This is a short piece of fiction that I wrote for a prompt exercise. The exercise was to follow the original post and write whatever came to us. The original post has a character named Levi being discharged from the service and getting on a bus in SF to Ohio. He arrives in Akron and heads to his mom’s house, unannounced. She lets him in and Levi sees that the man she lives with is there too, still. Levi had shot him in the leg, defending his mother, after the boyfriend had beaten her. That was how he had ended up enlisting. The judge gave him a choice, the military or incarceration. Upon seeing the boyfriend there, Levi turns and walks out the door.
Okay, that’s the back story. Here’s what I wrote:
She hated the look in his eyes. The accusation. The disgust. The anger. The hurt. The look that she had seen in her son’s eyes so many times before, the one that told her she had failed him again.
She hated failing her son. She loved him so much. They had been through a lot, just the two of them. He had been her rock, grounding her and supporting her when she thought she couldn’t go on anymore. Even when he was just a child he had been the shining light that guided her through the dark. She had never wanted to let him down and yet she did. Over and over again she had let him down. She couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore. She was so ashamed of herself.
Why did she keep doing this, over and over again? Why did she go from one drunken jerk to another? Why couldn’t she stand on her own two feet until the right one came along? The right one. She sighed. The right one didn’t exist. At least not for her. The right one wouldn’t be a drunk. The right one wouldn’t slap her around. The right one wouldn’t treat her like a whore, coming and going only when he wanted to use her body. The right one wouldn’t use her and spit her out.
She wanted to call out to Levi, ask him to come back and tell him that she would throw the jerk out on his ass but she couldn’t do that to him. She had said it before and instead of doing what she had promised, she had ended up a coward, letting jerk after jerk stay and treat her like dirt and worse, she had allowed them to treat Levi badly. And Levi wasn’t like her. He didn’t put up with it. That’s what got Levi into trouble time and again. Protecting her, he’d go after the creeps and she was afraid that the next time it wouldn’t end with a gun shot in the leg. She knew that if she went after Levi, he’d come back. He couldn’t let her down. He wanted to stick up for her and he would do just that. And the next time, he might just kill the bastard that claimed to love her. Then what would happen to Levi? No. She couldn’t risk that. She stood near the window, pretending not to be looking out as her son walked away.
i am thrilled you seem to like levi and his story as much as i do.. i am gonna try and write on the other prompts to but i def wanna write some more levi!!!!! and i am kinda lovin’ his mother too…
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Nicely done. I can’t write fiction, and I’ve always admired how you can just let the stories flow so seamlessly.
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Thank you, Ina. Sometimes it just flows and at other times it just won’t come no matter how I try! This one just flowed.
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Reblogged this on Wasted Days And Wasted Nights and commented:
I was trying to come up with some fresh fiction for today but it won’t come. So here’s an old story, originally published in 2012, long before many of you read my blog so I hope you enjoy this one.
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I guess thinking about dark and gritty stories reminded you of this… Nicely done.
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Loved it. Loved Levi but wanted to slap his mother. Well written. Well done.
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