of the estate where she lived with her husband. He didn’t care that it meant he had to take the launch to Spoon Island — he wanted to meet with her discreetly and quietly.

Not in the middle of where she worked or anywhere else.

“Jason!” Emily enveloped him in a tight embrace. “I’m so glad you’re home!”

“It’s not—it’s not permanent—” He drew back from her, his hands on her shoulder. “I just—I need to do a few things, then I’m going—”

“What?” Emily blinked, stepped back. “Why? Oh—are you going to Boston? Liz is working there—”

“Elizabeth is here. In Port Charles. She came home for Carly’s funeral, but we’re both—” Jason studied his sister for a long moment. “She said that you two had argued—”

“I thought she should give you more time to deal with everything.” Uncomfortable, Emily folded her arms. “That, you know, you had to figure out to forgive yourself so you could be a family again. I mean, she waited three months. If she’d waited a little longer—” She forced a smile. “But you talked to her. That’s good—”

“It’s not—” Jason squinted. He hadn’t realized his sister would take his side—he’d never, for one moment, thought what he’d done was a good thing. He’d come home prepared to be given a cold shoulder by everyone.

Especially his sister, who had been like a sister to Elizabeth, who had been there after her marriage to Ric had fallen apart, after Lily’s death—

“We’re still—we’re still getting divorced,” Jason told her. “It’s—Justus told me it’s finalized in two weeks—”

“Is that what you want?” Emily demanded. “Because you could stop it—”

“Em—” Jason frowned, let his hands fall to his sides. “What do you know that we don’t?”

“What?” Emily’s eyes widened—just a little too much, and he swore under his breath. His sister was always a terrible liar.

“I left her—in the middle of the night—with absolutely no warning. I never contacted her, and the only thing I left behind was a letter telling her I was sorry.” Jason scowled. “And you took my side?”

“Well, no, not at first,” Emily said, with a roll of her eyes. “I thought you’d be gone a few weeks, and I was pissed. But then—then a month went by and I knew something was wrong.” She fidgeted, looked at the ground. “I asked— I asked Nikolas to try to find you, but he couldn’t. So I went to Steven, thinking maybe he’d know something—”

“Steven? Do you know where he is? He hasn’t contacted Elizabeth in a week—no one has seen him since Carly’s body was found—”

“I know. I know.” Emily shoved her hair out of her face. “This isn’t how any of this was supposed to go.” She bit her lip. “You’re not supposed to be getting divorced, and Steven is supposed to be fixing this, and Elizabeth was really not supposed to pick up and move away!”

“Emily,” Jason said flatly. “What the hell is going on?”

“I went to Steven to ask him what was going on,” Emily continued with a sigh. “And he told me that he couldn’t say anything—that he couldn’t even tell Elizabeth which was really bad because you know how much he loves her. He’d never hurt her like that—unless it had to be done.”

“Get to the point—”

“Well, all he would say was he understood why you’d left. And that everyone would when you came back—but then you didn’t. A month later, Elizabeth started talking about leaving, about divorce, and I was—I was almost ready to agree, but Steven told me I had to stop her—”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “Did Steven say the same to Elizabeth?”

“No. He said he to be completely on her side, but that everything would be worse if she left town and divorced you. I didn’t understand it, but he seemed—he seemed to feel like it was dangerous. I don’t know, maybe he needed Elizabeth to stay in Port Charles.” Emily bit her lip. “Jason, Steven never would have left her alone this long. Do you think—”

“I don’t know. I hope not.” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “What else did Steven say?”

“Just—just that you had done something stupid, but you’d done it for the right reasons and when he could make everything right, Elizabeth would understand.” She paused. “I thought that meant the two of you were in contact—that you’d planned it together—but you didn’t?”

“No. I didn’t know—Steven was just a doctor who worked with us.” Wasn’t he? He exhaled, looked away. “This doesn’t make sense—”

“Why did you leave?” Emily asked. With a grimace, Jason told her briefly about Tommy Graviano, their suspicions about Sonny and Carly, and the shooting in Cairo as her face grew paler.

“Someone was trying to kill you? The whole time? It’s about you—”

“And now—Elizabeth thinks it’s Ric.”

Emily scowled. “Ric Lansing? Oh, of course. That son of a bitch has been obsessed with her since—you know he sent her flowers every May.”

