"The Storm": A Writing Exercise

So, for today’s post I am doing a writing exercise. The word was storm and I used it to share more about Elle Davidson, the main character of my first novel Finding Home. In this short scene you get to meet her oldest and best friend Viet. It’s short and sweet. Hope you enjoy! Pinkies up!

The Storm

By: Melissa Whitney

Sweat dripped down Elle’s brow, the salty sting blurring her vision. The fuzzy vision that inevitably came with any good run was akin to the sweet satisfaction that coursed through her veins after drinking the perfect cup of tea. This was her happy place, sneakered feet hitting the paved running path that hugged the coastline, the not yet sleeping sun low in the sky, and Viet by her side.

“I can’t,” Viet panted.

“You can,” Elle encouraged, her breathless voice firm.

This always happened in the last leg of their runs. Viet’s petulant limbs whined that they couldn’t go any further. Elle pushed. They continued. The reverse also rang true. Any moment either experienced bratty muscles, brains, or hearts that insisted that they couldn’t proceed, the other would not accept it. It was their way. The way it had been for fifteen years.

Elle’s muscles ached. Both with happiness at their use and with a firm desire to go home, brew a fresh cup of peppermint tea, crack open a book, and lounge on the purple couch soaking in stillness. Just a few more feet. Her pulse quickened at her finish line…her goal waving in the distance.

“We’re almost there,” she puffed out a ragged breath.

There was no verbal response from Viet, but Elle knew he nodded. Since meeting their freshman year of college, she knew what his silences and unseen responses meant. They all spoke to her. The scrunch of his angled features. The narrowing of his brown eyes. The pucker of his full lips.

Accomplishment thrummed through her as her foot crossed the invisible line announcing the end of their run, the completion of her goal. Her pace slowed to a jog.

“Thank God!” Viet cheered, raising his hands in the air, and pivoting to face her as his pace slowed to meet hers.

It wasn’t his celebratory cheers that lifted her determined smile into a happy grin, but the matching of his pace to meet hers. The sensation of belonging enveloped her. The idea that this man, who was once a stranger, had become her person. The idea that she had a person. Someone to be in it with her. Someone to meet her pace, whether too slow or too fast.

“For the last half mile, I thought I was going to die.” He placed his hands on his hips as he slowed to a fast walk, still facing her.

“You’re so melodramatic,” she teased.

“I’m not mel…oof.”

Another runner collided with Viet, interrupting his protest, and sending both crashing to the stretch of sandy beach parallel to the path. Their long limbs tangled together as they slammed into the cool sand.

“Viet!” Elle squeaked, her feet skidding to a stop.

“My word, I am so sorry,” the colliding jogger apologized. The deep timbre of his voice was like smooth honey. His muscular frame draped over Viet. Toned arms, visible beneath his long-sleeved running shirt, rested beneath Viet’s body as if to catch his fall. There was something almost protective in the way the nameless jogger held Viet.

Something squeezed in Elle’s chest at the scene. “Viet are you okay?”

Viet’s eyes blinked. “I’m great.”

The almost breathy quality of Viet’s voice made Elle wonder if it wasn’t blinking eyes but rather batted eyelashes. Viet’s gaze appeared transfixed to the jogger. Big smiles lit both their faces. It was the same smile that Elle had when she saw a puppy she wanted to pet. No doubt, there were petting intentions in Viet’s full-faced grin.

Elle crossed her arms. “Do you need help?” she asked, trying to keep the taunting laugh out of her tone.

“Oh,” the jogger said, a soft blush kissing his cheeks. He rose reaching his hand to Viet with all the gallantry of an Austen hero.

Viet took his hand. “Thank you.”

As the jogger lifted Viet, their eyes met. Their gazes appeared to bow to one another, ready to take each other in a slow dance.

“I’m Ryan,” the jogger said.

“I’m Viet.”

