excised bit from the novel I'm writing
Cynthia was nine years old when she tripped the son of a family friend down a flight of stairs.
The visit was like all the others. As soon as he arrived, he sat down right next to her and began to talk her head off, about everything from the sports that he was learning, to the trip he had taken with his parents just this last week. She did try to ask him to leave her to herself, several times, quite politely, feeling the simmering annoyance in her chest bubbling dangerously toward the surface, but he had even followed after her as she left the playroom in order to look for a quiet place to read the book on ancient societies that her aunt had sent her.
The boy screamed at the top of his lungs as soon as he lost his balance and careened down the steps like some sorry sack of flour. The impact when he hit the landing, several steps downward, made him cry out bitterly in pain and then retreat into a whimpering ball.
If he had thought to glance up towards the instigator of the suffering he was now wallowing in, he would have seen nothing, for as soon as he had hit the bottom, Cynthia had pivoted on her heel and advanced quickly down the hall out of sight. Perhaps if someone had met her on her way to the library, they would have been startled by her expression, eyes hardened so deep in fury that it was shocking anything she looked at didn’t burst into flames.
But no one did.
Perhaps she could have lied, saying that the boy had been embarrassed at his own mistake and had picked her as a target even though she was nowhere near him at the time. But when she was called into the living room and saw the boy crying cradled in his mother’s arms, she looked at her parents, and found herself confused at their questioning expressions.
Didn’t I tell them that I found him boring and annoying? she thought as she quietly apologized. What do they mean, looking at me like that?
Her apology had been quickly accepted, the boy’s parents were apparently surprised that their son had even been telling the truth, and they had left a few hours later after a large dinner.
As soon as the door had shut on their visitors, Cynthia’s mother had turned on her, sighed, and then asked her a question that almost felt like she had been stabbed through the chest: ‘Now why on earth did you do that?’
Cynthia had stared at her, a strange combination of emotions bubbling up: a spark of rage and a wave of sadness, and then had opened her mouth to try and explain her reasoning, but her mother had quickly cut her off, apparently not even noticing that she had been about to speak, saying, ‘ I swear I have never been more embarrassed or astonished in my life! And so was Henry’s mother, if I do say so myself. They’ll be back for a visit in a few weeks, and I expect you to be on your best behavior, none of this strange nonsense, it’s quite inconvenient.’
They’ll be back in a few weeks. The words rang in Cynthia’s head, and it took everything in her small body to stop herself from collapsing to the floor in an array of violent tears. She hardly registered her father who walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, before he said, ‘You’ll listen to your mother, she’s right. Not the right behavior for a dinner party with friends.’
Friends? Where? Cynthia couldn’t help thinking, as she trudged, suddenly exhausted back to her room. Weren’t friends supposed to be nice things?
Her punishment did not go beyond this, but as Cynthia laid in bed that night, curled up under her covers, that stinging ache in her chest did not ebb.
~dys
This was part of a draft for the current book I'm writing- the introduction to the main character if you can believe it. But it didn't end up working with the character as I continued to develop it, so I removed it. I'm still pretty fond of it though.