Sins of the Father

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Here's a little more from my YA coming-of-age mystery, Shades of Blue. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) As a lot of people guessed last week, there's more to the story of Sam's real dad than we know so far. I'm skipping ahead a little for this snippet, so I need to set it up. This takes place after Sam shows up at JoJo's bedroom window in the middle of the night and she helps him climb in. He's just told her that his mom and step-dad were both drinking heavily all night and arguing. While Sam was trying to help his mom to her bedroom, she accidentally called him Keith, his real dad's name.

I knelt on the floor beside his legs so I could look up at his face and said, “What did Russ do when she called you Keith?”

“He really lost it, JoJo--I’ve never seen him that mad before. He slapped my mom and told her he never wanted to hear that name again, and before I could say or do anything, he backhanded me and said it was my fault she did it.”

“How could it be your fault?”

“He said I’ve been trying to look and act like my dad on purpose because I want to turn my mom against him, and he said next I’d be wanting to go out for football so I could play the big shot quarterback like my old man.”

"You didn’t tell him you were trying out, did you?”

He looked at me and shook his head. “No, but Britney did.”

Now, don't jump to too many conclusions. More next week. Or you could always go buy your own copy of Shades of Blue here and find out. ;-) Please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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