Excerpt: Aspiring

The cliff had given his mother no end of near heart attacks when he was a child playing near its edges. His family moved into the house with three story windows facing the main channel of the lake when he was three. His mother pleaded to build a fence along the rim, but August’s father wouldn’t hear of blocking the view. And so his earliest memories all involved his mom telling him about the horrible monster that lived just beyond the lip. It was green, unspeakably ugly and sat all day waiting in its cave for a little boy to come too close.
He couldn’t remember exactly when he discovered it was a lie, but as he clutched a tree branch and leaned out over the side, there was an excitement and fear deeper than that occasioned by the icy water alone.