First Fight/First Kiss Blogfest

Yay, it's blogfest time! Many thanks to Danielle and Jackie for hosting! Here are the details:

Share your 1^st FIGHT and 1^st KISS scenes in your MS’s or WIP’s. Crack open your current project or dive back into an old one. We want to feel what your characters feel. From the sting of their first fist-to-the-face to the tingling taste of their first kiss.

Today is First Fight day, and I wanted to bring you a small excerpt from my NaNo novel which centres around Jesse Shaw, one of the characters from Game On. It's a bit rough, and a bit vague - mainly because I wrote it quickly, Jesse's voice still needs work, and this fight in full would be packed with spoilers, but hopefully it gives enough info to make sense!  

Just to clear up a small thing - Georgia is Isabelle's twin sister. :) 


 **

“Izzy,” I said. “You know the right thing to do.”

Isabelle looked down at me with those big brown eyes, and my insides twisted with guilt. Right away, I realised that was stupid. I was the one lying in a hospital bed, the future of my career hanging by a thread. It was her choice. She could haul me up, or watch me plummet. I hated that she was put in this awkward position. But I didn’t put her there. Georgia did.

“Jesse,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, “I can’t do it.”

“Why?”

Stupid question.

“Because it’ll ruin everything for her. I can’t do that to her.”

She turned away from me, and I knew it was over. She was going to walk out, let me crash and burn.

“That’s it?” I asked. “You’re not even going to think about what this is going to do to me?”

“I have thought about it!” she snapped, whirling around to look at me again. “I haven’t slept since it happened! I’ve tried to look at this from every angle, and I think-”

“You think saving your sister’s love life is more important than saving my career?” I asked, anger beginning to rise within me. I didn’t want to yell at her, I wanted to rewind a couple of days and not go to that stupid party so we could go back to how we were. How could she be so small-minded to think that her sister’s relationship would survive and be more important than the one thing I’d worked for my whole life?

“Jesse, your injury … you know, you might never play football again.”

If it was possible for the knife to twist any further, that comment made it happen. This girl was not the girl I met when I first arrived in England. She’d been replaced by some cold-hearted lookalike.

Maybe it’s Georgia.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Isabelle said. “This isn’t easy for me either.”

“Oh really? Which part is difficult for you? The part where you get to go back to your happy, privileged life? The part where your sister and Elliot skip off together into the sunset? Or the part where you go back to being mummy and daddy’s little angel who stays at home on Saturday nights reading books and playing Scrabble?”

The words hurt my mouth as they flew out at her. I wanted to take them back, but somewhere deep inside me, they’d been stewing for days. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I needed her to see what she was doing to me.

Isabelle’s eyes filled with angry tears. “The part where I give you up! The part where I let you go because I don’t want to be forced to choose between the two people I care about the most! You think this is so simple for me, that the right answer is obvious, but it’s not! It’s not obvious, and it’s not easy. It’s killing me.”

If I could have got out of bed and held her in my arms, I would have. Angry as I was, I wanted to hold her, to block out some of the pain she felt. Pain that wasn’t my fault, but that I’d somehow contributed to by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

** 

 And there you have it! Don't forget to check out the other participants!