“No,” Jason said tightly. “She never told me.”

“Oh. Well, maybe she knew you’d kill him,” Emily said. “Because you would have. I just—I don’t understand. Last year, he sent her those flowers, and then you’re saying he might have ordered a bomb. But did he want her dead or just you? Why go after you in Cairo with Elizabeth right here?”

“I don’t know. And I’m tired of the questions,” Jason snapped. “I want some answers. Now you’re telling me Steven knew something was up—” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Em—”

“None of this makes sense, Jason. If Carly picked up the bomb, but wasn’t in on it, how does she fit in? Does she?”

“She has to. She’s dead, isn’t she? And Sonny is apparently useless—locked in his room, refusing to see anyone.” He hesitated. “Can you think of anything else that might help us find Steven? He seems to be the key to all of this—”

“No, but Patrick was his best friend. Maybe he knows something,” Emily said. “Or—” She blinked. “Jason, when did you say you’d been shot in Cairo?”

“Two months ago.” Jason winced, thinking of the two weeks he’d spent in the hospital. “Why?”

“That’s about the time that I confronted Steven. When he told me I had to stop her from leaving. Jason—Steven was out of town. He left for a week in April. The last week of April.”

“That’s when I was shot—” Jason shook his head. “No—Steven wasn’t involved—”

“No? Because Elizabeth was going to go look for you,” Emily told him. “At first—after a few weeks, she told us she was leaving to look for you. Then she had a conversation with Steven. He left town after that—and she started talking about divorce.”

July 3, 2020

Your Update Link: Desperate Measures, Part 8

A short update post for you today! I finished Chapter 12 for Mad World yesterday, adding another 6131 to my total. The chapter I’m writing today is going to be insanely wild, and I can’t wait to see how next week’s chapters unfold. By the end of next week, I ought to have a firmer idea of exactly how many chapters I need to get through the story. We’re a few chapters away from the midpoint.

 

This entry is part 8 of 20 in the Flash Fiction: Desperate Measures

Written in 21  minutes. No time for eidts.

Cameron jumped off the sofa to follow his mother, but Jason stopped him — holding his hand up. “Wait, just give her a minute.”

“But—”

“Hey.” Jason looked at teen’s wild eyes, saw the fatigue and worry there. He’d been through more in the last ten hours than any sixteen-year-old boy deserved. “Do me a favor. Talk Diane through any questions or details she has. She’ll be your lawyer, too, if it comes to that.”

“I just—my mom—”

“I’ll take care of it.” Jason scowled when he heard a knock at his door. He didn’t miss the Towers and their highly secured lobby often, but on days like this— “Wait here.”

He strode across the room and threw open the door. “Carly—”

“I came as soon as I saw the news—” Carly pushed past him and went straight for Cameron. “You’re okay? It was all I could to keep Joss at home—”

“I’m—” Cameron swallowed. “I’m fine.”

“Carly, this isn’t a good time—”

“No, I know. But I saw the news about the murder, and Elizabeth’s arrest—” Carly turned back to him. “The reports said the boys were missing—”

“Misunderstanding,” Diane said smoothly, rising to her feet and patting her hair as if she were wearing one of her finely tailored outfits rather than jeans and a cardigan. “It’s been sorted. Jake and Aiden were here last night, and Cameron was out past his curfew.”

Carly narrowed her eyes, looked at Cameron, down at the hands she held in hers—the bruised knuckles. “Right. Should I be asking Joss about this curfew?” she asked him, and Cameron blinked.

“I—”

“It’s fine, Carly. Joss doesn’t have to get involved,” Jason promised her. “But I really need to—”

“Okay. Okay. I was just—” Carly exhaled slowly. “What do you need? What can I do?”

“Why—” Jason frowned at his friend. Why was she asking him?

“My mom needs clothes,” Cameron said quietly and all the adults looked back at her. “I know Jake probably has things here, but—” He exhaled slowly. “Mom’s still wearing what she wore to bed.”

“Oh. I can handle that. I can do that. I’ll bring things by for all of you. No telling when they’ll let you back in the house.” Carly hugged him briefly. “I can keep Joss and the others away for a few more hours, but if you could just text her—”

“I’ll—I’ll try.”

“Let me know if I can do anything else, but I’ll bring something back.” Carly hugged Jason, then left. He frowned after her.

