Today we get a glimpse into Michel Prince's Chrysalis series with a first chapter peek at book one. You can find Chrysalis at
In the annals of dysfunctional families, the Chisholm’s are
working their way to the top. Drug abuse, an unwed mother with multiple fathers,
and the questionable cash flow for the 'pretty one'. All this from a seemingly
normal, two parent middle class family. But were the choices truly made of their
free will?
Bad choices are a Chisholm family trait, one that confounds
the youngest child, Ellie, who's trying to separate herself by making smart
decisions. And falling for Oscar Jeffreys, the hottest guy at school, would be
number one on the list of Chisholm family disasters. Yet the crazy part is it’s
not a one sided attraction. Somehow Ellie has caught Oscar Jeffreys’ eye. Sure
she could see the barriers between them. Race, age, popularity. They were at
opposite ends of the spectrum. But a demon set to destroy her family? She can't
see that.
Oscar provides security and acceptance Ellie never imagined
she deserved. As the passion of first love grows, Ellie honestly believes she
has a chance to beat the odds and live a happy, normal life. Then her world
collapses around her. With the help of a guardian angel, Ellie learns of a world
that has unknowingly surrounded her for years. And she'll have to find strength
buried deep inside to save not only her future, but flush out and stop the demon
in her midst.
And Ellie will have to learn that sometimes the hardest
lesson about growing up is accepting that you're worth more.
Chapter One
The chocolate colored skin on
his clean-shaven head glistened with sweat from football practice. Was it
smooth to the touch, I wondered, or would little prickles of hair scratch my
palm? I became entranced by a drop of sweat sliding down his neck, under his
collar, and I could only think what I wouldn’t do to follow that trail to its
end.
His sleeveless t-shirt stuck to
him, defining his chest and his biceps were exposed, showing he had the perfect
horseshoe that comes from hours of lifting. No way could I get my hands around
his arm and have my fingers touch, but part of me just wanted to try.
He was joking with a few other
players as they crossed the gym to go down to the locker room. As he reached to
push open the door, his t-shirt road up, revealing his abs and upper hip. The
tie of his football pants was already loosened. I stopped breathing. I had seen
him walk through the gym before, but something about seeing part of his body
that had always been covered sent my private fantasies into overdrive.
My head flew to the side as a
thousand pinpricks exploded like fireworks across my left cheek. The unexpected
assault came from a volleyball sent special delivery by one of the senior
players.
The white-leather facial was
followed by a snotty “knock it off.” I couldn’t tell if it was her voice or my
mild concussion distorting her voice into a screeching noise.
“What did I do?” I asked in
vain.
It wouldn’t have mattered.
Waking up this morning in her neighborhood and having the audacity to
come to her school was enough.
“Don’t even think about it,
Soft-Meat,” Sharyn Johnson growled as she crossed over to me, her eyes burning
into mine. “He ain’t no damn coconut!”
I turned away, not wanting the
confrontation and realized maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought at sneaking
looks at him. I looked back at the faux oak double swinging doors that led to
the boy’s locker room, but he was out of sight. The rest of the team was
passing through the door now.
“A cocoawhat?”
Having
lost what had become my vision of perfection, I wanted an explanation from
Sharyn.
“A coconut. Black on the
outside, white on the inside and water on the brain. He don’t mix. The last
thing he’s thinking about is some pasty ass white girl with an itch to piss off
her daddy.”
She picked up the ball that
bounced off my head as I stared at her in amazement. It’s not that I’d never
gotten the vibe from her that she hated me for reasons other than my setting
skills, but for her to put it out there like this was…Well…Unparalleled.
Oscar Jeffreys was a senior.
Correction, Oscar was the senior. Captain of every team, class
president. I heard he completed an Eagle project, though at the time, I had no
idea what that meant. He was the guy every girl wanted and only one girl ever
had. Mya Thompson, last year’s queen of everything. She went away to college a
few weeks ago. Rumor has it theirs was a mutual break up. They were “taking a
break.” As a result all the girls on the team were dying to take her place. It
was the only thing my volleyball team talked about in the locker room.
“Leave her alone, Sharyn!”
