First Campaigner CHALLENGE

 Yeh! The First Challenge in the Third Writers' Platform-Building Campaign is here! 

- Write a short story in 200 words or less that begins with the words "The door swung open" (done!)
- Additional optional challenge: end with the words "the door swung shut" (done!)
- Additional optional challenge: make your story 200 words EXACTLY (so close but not quite there...)

Here's my entry -

*****

FILTHY, RICH

The door swung open. Mr. H sat back, waiting, but I still couldn’t move from the car. He turned off the music seeping from the high-end speakers. The silence was hard and sharp. I wished for a shard of it, to dig deep inside of me, to slice away my shame.

He cleared his throat. From the corner of my eye, I watched him. He shifted in his seat. He opened his wallet. He fingered the bills with the same fingers that had scrabbled over my clothes, scratched at my skin, covered my mouth.

He held out two folded bills. “Josilyn didn’t pay you. For watching the kids.”

I needed his money. My family needed his money.

He slipped a fifty between the others. “And a…bonus.”

He needed my silence. His family needed my silence.

I plucked the bills from between his fingers, careful not to touch him. He sagged against the butter-leather seat - in relief, not in remorse.

Then I held my hand up, out, open. Waiting.

Money - worn, dirty, alive - fluttered into my palm.

I stepped out of the car and adjusted the skirt of my school uniform. Behind me, the door swung shut.        

*****

(Hey, fellow Campaigners - I'm #253 in case you want to head over to the First Campaigner Challenge post and "like" my story.)