“She likes me more than Mom,” Cameron said, and Jason turned his attention to her. “Joss and I—I mean, we’ve always gone to school together, but we—it doesn’t matter.”

“Right. Cameron, why don’t you and I discuss last night to make sure I have everything I need, and Jason—” Diane looked at him. “Go check on Elizabeth. She needs sleep.” She sighed. “We all do.”

Jason left Cameron in Diane’s capable hands and traveled his short hall to the bathroom. He knocked lightly. “Elizabeth—”

“Go away—”

He glanced back at the living room, then sighed. “Can we just—let me make sure you’re okay. Are you—can I come in?”

There was silence for a long moment, and Jason struggled with the desire just to shove the door open, to see for himself—

Cameron’s depiction of the scene he’d walked in on—the fact that Elizabeth with her history, had been assaulted again by a man Jason should have cut into tiny little pieces and set on fucking fire—

“Yeah.” He heard a sound that must have been the door unlocking. She opened it slightly. “I can’t—”

“I know. You need sleep,” he told her. Elizabeth opened the door more, and he walked her down to his bedroom. She seemed to have hit her limit—her eyes were empty, her hands listless, and she let him guide her into the room and close the door.

“Carly is going to bring you clothes,” he told her as she sat on the bed, wrapping her arms around herself.

“I don’t understand how any of this is happening,” she murmured. Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes glassy with tears, with shock. “I went to bed last night, and it was fine. My life—it was okay. I was getting there anyway.” On a deep shuddering breath, her shoulders shook.

Jason sat next to her. “Why don’t you try to rest—”

“I can’t. I can’t. Because I close my eyes, and he’s there again, and I can’t—” She put her hands over her face. “I made a mistake. I thought—I thought he was different. But no one ever changes. Not like that. Why did I think I could change him?”

He remained silent because his opinion on Franco was well-known and wouldn’t help.

“I thought he was out of my life—I—he’d just lied so much—and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be a liar. I can’t be lied to.” She bit the nail on her thumb, wincing—he could see she’d bitten the nail to the quick.

“Did he—” Jason hesitated. “Cameron said he was trying—” He paused. “Should you go to the hospital?”

“Oh.” She looked at him blankly. “Oh. No. It wasn’t—He was—” She looked at her pajama pants, and he saw now that the string that tied them closed had been ripped—that the elastic had been destroyed and it was being held together a rubber band.

He crossed to his dresser and took out a t-shirt, one that he knew would be long enough to cover her. “Here,” Jason said, roughly. “Carly will come back with something—”

“Thanks.” Her lower lip trembled. “He tried to rape me,” Elizabeth said finally — and while Jason might have expected the statement to upset her more—something about saying it out loud seemed to give her more reassurance.

“He said that he was going to make me remember how it had been, and that no one was allowed to leave him.”

“I’m sorry—”

“It didn’t happen, and that’s going to help when I can think better, I know that. I just—if I didn’t—if I didn’t kill Franco, then it means someone else was at the house.” She searched his eyes. “Who would do that? Who would wait while he tried to rape me, then kill him—”

“And leave you there to pick up the pieces,” Jason finished. “Whoever did this called the cops, Elizabeth. They wanted you to pay for it.”

“Who could hate me that much?” Elizabeth asked. She closed her eyes. “I can’t—I can’t believe someone could do that to me. To my boys. He tied them up, and someone else let that happen—”

“Elizabeth—”

“I can’t think about this anymore. I just—” She twisted her hands in his shirt. “Can I just change? And—and when Carly brings me something else—I just can’t stand to be in this anymore—”

“Yeah, yeah.” He squeezed her hand and got to his feet. “Try to lay down. If you can’t sleep, that’s fine. But the boys will wake up soon—”

“And I need to handle this.” Elizabeth managed a smile that looked almost real. “Thank you. I can—I can do this.”

“I know you can.” He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Get some rest. I’ll take care of Cameron.”

July 2, 2020

Your Update Links: An Everlasting Love, Part 8 & Darkest Before The Dawn, Part 3

Other Links: Bittersweet | Ebooks

Yesterday was the first day of Camp NaNoWriMo and it was also my single best day for writing. I wrote 7139 words and completed Chapter 12. It’s pretty much the exact first day I needed to set the tone for next thirty days to come. I’m continuing my Mad World vlog and in the video embedded at the bottom of the post, I talked about how writing went in June and my hopes for the next month. I filmed it on June 30, so it doesn’t talk about yesterday.