Kelly March came to my rescue,
again. Kelly was a junior and had been in my older brother’s class in
elementary school. Caleb was the fourth child in our family, but everyone
called us Irish twins. I used to think we were twins because we did so much
together, but I was ten months younger. He died right before my tenth birthday.
At five-foot-nine, Kelly wasn’t
the biggest girl on the team, but she carried herself as if she was. She never
picked a fight, but she ended many.
“Up your game instead of tryin’
to tear down someone else’s,” she bit at Sharyn.
Sharyn stalked off, slamming
her ball into a wall with all her might.
“Ellie, I know it’s hard not to
look at him,” Kelly said, always the queen of the obvious. “But, really, you’re
a sophomore so keep him for your fantasies. I’ve never seen a senior/sophomore
relationship that didn’t end in heartbreak or pregnancy. It’s usually both.”
There it was! I was not getting
pregnant. My family was the unmitigated study in failure. Being the youngest of
five very different children, you’d think people wouldn’t know what to expect
from me. Instead, they saw me as another one of the Chisholm children, destined
to make the same mistakes as my siblings. I was never given any credit that I
might have learned
from
their mistakes instead of being doomed to repeat them. I was just another
problem someone would eventually have to deal with.
This is why I lived in the
world of movies. My real life never made sense to me. The families and friends
in movies had what I considered normal reactions to situations. Audrey Hepburn
was my favorite actress, but I was currently on a Doris Day kick. If you want
an idealistic reality, watch a Doris Day movie. She had enough spunk to not be
a pushover, something I always looked for in the heroine.
I avoided attachments that
could pull me down. Oh, I had a few friends, but outside of volleyball, I
wasn’t about to get too involved. Involvement meant attachment and attachment
meant someone would have to get to know me, and worse yet my family. I had this
grand idea, if I went away to college, I’d say I was an orphan. No brothers or
sisters. No family to speak of. Alone. Hey, it works in the movies, right?
So that’s me. Head down, push
through and hope to survive. And of course keep Oscar Jeffreys for my
fantasies. Plus, Sharyn was probably right about one thing. What would Oscar
want with a pasty white girl?
Mixing did happen in our
school, but not with someone like Oscar.
Our game would start soon. It
was the first of the season. Looking around the gym I needed a landmark to
regain my focus so I zeroed in on the twelve banners of the other schools in
our conference. Our banner was the largest, white with blue print and silver
trim. The fierce head of a cougar growled in warning in the center.
The same cougar growled in the
center of our pine court. The white lines for the volleyball court defined the
boundaries, as well as the ten-foot lines. Blue lines cut through our court for
the three-point line of the basketball court.
“All right, Cougars, shag the
balls and get over here.”
Coach Marks’ high voice stood
out. She had been coaching for five years. Her blond hair was cut short. In a
suit, she always seemed to look so uncomfortable. The tight, black pinstripe
pants looked short and the sleeves of her jacket were too long.
Not that I was a fashonista.
Far from it. I was probably the only one in the school who would prefer a
uniform to having to figure out what to wear. Jeans and a t-shirt until it got
colder.
Then I added a hoodie. Kelly tried to get me to dress up more, but for me that
usually just meant adding a sweater.
We snatched all the balls and
put them in our basket and threw it in the corner. Finding a spot on the bench,
we waited to hear who Coach had in our lineup.
The bleachers rose at least
thirty rows behind us, all the way to the windows at the top of the gym. If
this had been the boys basketball opener, the stands would have been packed. Oh
well, the less witnesses, the better for me.
But even with the small number
of fans, I was nervous. In the stands, little sisters and brothers looked bored
and annoyed with having to be there. Maybe a few grandparents were sprinkled
in, but mostly it was moms and dads. Minus mine, of course.
“March, you serve first. Sands,
Johnson, Kendall, Zupfer, Chisholm, you’re setting opposite Johnson,” Coach
informed us as we stood up to run out on the court as our names were called.
We were using a pathetic,
junior-high level 4-2 offense: four hitters and two setters. Coach Marks said
it was that way until I proved myself enough to run a 5-1. That scared me. Then
I’d run the whole floor by myself. Being five-foot-three, I was just too short
to be a hitter. With a 4-2, I could be taken out when I was in the back row. If
I stayed in, I’d have no responsibility other than defense.
