green sweaters and sweaty socks

The first and last 100 words of my hypothetical bestselling novel by the above title.

There was a lot of blood. An awful lot of blood. Rodney sat quietly on the porch and surveyed the damage. A drop of sweat made its way down from the reddish brown shock of hair that tumbled over his freckled forehead and found itself in the company of many other similar drops gathering on the young boy’s face. How, exactly, was he supposed to explain this to his mother?

The rough wood dug through his faded jeans, the sharp green of the lawn hurt his eyes. She would probably go into hysterics. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen.

.

.

.


She glanced over at him, sitting there on the old porch, his chin resting on a work worn hand. The shadows made the long scar look deeper than it really was.

“Rodney?” She broke the silence.

“Mmmm?”

“Have you ever wondered what your life might have been like? If, you know. ”

He turned laughing eyes in her direction. “Boring. And tragic. I never would have met you.”

The grass was very green; it mocked the coming of winter. It held onto the promise of spring, of life. Of renewal. A drop of sweat glistened on the side of Rodney’s face.