Challenge: Select a book on your shelf and pick two chapters at random. Take the first line of one chapter and the last line of the other chapter and write a short story (no more than 1000 words) using those as bookends to your story.
Since I was out of town this weekend, I decided to look for a book for this challenge in one of the airport shops. Mary Torjussen’s The Girl I Used to Be (not to be confused with April Henry’s novel of the same title) caught my eye, so I picked two random chapters from that. The two sentences from Torjussen’s book are in bold italics.
It was so good to be sitting in a bar in Amsterdam with my old friends from university that first afternoon. We’d talked many times about getting together for a trip back to our old stomping grounds, but it seemed that something always got in the way. Joey’s daughter got sick. Lynn lost her job. My mother died.
And so on.
We finally wrangled our schedules—and our finances—nearly a decade after our year abroad had ended.
As we sat there, Lynn jabbed Joey’s ribs with her elbow and pointed at the bar. “Remember that time you barfed all over the bartender when—“
“Yeah, yeah, when I went to order another pint.” He massaged his forehead a little and peered up at her from under his cupped hand. “I swear I was hungover for a week. Hand to God.” He held his palm skyward. Of course, he’d also sworn he could outdrink me that night, so maybe God should take his word with a grain of salt.
I laughed a little and looked out the window to my left. “Boy, that was a good night for me. I got some money—what was the stake, Joey? 20 euros?—and a Polaroid of Joey standing on the bar. Actually, I think I still have—” My voice dropped off when I saw a mop of golden hair across the street.
The boy under the hair stood near the edge of the curb, absentmindedly kicking a bottle back and forth as he watched traffic go by. He had to be almost ten, and I couldn’t stop myself from staring because it was just so damn uncanny.
That rounded nose, those wide blue eyes, those big ears—he looked just like a man I’d met ten years ago in a club down the street, a man I’d known for just that night, a man I hadn’t been able to contact when those two pink lines appeared.
I’d left Amsterdam eight months later without my baby boy—Rory. I’d have called him Rory. After my father, a kind, generous man who put up with my shrew of a mother longer than any saint would’ve.
A car horn sent me stumbling back onto the sidewalk just in time, and rainwater splashed my jeans as a red sports car flew past me. I took that as an opportunity to pause, to think, to reconsider.
I’d done this before—in London, in Toulouse, in Philadelphia, in Montreal. Once, in El Paso, I’d followed a boy two blocks before realizing he had free earlobes. I had attached earlobes, and so did Rory’s father.
Standing outside the Amsterdam bar, I tried to tell myself that this was just like those other times. I tried to convince myself to turn back around, join my friends, and squabble over who should pay the check.
But this boy had those same crooked dimples I’d swooned over ten years ago.
I crossed the street, and his hand was in mine by the time my friends had rushed out of the bar and started shouting my name.
A man called after us, yelling for us to stop. I knew we had to move fast if we wanted to get away, so I tried to get Rory to keep up with me by encouraging, coaxing, pulling him—whatever I had to do. If we didn’t run fast enough, the man might see us turn into that alley up ahead. He might catch up with us.
He might take Rory with him.
In an effort to start the summer strong, I’m doing Writer’s Digest’s 12-Day Plan.
Miles Away 