In other news, I completed work on Bittersweet’s sub-site and uploaded the book. I’m going to be redesigning the cover, so you might need to redownload the ebook at a later date. I just forgot that Broken Girl was also a purple cover, and I like Broken Girl’s cover better. I tried to change the color, but it just didn’t work and I hate it now, lol. I continued working on the redesigning the Ebook section. The table layout has been updated and is hopefully a bit nicer to look at. It’s still not quite right, but I’m working on it.

I registered the new domain for Crimson Glass (http://www.crimsonglass.org). It looks like moving the site over is actually going to be easier than I thought it might be, but the site will be going down for a few hours sometime this weekend so I can do it all at once, then set up the redirect.

 

This entry is part 8 of 16 in the Flash Fiction: An Everlasting Love

Written in 20 minutes. No time for edits.

When the door to the jail opened that afternoon, Jason was immersed in a letter from a marshal in Sacremento, so he didn’t look up right away, thinking that Dillon would handle it.

“Uh, cuz?”

Jason blinked and looked up to find Dillon standing in front of him, gestured to the entry way where a pale Elizabeth was standing. “She, ah, said it was—”

Jason dropped the letter to the desk and got to his feet. “Elizabeth. What’s wrong?”

She slid a glance at the younger man who put his hands up. “I’m gonna go take a walk, see if Coleman is causing trouble again.”

Jason walked Dillon to the door, then dropped the latch behind him. He turned back to face Elizabeth. “What happened?”

“I—” She swallowed and her hands fluttered up to her face, then down again as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “Um, you were a marshal before you came here, weren’t you? I—I never asked, and no one said, but you—”

“Yes.” Jason hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder, intending to steer her towards the desk and a chair to sit in. When she didn’t protest, his worry only deepened. “I couldn’t find steady work with the railroad,” he told her, leaning on the desk. “But the marshal service in San Francisco was hiring. Are you—do you need a marshal?”

“I only—” She closed her eyes. “The court. Um, we don’t have a regular judge here. He travels, but we can—we can petition for things, and people could petition a judge for something.”

“Yes—”

“I just—do you know anything about the law? About what a judge might do?” A tear clung to her lower lash and she swiped away.

He knelt in front of her. “Elizabeth, tell me what’s happened. What’s wrong?”

“Can a man—can he pretend to have a letter that says he’s the father of a child and—take the child?” Her voice was so faint as she asked the question he could barely hear it. The blood in Jason’s veins chilled as he accepted the implications of the statement.

“Who has a letter that says that?”

“He couldn’t, couldn’t he?” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Oh, God, if he couldn’t, you would just say that—oh, God, he’s going to take my baby, and it’s not even true—” She buried her face in her hands.

“No one is taking your son, Elizabeth,” Jason told her firmly. “We—we’re talking about Cameron?”

“What?” She blinked, raised her head, then nodded. “Of course. We—” Elizabeth took a deep breath. “He forged the letter. It’s not true. But that won’t matter. His forgeries always hold up.”

“Always—” Jason’s jaw clenched. “Lansing.”

Miserable, she nodded and looked away. “He could do it, couldn’t he? It doesn’t matter that we’re not married, that Cameron isn’t his child. That I never, ever let him touch me—”

“It does matter,” Jason told her. “Cameron was born while your husband was alive, and Dr. Lewis raised him, didn’t he?”

“Cameron is his son,” Elizabeth insisted. “I don’t care what anyone in this town thinks—I never ever—” She shot out of her chair. “I never broke my vows. My promises.”

“I know,” Jason said gently. She met his eyes. “I believe you. What I mean by that is that legally speaking, a child born in wedlock is legally the responsibility of the husband. Cameron Lewis could have left you and legally taken his son from you, but it doesn’t matter what a letter says. Dr. Lewis had a will, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” She sucked in a deep breath, feeling steadier. “Yes. He knew—God, he knew what Ric was. What he could do. He was afraid—so he made sure to say I have guardianship. He didn’t want Ric to forge a will saying any differently. He even went to Sacramento to have someone else witness it.”

