I am doing a 30 Day Writing Challenge over on tumblr and thought I'd post them here. They're going to be mostly Jarbie centric, and I will try to include other characters as well. I hope you enjoy these.
(1/30) Collide
He was supposed to be in this town for just a few hours, collect the money and hightail the hell out. He hated small towns. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew everyone's business. A stranger never does well in small towns, raising eyebrows and inviting questions. And a stranger of his kind does even worse in these kinds of places, eyebrows, questions and whispers usually followed by rumours and altercations with the locals. All things he wanted to avoid. But no, that was not how things would work out. If only Maxine had given Peter that extra week he asked for, if only Peter had not pulled out that gone, if only he had kept his eye on the road as that sherif car drove by… So many hypothetical if's thrown in there, but if he were to be honest, he knew deep down, he would have never been able to leave Chester's Mill before the dome came down.
But some greater forces were calling the shots that day. He stood by the dome, with the town sherif, his deputy and the town councilman. He had kept his distance, but he saw how they watched him with the same curiosity they watched the dome. He needed to get out of there and quickly.
And then she came along. Red hair, wild and unruly, a camera in hand and a thousand questions on the tip of her tongue. He knew she was trouble.
"Who the hell are you?" she'd asked him, just like that, no subtlety in her approach.
"Barbie," he said, trying his best not to get entangled in a conversation.
But he soon figured out that was not going to be easy, not with her.
"I'm not your story," he'd said, trying his best to remain as curt and withdrawn as possible. The last thing he needed was the town reporter asking him questions. He just wanted to hide in some motel until this whole dome thing was over.
She smiled and the impact of that collision was far more powerful than that of an invisible, impenetrable dome crash landing over a entire town.