8 Headed Hydra - Writing Samples

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ALL BEAUTIFUL THINGS
CHAPTER TWO

     Ava felt her face freeze with displeasure. He couldn’t be the same man she feed at the men’s shelter exactly one week before.
     “This is Ava Camden. Some of her photographs are on exhibit tonight. Ava, this is Graeme—”

     “Graeme, is it?” Ava managed with tight-lipped dignity. “I don’t think we need this formal introduction. Do you? It seems we met last week at the shelter.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

     “I never got your name,” was his only response.

     Ava knew the incidental betrayals of life. She had been attacked, had her faced slashed, and had to live through the difficult and sometimes seemingly hopeless process of recovering. The stitches were too many to count and the shock was often too much to bear. Then her father died of colon cancer; another betrayal, the kind that came from living life, but still paralyzing. There were smaller kinds of betrayal that the innocent suffered, and that was trusting people. She looked at Graeme’s outstretched hand and something inside of her exploded. She kept her hand at her side and out of his reach. She turned to Julie with cold contempt. “You should be more careful about the acquaintances that you choose,” she said quietly.

     “Julie, could you excuse us? Ms. Camden and I have a private matter to discus.” Her friend eyed them both uneasily then hesitantly excused herself.

     “Unless you have a good reason for masquerading as a homeless man, we don’t have anything to discuss.” She turned away, but grabbed her elbow to stop her.

     She was wearing a black turtleneck sweater dress, keeping as much of her skin covered as she could. The dress had long sleeves and the skirt was floor length with a single slit that went up to the middle of her left thigh. The slit was imperceptible unless she was walking and even then the skirt was sexy, but respectable. She wore knee-high black leather boots. Her curly hair fell in a soft cascade that hid most of the scarred half of her face. At her mother’s urging she put on a hint of mascara and lip gloss.

     She did not look like the same woman who wore jeans and an apron the week before, but the man in front of her had also undergone a startling transformation. She would have called him handsome before, but now he was breathtaking. Gone were the dirty jeans and shoes. Gone was the beard. His hair was clean and swept back away from his face, and Ava imagined that at any moment one of the silky locks might fall forward softening his sophisticated appearance.

     A hint of a smile touched his lips as she observed him. “I came to apologize. Please, don’t walk away.”

     “I’d rather get your explanation than your apology,” she suggested.

     “I wasn’t lying about my brother. I was, and I am, still trying to find him.”

     “You could have told me you weren’t homeless,” she retorted, turning back to look up at him. Her hair fell away from her face and cascaded across her shoulder. For a moment she forgot about her scars.      “I didn’t say I was homeless, you assumed I was,” he said softly.

     “So that makes it better? I spent the week worrying about you—” she broke off.

Something in his expression changed. His eyes grew dark and questioning. “Would you have spoken to me if I told you I was rich? Or would you have sent me away?”

     She looked down and her hair veiled her face again. “I don’t know what I would have done, but you didn’t have to lie.”

     “Neither did you,” he said. Ava opened her mouth to respond and nothing came out. He leaned down close to her face. She could smell the crisp scent of his aftershave. “I know how you got your scars, and it was no accident.”

     He crossed the line with that comment and she would have turned away without a second thought, but he caught her shoulders in a firm, but gentle hold. His thumbs calmly massaged her shoulder blades, and Ava imagined that from a distance people might view his touch as a caress.

     “I was at the shelter, because of my brother and I am here tonight, because of you. The reason why I thought he might have gone to the shelter is because he knows you.”

     “I don’t know your brother,” she said shaking her head.

     When he spoke his voice was a deep whisper. “You do. You know my brother, Ethan Sapphire. You think he’s the man who slashed your face.

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