“Good. You are Cameron’s mother, and his father made sure that you retained guardianship in the event of his death. That’s all you need. Ric Lansing can forge all the letters he want, but a judge isn’t going to disrupt that. Not when it would declare Cameron illegitimate.”

The tension bled out of her shoulders and Elizabeth sighed. “Thank you. I’m sorry—I just—I didn’t know who else to ask—”

“What other forgeries?” Jason demanded. “Why did Dr. Lewis go to all that trouble to protect you and Cameron?”

“I—” She shook her head. “It’s not important. All that matters is that he can’t take Cameron. That’s—he can take everything else, but not my son—”

“What else—” Jason swore as she started to leave. With his longer legs, he was able to reach the door before her. “If you think I’m going to let you leave without telling me what the hell Ric Lansing is up to—what he’s done to you—”

“Jason—I only—I can handle this—”

“I’m sure you can. You’ve been handling it for years, haven’t you?” Jason demanded. “And I know you’re strong. It’s not a question of can you do it—you shouldn’t have to. He’s breaking the law. That’s what I’m here for —”

“I tried to stop him once,” Elizabeth murmured. “But Sheriff Ramsay said that I should just stop playing coy and marry him.”

Jason grimaced — Burt Ramsay had been a terrible person and an even worse officer of the law. “I’m not Sheriff Ramsay.”

“No.” She sighed. “You’re not. All right. You want to know what Ric forged?” Elizabeth folded her arms. “Where do I start? With the loan documents that wiped out my grandfather’s savings, and led to his heart attack? The mortage papers that he showed my father—which is probably part of the reason he stole our letters—”

Jason swore. “Damn it—”

“The investment papers he used to swindle Peter out of his inheritance or the gambling debts he forged with Alexander? How about the loan and mortgage documents he gave the court to take my husband’s money and home away from him?”

He stared at her. “Elizabeth—”

“Or last week, when he gave me an update mortgage document saying that I was losing the Lazy W?” She raised her brows. “And that’s just the paperwork he’s used to harass me for the last eight years.”

“Eight—but I was still here—”

“He saw me the day he moved to Diamond Springs when I was just sixteen years old,” Elizabeth told him. “And apparently, he likes to collect pretty things. I’m just the first thing he’s tried to collect he can’t get.”

This entry is part 3 of 16 in the Flash Fiction: Darkest Before the Dawn

Written in 21 minutes. No time for edits.

Brad Cooper was not having the best of days even before Tracy Quartermaine ambushed him at the Metro Court. He’d just wanted to get a little bit drunk to forget the crime he’d committed earlier that day, but of course—the motivation for said crime just had to check in.

She sat next to him at the bar and ordered a glass of white wine, waiting for the bartender to wait on another customer at the other end of the bar before she spoke. “Well?”

“It’s done,” Brad muttered.

“And my results?”

“I was going to mail them to you,” Brad said. He sipped his whiskey, trying to look casual. He knew he actually just looked like someone trying to act normal. He’d always been a terrible actor. He dug the envelope out of his back pocket and laid it on the bar.

Tracy set her purse down—over the envelope and sipped her wine. “Was I right?”

With a shuddering sigh, Brad nodded. “Yeah. The kid is definitely hers.”

“And what about the other test?”

“Right again. He’s not the father.” Brad paused. “And he’s no relation to the actual father.”

Tracy pursed her lips. “Interesting. I’d hoped for that, but that does make me curious.”

Of course it did — Tracy had paid him to deliver a set of results of to Elizabeth Webber the declared Victor Lord, Jr. Was not a match for the DNA of either Sam McCall or Jason Morgan. The actual test had matched Sam, but not Jason.

Tracy had also wanted to know if Jason Morgan was related to Franco in any way—and since he wasn’t, Brad knew that it meant there was probably still a mysterious twin brother floating around out there but he didn’t care.

“If he’s not related to you,” Brad said as Tracy looked at him, sharply, “Why do you care if the mom gets him back?”

Tracy raised her brow. “That’s an interesting question. I shouldn’t. But I know this gold digger. She gets him back now, that idiot will probably stop the divorce.” She frowned at him. “Don’t get cold feet now.”

“I just—”

“Because the deed is done. There’s no turning back. I protected my family and that child from a vicious con artist who only cares about money. You protected your job. Everyone wins here.” She finished her wine, picked up the purse from the bottom so she could deftly slide the envelope inside.

