for June

15a. Less than Ordinary

Terry towered over him and stared for quite some time. Perhaps it was anywhere close to a half-hour, or that's what it felt like at least.

Chad shifted his weight and brought his broken hand into view, all gloriously obvious in a white cast as if to distract her from the true tragedy. That without her permission, or approval, he had thrown out his previous idea and started another.

"It's only the starting chapters, but I believe there's something there as you said there would be." He cleared his throat. "The title is something we can change down the line, but I feel it's different. It's an unfamiliar process for me taking life and putting it into a story, but I'm writing now and regularly."

Terry held up a finger to shush him. Her foot tapped the ground audibly. Her jaws clenched before she shook her head. Silent, she walked away, clutching the journal in one hand only to throw it down on the table with a loud thud, one that made him flinch. Then she sat down ever-so-slowly on her chair, pull it closer to the table, and flip to page one, with its awful handwriting. She sighed and began reading.

"Maybe I could..." he began, and she held up her finger again to shush him, a deadly warning, "get us a coffee..." he trailed off. Warning heeded.

Terry looked over the rim of her reading glasses, a death stare. "You will sit." And that was that as she went back to reading.

Chad pulled out his phone and began skimming his social media, browsing through statuses and posts, for something to do. Occasionally he laughed at memes, reminded of Bax. It was a nice change to allow those memories back in.  He'd been through similar drills before, with Terry. She was pissed, and when she was pissed, she had little to no patience for his whims and excuses. Today was one of those days, so all Chad could do was wait for her patiently.

He wondered about June as he stared at the search bar. He typed her name, surprised to find quite a few June Amari. He pulled the phone closer and eyed the tiny profile photos to determine which June Amari was his. None seemed to be her, or maybe one one without a photo was her. Who knew? He hardly could blame the girl for not advertising her life.

Terry woke him up with a rough nudge to the shoulder. He blinked wide. It seemed he'd nodded off while waiting. "So? What do you think?" he asked, rubbing sleep off his eyes and sitting up straighter.

She sat on the coffee table opposite him with a look he couldn't or rather, hadn't learned to decipher yet. She placed the journal on the table beside her and leaned back on one arm, considering him. "How long do you think to finish this?"

Chad blinked. "So you like it?"

She shrugged. "It's got a good bone. You'd have to change several things, but it'll work, eventually."

"So we're good?" He grinned. Please say yes, please say yes.

"Get me an outline, a thorough outline, by the end of the week and we'll see. At present, it's a handful of chapters. And I can't do anything with a handful of chapters."

He nodded. She was correct. As always.

"When can I expect the first draft?"

Chad didn't quite know, did he? Seeing how he was waiting for the moments to happen in real life before he wrote about them in the middle of the night, away from June.

"You have an outline, don't you? Something I can use to brainstorm marketing ideas, cover design?" she asked. Chad shook his head. "Chad!" she blew up. "This is getting ridiculously out of hand, mate. First, you pitch something else and take ages to deliver something entirely different from what we discussed. Now, on top of it all, you write something without an outline and expect me to be okay with it?"