Volleyball had always been a
sport that appealed to me in a deep way. I could hit the ball as hard as I
wanted, grunt, run and yell “mine” without consequence. There was little cost
to the sport, so I never had to worry about trying, fruitlessly, to get money
from my parents. Earning a spot on the varsity squad as a sophomore was next to
impossible, but I’d done just that. This was the main reason Sharyn hated me. I
was her competition for her position, team setter.
I was hoping to grow, but no
girl in my family was over five-foot-seven. When I started playing volleyball I
focused all my energy on being a setter. My parents wouldn’t pay for me to join
a club team and they wouldn’t bring me to practices or games. I had to wait
until school could take care of transportation to join a sport. I babysat all
summer to pay for my jersey, shoes and kneepads. This was my happy place, I
just wished I didn’t have to fight with anyone to stay here.
“Good
luck, snot face.”
That could only come from my
new best friend, Jordan. He was a freckle-faced redhead who lived two houses
down. He was too gangly and uncoordinated to play any sport, but he seemed
happy to cheer me on. We’d met over the summer. His family moved in to the Jensen
house, which sat empty for a few years. The Jensen’s son was with Caleb when he
died. I don’t think they ever got over the guilt of that. I’d only known Jordan
since June, but there was something that seemed trustworthy about him. Must
have been the eyes, green with slight specks of hazel. We stayed up for hours
talking about my family and our lives. He understood when I was with my family,
I felt alone, adrift in an ocean with no land in sight.
“Thanks, loser,” I said
punching him in the shoulder.
“Mr. Franklin, can you please
be a line judge?”
Coach learned that she could
count on Jordan, too. This was our first game, but he’d helped a lot during our
preseason practices.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Jessie Smith’s our other line
judge. Go talk to her and get set up.”
Jessie was cool. She was a
sophomore who I had been with in elementary school. Jessie hadn’t even made the
JV team, but she told Coach she would be the JV manager. She tried to help out
on Varsity wherever she could. It was a good way to earn points with the coach
for next year.
The refs blew the whistle and
we set up. I was standing directly next to Mary, a junior and outside hitter.
Blue and silver glitter adorned her mahogany brown eyes and her black hair was
pulled up into a tight ponytail. We had to switch positions so I could be in
the middle by the net once Kelly served. Luckily, we’d won the coin toss. We
were playing the Bears, a decent team from Eagan. They were set up similarly,
but I could tell by their setter they had converted to a 6-1 offense. That let
me know they were better prepared and their setter could actually spike the
ball.
The setter controls the floor.
She’s supposed to get the second hit and decide who finishes it off. One
mistake and I could be sent back to JV. I wished now I hadn’t pushed myself so
much this summer. What was the point? I wasn’t above spending a year on JV.
My
stomach was already tightening. I turned my head and saw Kelly standing almost
to the wall. With the volleyball extended in front of her, she looked me in the
eye and winked. The knot in my midsection eased as she refocused her eyes on
the ball then the other side of the net. Two steps and she jumped while
throwing the ball high in the air. Right as she hit the height of her leap, her
right hand made contact.
Slam. Kelly’s serve was loud as
I got into my spot. Mary backed away from the net and everyone was low and in
position waiting to see what would happen to the serve.
“Aaaaaaaaaaace!” We all came
together in the middle of our half of the court slamming our hands down. Kelly
got us on the board by landing a perfect serve right on the backline of the
court. The other team’s back row was blaming each other, which I thought played
in our favor. If their team was breaking down this early in the game, we might
have a chance of creaming these guys.
I set up Mary and Steph and
easy passes led to easy sets, as they hammered home some great spikes. Then a
shanked ball from a dig ended up hitting the ceiling and being called out.
The other team served a few
times. We didn’t make any major errors, but they gained back some of our lead.
Finally Mary spiked the ball to get control back on our side. We rotated
positions on the possession change. I was stuck serving, my least favorite part
of the game and one of the reasons we still ran a 4-2. No jump-serve for me.
Kelly promised she’d teach me if I could ever get enough control. My weak serve
barely cleared the net, falling gently over and setting up a perfect situation
for the other team.