“Ms. Quartermaine—”

“And if you think you can turn on me, remember who I am, who you are, and why you’ll only lose.”

And with that, she sauntered out of the room, confident in her privilege and position while Brad just ordered another whiskey. Maybe if he drank more, he’d be able to forget what he’d done.

——

“I am not ready for this,” Elizabeth declared the night before school was scheduled to start. This was the first year that Aiden would be attending—he was going to the two-year-old program for a few hours.

“You said the same thing when Cameron started kindergarten,” Jason told her as he handed her the last form. “This is for field trips—”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “I thought about homeschooling him, to be honest,” she told him. She scribbled her name at the bottom of the form. “Why is there so much paperwork? Ever year, the school mails like eight extra forms.”

She caught a glance at a picture across the room—a photograph of all three of her boys the day she’d brought Aiden home from the hospital—the only photo she had of the three of them. She swallowed hard. “Jake would be in first grade this year.”

Jason met her eyes, then looked at the photo, before turning back to the paperwork. “Yeah, I know.”

“I wonder what kind of student he’d be,” Elizabeth said. “Cameron still likes school, you know, but he’s in third this year, and I think he’s going to start hating it soon. But I think Jake would have loved it.”

“Elizabeth…”

“I’m sorry.” She tossed her pen down and pressed her hands to her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t do that.”

“It’s okay.” He squeezed her hand. “Hey, it’s okay,” Jason repeated when she looked at him. “Why do you think Jake would have loved school?”

“Oh.” She smiled even as a tear slid down her cheek. “He was good at focusing. Even as a baby, you know? He could play with one toy for twenty minutes. He was like you. A-and I think maybe he would have just—he would have been good at sitting, and reading. And maybe he would like math like you do.”

“Numbers make sense,” Jason told her as he slid closer and enveloped her in a one arm hug. “You can rearrange words to do a thousand things, but numbers never change. I liked that after the accident.”

“Cameron hates sitting still. He loves running and jumping and hiding, and just—he’ll be the class clown. He loves attention. Jake didn’t—” On a shuddering sigh, she forced herself to take a deep breath. “I’m okay. It’s just—it hits so hard in these moments, and I think—I don’t know. Maybe it always will.”

“Because there will always be something the boys are doing and Jake isn’t,” Jason said softly. “It’s okay—”

“You don’t have to say that. It’s not—it’s why I fell apart last year, you know. Why I ended up in Shady Brooke. I kept seeing Jake everywhere, I was making all those mistakes—I’m pretty sure I killed Siobhan—” Elizabeth sighed. “I thought about—when we were talking about Sam and her baby—I thought about not helping.”

She looked at him but his expression didn’t change, so she continued. “Because I didn’t want—I thought you were right, and why did she get to have her baby back? And then Brad gave me those results, and I wanted to throw them away—I wanted to hurt her because she was going to get what I couldn’t—”

“Why didn’t you?” Jason said when she didn’t say anything else. “Why’d you give them to me? Why didn’t you open them?”

“Because—because I wanted you to be okay,” she admitted. “I knew you wanted it to be true, and I—I’m the reason Jake is gone. I messed up, and I let our baby die.”

“Elizabeth—”

“And I know—I knew if you brought Danny home, you could get back together with Sam, and then you’d get to have him—and I—” She bit her lip. “That sounds insane, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” He pulled her close again, tightening his arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to be okay. You didn’t let Jake die, Elizabeth. You loved him. And it’s okay if we think about how he would have grown up. I want to do that.” His voice faltered. “It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being his father again.”

She closed her eyes, leaned her head against his shoulder. “He would have loved your motorcycle.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Cameron loves it, too. He wants to drive it.”

