“You don’t date?” Alex asked, once again joining Tara and me sitting in the bleachers.
“No,” I said.
“Why ever not,” she asked.
I was ridiculously naïve and socially backward in so many ways. Being raised in an alcoholic family can do that. It was better to hide away and shut down rather than feel the extreme joy or intense pain of life.
Like most of us, I had learned from what my parents taught by how they relate to one ...
Our lives are ultimately a love story, aren’t they?
We strive to move through and dodge the pain, keep it away, sometimes embrace it, and other times we swear, scream, lash out, beat another down, with words, fists . . . all to make us safe, our family safe, our friends . . . because we love them.
Or we fear them. Or we want them to fear us, or love us, or forgive us.
Do we love ourselves in the same way?
Do ...
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IN THIS SCENE NICKY YOUNG, OUR YOUNG WOMAN COMING OF AGE, SITS WITH HER NEW WOMEN FRIENDS AND MENTORS, TARA SUMMERS AND ALEXANDRA FLOWERS, WIFE AND FIANCE TO MATT AND DARRELL SWEET, PROFESSIONAL PITCHERS ON THE SAN FRANCISCO GOLIATHS BASEBALL TEAM.
NIKCY HAS JUST SHARED WITH ALEX THAT HER FATHER IS AN ALCOHOLIC, AND BEGINS TO REFLECT INWARD ON HER PROBLEMS OF MAKING NEW RELATIONSHIPS AND HER CHALLENGES ABOUT HAVING SEX.
To finally share the information ...
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At seventeen, Nicky confides in cheer team mentor Alexandra Flowers and Tara Summers about her family’s dysfunction and also her fears and doubts about her body. Her hips, breasts, and stomach are more developed than her peers, she is getting looks from older men, and she’s uncomfortable in her own skin and with others. She sits in the bleachers talking with the two women.
“My dad’s an alcoholic, Alex,” I confided while she waited with me in ...
Continue Reading →So to recap Chapter 1 of Shadow Heart, the first novel in the Broken Bottles Series.
What are the challenges of our heroine, Nicky Young?
The story opens up as we hear her voice, at some age, talking about a time when she was eight years old and witnessed her father’s rage toward Jenise, her sister, just because they wouldn’t eat the cold creamed corn their father served them.
We also hear Nicky open her story by talking about her little prayer, the ...
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