Excerpt from Hard Time by @ShelbyKentStewa

EXCERPT FROM HARD TIME
BY
SHELBY KENT-STEWART

            Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed and today qualifies big-time. Knowing I’m about

​to die is a bummer, but being complicit in my own death truly sucks. It’s not like suicide where I

made a conscious decision to pull the plug. This is worse. This is senseless. This is death by

stupidity.

            Who am I? I’m Self-Destructo Girl, the hot mess you warn your sons about. The girl who

aced the SATs at fifteen and celebrated by dropping out of high school. The girl who fled a

halfway decent foster home for the bright lights of the big city and wound up sleeping in a

dumpster. I’m the girl next door, assuming your neighbor is a whacked-out, drugged-up freak

show. Oh yeah, and I’m eidetic, the geeky genius with total memory recall, a fact I should have

kept to myself and not screamed at the Russian goons I saw offing some guy in an alley. Death

by stupidity. Get it?

            So here I am fighting a losing battle with the frigid darkness of the Atlantic Fucking

Ocean and waving ‘dosvedanya’ to the douchebags who dumped me here. Whoever said

drowning was a peaceful way to go was never thrown off a boat in the dead of winter — and

I’m guessing they weren’t bleeding from a knife wound either. The best I can hope for is

hypothermia before every great white within a hundred miles makes a beeline for my butt.

I guess this is when I should start negotiating with the Big Guy, begging him to spare my

life so I can turn it around and be all I can be, but we both know that ain’t happening. I’m a lot

of things but I’m not a hypocrite, and God’s way too smart to buy into my bullshit. He wouldn’t

recognize me anyway. I came into this world with downy curls and rosy cheeks, and I’m going

out with a spiky pink faux-hawk and sufficient piercings and tats to outfit a biker gang.

Who am I? I’m nobody anyone will miss, but for the record, my name is Gabrielle

Sutton, Gabi to my friends.

            But you can call me shark bait.

COMING IN 2017

To read more by Shelby, visit ShelbyKentStewart.com

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