Jason laughed, his voice a bit rusty. “Just like his mother”

July 1, 2020

Life & General Health

  • Wow! This month had a lot of ups and downs. I finished teaching for the school year, and despite having two second interviews at both the high school and middle school, I didn’t end up getting a contact for next year. You win some, you lose some.
  • Classes ended on June 12, so for the last two weeks, I’ve been working on a routine, getting myself into a relaxed schedule where I’m still working but I’m also taking time for self-care.
  • NJ is slowly reopening back up (I went to Barnes & Noble for the first time in months!) but we’re all still nervous, of course, with cases continuing to rise in the rest of the United States. I hope everyone is staying safe.
  • I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Thanks to my Ripped Bodice care package, I’ve been binging on Deanna Raybourne’s Julia Grey and Veronica Speedwell mysteries. I’m a traditional romance girl, but these books are great.
  • It’s funny to go back watch the video where I unwrapped the package because I definitely didn’t look excited to read the Veronica Speedwell book, but these are really great slow-burn romances with fun mysteries and really immersive world building. Each series has one primary romance, but they take place at a veerrrry slow pace, lol.

Site & Channel

  • I’ve been neglecting the channel to be honest, and that’s mostly because I generally have to put myself together to film things. When I’m not at work, I’m not blowdrying my hair, I’m not putting on make-up, etc. But I’ll be getting updates in this week and next, I promise!
  • The Crimson Glass Facelift is under way. I’ve been publishing ebooks at a fast pace, three of the stories have been converted to sub-sites and I gave out a survey to get some feedback on the site.
  • I still have a few more stories I’m converting over, and of course, more ebooks. I’m also working on the other site clean up I mentioned. Making sure all the stories are tagged, decluttering any parts of the site people aren’t using, etc.
  • I’m also going to be getting a domain for Crimson Glass again. I like the home at cg.dearisobel.org but CG is the larger project, and it should be on its own domain. The dearisobel.org domain is used for my book reviews and general blog.
  • Don’t worry! I’ll have a permanent redirect to the new address.

Currently: Mad World, Book 3

  • I just finished Chapter 10 today, and I’m fully expecting to swing into the chapter a day pace I need to finish the story on time. I wrote all of the chapter today, and can’t wait to write the next group of chapters.
  • Mad World is currently at 61k. I’m expecting to have about 20-25 more chapters. I’m about 2/3 to the midpoint and once we hit that, it’s all down hill from there. I expect the second half to go a lot faster.
  • I’ve been spending most June building up my stamina — starting with 2 25-minute writing sprints, then working my way up to 3. Over the least few weeks, I added the fouth. I usually need 4-5 to finish a full chapter.
  • The Alpha Draft will be finished on July 31, so I will be releasing it to the Crimson Love tier on August 1.
  • The Beta Draft is scheduled to be released on September 1 to Crimson Devoted.
  • The Posting Draft/Ebook will be posted to Crimson Adored on October 1.
  • We’ll have  general release to the Crimson Glass site on October 6, and then I’ll be posting a few chapters a day on Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own.

Up Next: Fool Me Twice, Book1

  • Updated the Production Schedule with the dates. I’l lbe starting Discovery on August 1, then writing the Alpha Draft in October and November.
  • That puts me on schedule to start editing on December 1, and do a general release in the first week of February.

Flash Fiction

  • I added a new flash fiction series last week, so that you get a new part every single day, and then Darkest Before the Dawn will be updated on a random day through the week as a  double update.
  • I think An Everlasting Love and Whatever It Takes will probably be finished sometime in August. Desperate Measures may take slightly longer. I probably will not be replacing all three of them at once.
  • Daily Flash Fiction will continue until August 23. If I get a full-time job or a long-term position, most schools go back to work August 24, so I need to be ready to shift.
  • If I am back at work full-time with my own classroom, I’ll probably do flash fiction twice a week.
  • I’ll keep you guys updated.

I think that covers everything! Thanks for all your support! Let me know if you have any questions!

Your Update Link: Whatever It Takes, Part 7

Going to keep this short and sweet today because I have another post going up around noon — the Site & Story status post.  I also don’t have a lot to say here. I stayed up a bit too late reading, and I just don’t seem to function well when I sleep past eight anymore. I’m dragging a bit and didn’t get much done before it was time for Flash Fiction.  I’m still hoping to get Bittersweet’s ebook up today, but it honestly might be tomorrow. I’m just…I’m really tired and I need to do something when I’m done flash fic to get myself going because today Camp NaNoWriMo starts and I really want to start it off well.

The overall Mad World goal remains at 175k, but the word count for NaNoWriMo is 108,000. I might be adjusting that goal as we get further into the month and I get a sense of how much story is really left. This has been a really interesting experience for me to not even really know how many chapters I’m looking at. I’ll keep you guys updated on how the project’s going with each flash fiction.