Write The Next Sentence

This is turning out rather differently than I had expected, she thought, I could well be on my way to making history. She grabbed her bag and rushed off to catch the last train to the city. Attempting to catch her breath, Kristie found an empty seat and rushed to fill it. She searched the faces of the passengers around her and decided she’d finally lost the tall man in the suit that had been tailing her, but she couldn’t yet loosen the grip on her bag in her lap. As the train lumbered and jostled down the track, she closed her eyes for a moment and wondered just how the hell she had gotten herself into this mess. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and sat looking straight into the eyes of the tall man in the suit. “I believe you dropped this” he said, his voice raspy like he’d been smoking since the day he was born. His eyes were a pale blue and up close she could see a weary sadness in them. Tearing her own eyes from this curious gaze, she forced herself to glance towards his hesitantly outstretched hand. The hand was unlike any other hand that she had ever seen. It reminded her of autumn leaves, spreading out across an open stretch of land, the skin was pale, almost yellow in complexion, yet the fingers were beautifully made things, stretching out towards her. ‘Why are you following me?’ she whispered. “Because you need me.” he replied, narrowing his eyes.

His words made her heart pound uncontrollably and her hands go numb, she was shaking as she reached for the unmarked envelope he was holding. Her mind raced as she tried to imagine what could possibly be contained inside. Kristie began to open the envelope, only to have the old man put out his hand and state, “No, not here.” She paused, slowly sliding the envelope into her bag before asking “Who are you?” “How many of us know how to answer that question as it is asked,” he responded. He silently turned around and walked away, leaving her with nothing but letters and questions.

A few minutes later the train stopped and Kristie got off, making her way to the long-awaited appointment she had in the city. The streets seemed too crowded, the sky too hazy and her thoughts felt fevered as she hurried to her meeting. Trying desperately to put aside her thoughts of what had just transpired, she turned the corner in haste, putting the incident and train further behind her, and hoping to forget it while clutching the envelope tightly in her hand. But his words, “Because you need me”, echoed through Kristie’s mind as she searched for 393 79th Street. Could he know her secret? “That’s impossible” she said to herself, I’ve never told anyone about that day. Then she realized, “Just because I never told anyone, doesn’t mean no one could’ve seen it.”

As she turned the next corner and stopped to look at the letter in her hand, she decided to open it without further delay because she suddenly thought she recognized the handwriting. As she tore the envelope she felt as though everyone around her had stopped to watch, still she delved her hand inside and pulled out the photograph within. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this one was worth a hell of a lot more than that. Unable to look at the picture any longer, she quickly flipped it over to read the writing on the back. It said, much to her despair, “I know what you did last summer.” Her heart in her mouth, Kristie reflexively whipped her head around to see if anyone was watching or standing close enough to see the picture. Luckily nobody took notice of her as she stood there petrified and not capable to move one inch. Kristie knew she had to pull herself together, this wasn’t the end of the world, it wasn’t even illegal, it was just a picture of her and a very special friend. A sudden gush of wind blew against her back, a gush so hard it blew the photograph directly out of her hands. She collected herself, picked up the photo and put it back in the envelope; this isn’t just about this picture, there is more to this and I’m going to find out what it’s about! She then took a deep breath and checked her watch and noticed that if she didn’t leave soon, she would be late to her meeting.

She hastily continued her way as she could not be late for this final meeting in which the last details of her first book, to be published within months, were to be decided upon. Tucked beneath her cashmere scarf, she treaded through the afternoon pedestrian traffic, her heels powering through each step. Kristie’s demeanor always casted attracted eyes in her direction and even with the stress of her new book and the picture of past desires surfacing, she demanded attention in all directions. Her own attention, however, kept jumping back to the past — to “Amy”. Flushed from these thoughts, Kristie became red-hot - not able to control her body’s reaction to a dangerous and passionate love - a love she still carried deep within her heart. However, she could not forget the career enhacing Top-Secret clearance the US Army had just granted her, if anyone found out about last summer, her career as an up and coming military officer could be doomed. What was she going to do? This friendship that had flourished into a love affair - a first love in many ways began so innocently - and now it had the potential to destroy what she had worked so hard to build. She trusted Amy with their “secret” and now had to uncover the person behind this malicious intent to destroy her.

She never liked this job, but if she wanted to ensure that she’d have a stable life, she needed to do everything in her power in order to keep it. She hated the fact that her work had torn her away from her love, but she felt that she needed something to fall back on just in case the love she longed for fell to shreds. Her thoughts returned to the present as she past through the doors of the inconspicuous office block towards the elevators where she saw a figure she thought she recognized. Her training clicked in, forcing her to ask the question “What if?”, what if Amy had - no that was inconceivable…

Anyway, she was tired of the what-if game that seemed to always bog her down. Amy was the one she let get away - it wasn’t Amy that she couldn’t trust - it was herself. Besides, this woman she had let into her life - her heart - didn’t play mind games. If anything, Kristie knew she was the one who had fucked with Amy’s head. The time had come to sort the situation once and for all, and this she was about to do. She walked towards the lone figure, and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Amy, I didn’t think you’d remember - it’s good to see you, can we go somewhere and talk?’ As Amy turned to the woman that had helped her rediscover herself, she was met with the same eyes that taught her how intimate a shared glance could be and her soul curled up inside her… it was at that moment that she knew it had been a mistake to come here.

Suddenly initial warmth turned to ice and chains wrapped themselves around Amy’s heart as Kirstie whispered: ’seen your kitty-cat recently sweetheart, want to go home and look?’ She turned away feeling suddenly sick and was at once relieved and anxious to see a familiar face in the crowd; the pale bald co-worker that she and her colleagues playfully called ‘Goof’. Goof’s head shone like satin in the powerful lights of the atrium as he strode passed her, magnificently ignoring her bewildered look.

“Amy,” Karen whispered, deep and sultry just as she had done many times before. Goof was gone and she knew Amy’s escape route had just left up the elevator. “You remember that night last year when we stayed at that creepy motel, we were not alone and you know we were not alone” whispered Kristie. Amy’s white face flinched and glinted pale in the shadows, and for a moment Kristie regretted frightening her. Her voice softened, ”Amy, you know you didn’t want to see Goof. It was me you came to see.” Amy frowned, not only had she missed out on the opportunity to finally obtain her hero Ken Dodd’s autograph, but now she was facing the one woman whose passion genuinely rivalled her love for the great entertainer, and who had the greatest collection of his memorabilia that she had ever seen. Kristie held the train photograph in front of Amy’s perplexed face, it showed a black and white image of Ken Dodd in a woman’s dress and he was crying. Just to the right of Ken Dodd’s elbow, there was an image of Kristie grinning madly, the two of them looked totally out of tune with each other. Amy knew that without Ken she would never find the secret to happiness; she had to make Kristie tell her why on earth he was crying in the photograph. `God Kristie,` she said looking into her friends steely eyes, `I`ve been to dozens of Doddie`s concerts and he doesn`t strike me as the type that would blubber for no particular reason`.

Chapter One