McDiablo
Cover image
Synopsis
16-year old Viola Davis is attending yet another year at Hawthorne Secondary School, where she has the reputation of being “That Weird Girl.” True to her nickname, Viola spends her days alone, her only friend being a young man named Rufus, a figure only she can see. But when a classmate tries to befriend her, Viola must decide if she is ready to step out of her shadow of loneliness and grasp onto something real.
Excerpt
Rufus appeared in my life at the most awkward time. Nothing about my life was awkward at that point; it was more the situation that was.
My day started out normally—I woke up, sat in bed for a few minutes, forced myself to emerge from the warmth of my sheets and duvet and walked into the bathroom with the intent to have a shower.
I closed the bathroom door and took off my usual bedtime attire of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. It was an old T-shirt I used to wear during my elementary school days. I liked my shirts big for some reason. During the summer before high school, something in my mind clicked and I decided that wearing a T-shirt that was three sizes too big, so big it could be worn as a dress, was pretty unflattering. While I never did get into anything form fitting, I likened myself to taking huge strides in the wide realm of T-shirts.
I dropped my pajamas and underwear and pushed them to the corner of the bathroom floor with my foot. I turned around, grabbed a towel and opened the shower curtain.
“Hello!”
Standing in the shower was a boy. He looked to be six years older than me. He was definitely in his twenties. He was dressed in a way I’d only seen guys dress in magazines. He wore a red flannel shirt accessorized with a thin white tie and matching suspenders. His jeans were cuffed past his ankles, exposing skin, and he wore brown loafers. His hair was well-kept and perfectly coiffed, despite it being longer in front. It flopped over his forehead, but didn’t hide his green eyes.
Now, maybe most girls would be completely all right with finding a well-dressed guy standing in the shower, but I’m not like most girls. In fact, at 14-years old, the last (and only) male who had ever seen me naked was my dad, and that was back when I was three during “bath time.” I reacted in the only way I deemed appropriate. I screamed.
