As promised, I have a found probably the least terrible snippet of my current NaNoWriMo project. It’s a little long, at 1,300 words or so. It’s the least dialogue-heavy section I have right now.

This is completely unedited (except of typos), and considering the entire novel needs to be reworked from the start come editing time, you can hold any criticism for later on. 🙂 I’m just sharing to share.

For the record, I barely even read this before I posted it. Haha.

Somehow my mind was still pretty numb to my situation. As I started driving away from the lake in Bree’s truck, I found myself wondering what could happen if I got caught. That maybe I’d make the wrong choice.

I could see it now: They found her body, connected my car on the scene and the caliber of my gun to me. I’d be arrested, questioned endlessly until we went to court, where I would have to fight to prove that Bree pulled her gun first. I had no proof, aside from the markings on my body from when we fought. I reminded myself to take pictures of myself when I got back. I needed to prepare myself for a trial. Just in case. I didn’t know if I could convince a jury that I’d only been defending myself.

Then why did she hide the body? Cover up the evidence? Why didn’t she just call the police immediately and explain what happened? Even if I couldn’t convince them I was defending myself, it probably wouldn’t go down as a murder charge. Maybe manslaughter. A lesser charge, with less of a punishment.

But no, because of my cover up scheme, I made myself look guilty. I looked in my rearview mirror. Maybe I had time to go back and fix this. To set the scene right back where it started, before I covered it up.

Nope. I was in too deep. There was no going back anymore. I had to commit to this plan. To mentally move on so that I didn’t manage to give myself away to anyone who suspected me. Which I mean would hopefully be nobody, but obviously I was living in a fantasy world. Whoever reported her missing would know she was at Julie’s party last night, and Julie would tell them that she was taking me back to school.

As the last person to have knowingly seen Bree, I would be suspect number one until they could find somebody more suspicious. And I didn’t know enough about Bree’s life to know if there was anyone more suspicious that they might consider.

Regardless, I was going to get questioned. I needed to get my story straight. But first, I needed to get rid of these clothes and this truck.

I finally made my way back to campus and stopped at the first dumpster I saw. I threw my clothes away, along with Bree’s gun. I had no idea if it was registered or not, but the odds of them finding it were slim. To my knowledge, the homeless people didn’t dumpster dive on campus. I also tossed some of the trash in the back of Bree’s truck into the dumpster. There was a lot back there. Obviously, she ate on the road a lot. I got back in the truck and started driving again, this time to find a spot to park this thing for good.

I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Bree was doing with her life now. But then I remembered that it didn’t even matter, because there was no continuation for her life anymore. Today was her version of The End.

Holy shit. It could have been mine instead. All over a dumb argument that could have been avoided had Bree just not ditched me. On that same note, however, if I had been more responsible for myself last night, I probably wouldn’t have had to rely on her in the first place. But it didn’t matter. She took it too far. She threatened my life, and I did what I had to do.

I stopped at the Walmart that was about three miles from campus. The shuttle picked up every thirty minutes, so I could hop that and get back to my dorm.

I imagined just how freaked out and angry Katie was going to be when I showed up. But I knew she’d instantly panic when she saw my beat up face. She would insist that I go get looked at. But I was fine. Physically, anyway. Emotionally I was probably pretty wrecked. But the shock had yet to wear off. It would hit me in a couple hours, I was pretty sure of it.

I parked Bree’s truck in fullest part of the parking lot, knowing that it would be full for most of the day. I didn’t need her truck to stick out like a sore thumb. Then I walked over to the door where the shuttle picked up at and waited.

I realized quickly that I must really look like shit at that moment, because of all the people to look at me judgmentally, it was semi-embarrassing to get looked at the way I did by people who were shopping at Walmart. I had nothing against people who chose to shop here. But when you saw the group of people walking through the door wearing overalls, or shorts three sizes too small, or the family with the matching mullets, and they were all judging you, that was hint number one.

I remembered I had a compact mirror in my purse, so I dug it out. It took a minute or two to find with the addition of my entire car stuffed into it. When I found it and opened it, I gasped at myself. I had two black eyes, a fat lip, and most of my face was red or purple. I started to wonder if maybe I did need to go get checked out physically.

Before I could make an executive decision on that, however, the shuttle showed up. Nobody got off, but when I stepped on, I noticed that there were about five or six students currently on the bus. Thankfully I did not recognize any of them. Unfortunately though, that did not stop them all from freaking out when they saw me. I pulled my hood up over my head and crouched down in the front row.

The shuttle driver looked right at me before he closed the door.

“Do I need to call the police for you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No sir. Can we please get back to the college?”

He pursed his lips, and then nodded and closed the doors. I tried to ignore the other students behind me, but that became severely difficult when one of them came up and sat next to me. It was a woman, with long red hair wearing very little makeup.

“I’m not trying to pry,” she said, “so please don’t be offended. I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. Just a little fight with somebody. It’s over now.” I refused to make eye contact with her.

“If it’s your boyfriend, you don’t have to stay in the relationship, girl. There are people to help you.”

I looked up at her, the beginnings of anger starting to form in my eyes. “It wasn’t a guy. It’s really none of your business. I’m fine. I can deal with it. So please, leave me alone.”

The girl nodded, put a hand on my shoulder for just a few seconds, and then went back to her original seat.

The rest of the ride I was stuck in my own mind. I had no idea what anyone was saying about me. I was thinking about being interrogated, how awkward that was going to be. I thought about being on trial, in front of a twelve man jury, being degraded and made to feel guilty by the prosecutor. There was no doubt that if they had enough evidence, I could go down for all of this.

I made the wrong choice. That feeling would forever stay in my mind. Not the wrong choice to shoot her. She was most likely going to shoot me first. But to cover all of this up. To pretend that I was guilty of murder and hide all the evidence to avoid getting caught. To a jury, this was a no brainer.