GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL
White Heat
Simultaneous thunder and lightning revealed the white heat on Luke’s face.
Sydney could not hide in the dark. In the darkness of their bedroom at the summer house, Luke touched her neck where the hickey was.
“Where did this come from?” he asked, touching her neck roughly even with one finger. His voice slurred a bit because he had been drinking and the roughness of his touch intimidated her. “Sydney, I am talking to you!”
“Fuck you! My parents do not talk to me like that!”
“Lower your voice before they come in here!”
“Don’t tell me what to do and don’t interrogate me!”
Their hushed whispers were like a storm wind until she walked away from him. Walking into the bathroom, Sydney thought she had escaped him but Luke stood in the bathroom with her.
“What?” her voice shook, it was a combination of rage and fear. She knew very well that he had a right to ask her about what was possibly in his eyes a hickey, but knowing he had slept with her sister all this time and had looked so solemn at her funeral…
The lights went off in the bathroom. Sydney held the sink and walked toward the door framed by moonlight.