We ended up winning the first
game 25-14 but we lost the second game 21-25. As the third game was nearing its
start, Coach told us to not give up.
“Play hard. This is our house
and we’re not going to lose this match!”
We served first and Kelly gave
us a nice start to the game. Then we were met with disaster! The Bears slammed
down a spike that Sharyn dug for and although she missed the ball, she ate the
floor when she did it. Blood was everywhere. She bit her lip and split her chin
and the game was paused for an injury time-out. The school janitor came in to
clean up the blood and Coach substituted Laura for Sharyn. Laura was a good
hitter so I didn’t know why she didn’t play more. Then I realized exactly why.
“Ellie.
We need to switch to a 5-1. We just don’t have the depth to put in another
setter.”
Her voice sounded as if it was
in a tunnel. She grasped me by both arms and barked, forcing me to lift my eyes
from the floor.
“Look at me!”
Looking up at her, I felt like
a two-year-old being scolded by my mother.
“Ellie, you’re the best natural
talent I’ve seen since college. You can do this. Run the floor!”
I shook my head to try to stop
the echoing as my stomach cramped. I rubbed hard on my stomach, hoping I could
release the gut wrenching pain. What was she thinking? Me run the floor? I took
a deep breath and looked across the floor to Jordan, who was giving me the
thumbs up and making a whiney face mocking Sharyn. If nothing else he made me
smile. Kelly came from behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders.
“We got this,” she said.
Only a few minutes removed from
Sharyn’s injury and still everything seemed as if it was moving in slow motion.
It felt like it took an hour to walk to my position. Shaking out my hands,
hoping my fear would go with it, the Bears setter looked at me and smirked. She
knew she was older, more experienced. What was I doing? Was I crazy? I closed
my eyes, reminding myself that I’d worked hard for this. This was my position.
I could still hear Sharyn
screaming on the bench. Her parents were there to help get her settled down,
fighting over whether they should leave now for the emergency room or wait
until the end of the game.
I don’t know where I found it,
but somewhere deep inside I found the courage to step up to the situation. I
kept telling myself it was just practice. The ball went back and forth a few
times. The score was now tied 25-25. We needed two points to win. Betsy served
us up an ace which was great. No pressure. If she could do that one more time,
we would win.
Slam!
The ball went deep into the left hand corner. Pass, set, get low, get low,
get low, here comes the spike. Kelly dug the ball, but it came off her arms
wrong. I ran to where it flew my eyes trained on the ball, refusing to let it
get away. This was my job! I had to get this ball and set up for the kill.
Yelling “mine, mine, mine” at the top of my lungs, I ran across the floor.
Finally catching it on my fingertips right by the stands, I did a back set, yelling
“5-2, 5-2, 5-2,” letting Mary know it was coming to her and low at that. I felt
myself falling backwards. I knew I had to turn, but the arch from my back
getting it to Mary was enough to upset my center of balance. I fell back in
time to see her slam home a spike that went right through the defenders’ block
and hit between the left and center back players. They both dove, missing the
ball and ended up hitting each other.
Our bench erupted. I scrambled
to get myself off the floor and this was when I realized I truly never fell.
Someone’s strong hand was holding me on my low back above my waist. I lifted my
head. Oscar’s deep brown eyes were like a warm inviting macchiato begging me to
fall forward to him. My legs were straddling one of his own.
He slowly pulled me up so I
stood upright, but he kept his hand on the small of my back. His hand was so
massive it fit across the whole of my back. I clutched his shoulders for
balance and to let him know he could let me go. But he kept looking in my eyes.
If I didn’t turn I’d be eternally lost in his.
“Aahh…thanks. I think I got it
from here.”
“Great save. Lucky for you I
was here to save your life.”
I never heard his voice before,
it was deep and comforting.
“I never knew anyone who died
from fallin’ on their butt,” I replied.
The other girls pulled me as
his hand slipped from behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw him talking
to some of the other football players, his eyes keeping watch on me. We lined
up to shake hands and echoes a chorus of “good game.” Coach was telling us to
get rest, finish our homework and hit the showers. Not necessarily in that
order.
