excerpt from novella-in-progress

picked this bit at random:

Fletch's house I won't describe, everything is so goddamn clean in there. The bathrooms were dressed with red eyelets, the living room with hoary castered chairs. The rotted brick walls were written with the black of cigarette ash. The shingled roof tucked in a steel-grey trim. I don't know much about houses. I suppose it was a bungalow. What little I do know, I have learned from reading books until things have spoken their natures out to me. My head invites a clear picture. My head and heart both go wild when this occurs.

I have spent long, hot days driving by that house to see how no one was home.

Sometimes I took the car when I wasn't meant to and it was a disaster.

I tried hard to pass my love around that house. My love teetered and someday it just nodded off.

This whole time I was afraid. I thought Fletch would leave me, weak and hollow, for Orlando. I had trouble staying in my bed at night. I wandered the house, I would open and close doors. I would yell through hallways, my hurting voice gone unheard. I developed trouble breathing. Sometimes I awoke hitting the fingers of a fist into my chest. In my dreams I hurt myself and other people. I developed lesions on my arms from so much of my dreaming. Langston wrapped herself around myself and asked about it. I said problems at work. There were problems. Certainly, there were problems, but I couldn't make my mouth stop lying. Langston worried herself asleep. I held her hair and spoke gibberish into it. Then I walked the halls some more. I would fold my nose into windows and wait for the sky to change.