Elle shook her head, both amused by and excited for her friend. The air around Ryan and Viet almost buzzed with electricity. Its effect prickled along Elle’s skin cooling her body heated from their run.

“I’m so sorry. I should have been paying attention,” Ryan said. The way his hazel eyes seemed to drink up Viet spoke to a man that wasn’t sorry. Not one bit.

“I shouldn’t have been walking backwards,” Viet offered. The brush of his hand at the back of his dark cropped hair betrayed his lack of remorse.

Elle grinned. “Why don’t you both tell each other how sorry you are over a cup of coffee? There’s a place around the corner. Come on, I’ll buy.”

She was setting the pace. Otherwise, Viet and Ryan would stare at each other with unapologetic eyes ‘til Viet bit his lip saying he needed to go.

Ten minutes later, they sat beneath the hanging lanterns of a small coffee shop. The patio brimmed with life. Fellow patrons huddled over laptops or sat in jovial conversations with one another. Elle sat beside Viet, who was tucked into the corner of their corner table, Ryan across from him. The seat choice was strategic on her behalf allowing Elle the ease to escape after the appropriate amount of time passed and she’d sussed out that Ryan wasn’t a handsome serial killer. This was the job of a best friend. Ensure the good looking stranger did not have a basement full of dead bodies and then slip away so their besite could romance said non-murdering tall, dark, and dreamy man.

Their conversation followed the standard script. Introductions were made. Questions were asked. What do you do for a living? Are you originally from Long Beach? What do you do for fun? Subtle and not-so-subtle hints were given about relationship status. Viet’s cheeks flushed. Ryan seemed to find excuses to reach his hand across the table touching Viet’s. Any excuse. Like, “Oh, you have two legs, so do I”. It was like her own personal meet/cute wildlife documentary. She could almost hear Morgan Freeman’s velvety voice in her ears narrating the scene. “Watch as two attractive men with beautiful smiles fall in love.”

Elle bristled at that thought. There was no way she could know that, but she did. A strange sensation swam in her belly. Her person had just met his person. She’d witnessed countless first meetings of Viet with potential boyfriends. She’d lived through four boyfriends in the last fifteen years. Never had a certainty gripped her muscles as it did as she watched Viet’s gaze intertwin with Ryan’s.

All the feels tug-of-wared within her. Happiness. Excitement. Sadness. Jealously. The last two making her feel like a heel and not even a cute pair, but those unstylish chunky ones that she used to buy from Payless Shoes back before she’d adopted a more fashionista life-style.

Fall into step. Elle pushed down the sadness and jealousy that festered inside her. For fifteen years they encouraged, set the pace for each other, or fell into step with one another. It was their way.

Elle stood up. “I hope you don’t mind if I head out. I have an early meeting that I need to prep for,” she said. There was an early meeting, but she didn’t need to prep. She’d already done that. Elle was seldom unprepared. Although right now she was a little unprepared to walk away knowing that this would be the start of her person becoming someone else’s person.

“Oh, I should…” Viet started to stand up.

Ryan frowned.

Elle raised her hands. “Nope. You stay.” She turned to Ryan. “Will you be a gentleman and make sure he gets home safe?”

Ryan smiled. “It’s the least I can do, since I almost killed him on the running path.”

“Are you sure?” Viet shifted his gaze to Elle.

Their eyes did the whole silent conversation thing. There wasn’t anyone else who knew the language of her eyes and she feared there’d never be.

“Yep.” Her smile was forced, but neither Ryan nor Viet seemed to notice.

Turning, she walked away leaving her person with his new person. As an adult, she knew real friends weren’t lost when they had boyfriends. Viet had never left her behind. They always remained a pair, but something was different in the air. Something was coming. The air charged with the kinetic energy of a coming storm. Elle wasn’t sure what that storm meant for Viet and her, Viet and Ryan, or for her. Looking over her shoulder at them, she sucked in a deep breath. Taking a step off the coffeeshop’s patio she readied for whatever was co