1st Five Pages May Workshop - Hill Rev 1

Name: Laurel Hill

Genre: Young Adult Supernatural Thriller

Title: The In-Between

The wall of glass separating Ashton's bedroom from the back deck of his house protected him from the morning's Spring shower. He sat at his drawing desk, watching the aspens sway back and forth in the wind, fluttering their leaves to shake off all the clouds water.

The constant tapping of rain at the window was annoying. He couldn't wait for the pitter patter of mother nature to stop so he could flee the mother responsible for his own nature. The storm she created inside was torrential. Her tongue lashed out at him whenever she saw fit, causing him to strike back just as hard, triggering an unbearably loud thunder within his already shattered heart.

Dark grey clouds floated above their seclusion in the Pocono Mountains, teasing the time of day to look like night. The filtered light produced an eerie feeling, so he twisted the tiny knob underneath his small metal lampshade to brighten things up a bit. Still, it failed to lift the mood. He tossed his pencil aside, watching it bounce across the wood and roll off to the floor, then leaned back in his chair to give him enough space to open the top drawer. His neon-green bouncy ball rolled forward to greet him. He grabbed it from its dark stowage and went to lay down on his bed.

He was fully aware he was feeling sorry for himself as he rolled the rubber around in his hands, allowing boredom and loneliness to consume him. He wished he could hang out with Jake, but those days were long gone thanks to a stupid kitchen cutting-board they found last year in the charred remains of an old country house. A blend of fear and excitement overcame him when he saw that someone had turned it into a homemade Ouija board. Jake freaked out when Ashton started playing with it all the time and told everyone at school that he chose the devil over their friendship, ultimately destroying his popularity. Soon after, Ashton buried it in the woods near his house, not because he believed it to be evil, but because it caused the death of a friendship he had since pre-school.

The boy looked over at his phone lying on his bedside table and grabbed it to make a call.

Drums pounded in the background when his dad answered in a hushed tone. “I'm in the studio. Why are you calling?”

 “Can I hang with you for a while?”

The old man burst out laughing as if it was the most ridiculous question he'd ever heard. “No!”

“Why?”

“You know exactly why!”

Ashton listened to all the reasons he couldn't join his famous father on tour despite the fact he had a 4.0 GPA and could finish the last month online. "Whatever," he mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing." Ashton ended the call wondering how a parent would ever choose to keep their kid a secret from the world. Even worse - stop caring about their existence. He looked at the phone's blank screen and whispered, "I'm your son."

"ASHTON?!" his mom shouted from her bedroom.

He prepared himself for further conflict and sat up to yell back. "Now what?!”

Her feet stomped down the hallway to his room. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” she said, rushing through his doorway.

He noticed the eleven-lines between her eyebrows. “Go get some more snake venom injected in your face! I can actually see you’re angry instead of hearing your ever-annoying voice!” He knew she'd be fighting the aging process every way possible until she took her last breath. He hated how insecure she was and always condemned her for never taking off her makeup, even at night. The gym had become her church and she looked ridiculous doing lunges with her hands in the prayer position.

She reacted as if she had been slapped hard across the face. “What happened to you?” she whispered.

He sneered with contempt. “You.”

She let out a whimper of frustration and said, "It's like I don't even know you anymore," then turned around and left, never saying what brought her there in the first place.

He got up from his bed and slammed the door behind her. A loud breath of disappointment escaped his lungs and he threw the ball onto his bed, watching his down-filled duvet catch its fall.

It finally stopped raining, so he pulled open the heavy sliding door to go outside. Clouds of steam formed by the emerging hot sun floated across the wooden deck, brushing by him like a cat saying hello. He breathed in the strong scent of the forest. It motivated him to take a hike and he went back inside to grab his phone, earbuds, and a jacket from his bedroom closet. He mischievously plucked the red expensive designer name off the hook. It didn't belong to him. It was another gem he stole from Harley Martin's locker.

He found it his duty to make sure his bully felt equally violated whenever possible. It was his contribution to the school process of making sure people like him knew they still had enemies no matter how popular they thought they were. He knew Harley didn't have any real friends; they were always talking behind his back. It was social politics at its worst when the entire student body still crowned the senior and his conceited girlfriend Prom King and Queen.

A strange feeling as if he was being watched followed Ashton as he climbed the hill next to his house. He looked around to make sure it wasn't some wildlife that could bite him. His hand slipped across the moss-covered rock he grasped to pull him up the steepest part. A smile grew across his face as he wiped the slime across the jacket. It was sure to leave an ugly stain. Ashton always returned Harley's things once he'd grown bored with them, but left a mark of some sort to show where it had been since leaving locker 205. The last hint he left was a stinky mess on the bottoms of the white gym shoes he stole last week.

CHAPTER TWO

Harley stood soaking wet from the rain as he hid behind one of the large pine trees standing closest to the deck of Ashton's house. Cursing under his breath, he watched his favorite jacket ride the back of his worst enemy. He quietly thanked the sophomore for not sliding his bedroom door all the way shut. Now he could easily sneak inside and get all his stuff back, maybe even a few extra things for payback.

He plucked a pine needle from the tree and rolled it between his fingers, strategizing how he could go about his retrieval without getting caught. He could hear Ashton’s mother yelling from inside, so it would have to be quick. Her voice grew louder and he hurried around to the side of the home to see her come out the front door shouting for her son.

There was no denying she was beautiful. The sight of her chest heaving from anger took him to a familiar dark place in his mind, stirring his desire to have her no matter what the cost. Age didn't matter. He'd already been with women who were older and knew it would only take his gorgeous good looks to get her to do whatever he wanted.