Pitch Polish #55

Title:  Maybe Forever

Genre: YA science fiction

Word count: 64,000 words

Query:

Clocks predict your death, but they can't tell you how you'll die.

Keller knew full well her dad was going to die; his Clock had been nearing its final countdown for a while. But she wasn't prepared when that truck—the one with the dent in the right door and the peeling red paint—slammed into the driver's side of their minivan. Now her mother is gone, her father is gone, and her older brother thinks he can act like the parent.

Before her father's death, Keller was a straight-A student, a wall flower, a daddy’s girl. But things change when she meets Sebastian. She makes a list of things she wants to do to push the pain and sadness away. First is smoking, next her first party, where she gets drunk. She wants to steal something, to break curfew, to have her first kiss, and she wants to do all of those things with Sebastian.

But Sebastian has a secret that could ruin everything.

First 150:

Bourbon-spiked punch doesn’t stop the gnawing in my gut. Grandma’s kisses can’t still the shaking of my fingers as I raise another plastic cup to my lips. A sun the size of my pain, shining through the living room windows, fails to warm the numbness inside of me. The whispers creep in—family members talking behind their hands, eyes on me.

            I slide trembling fingers over my tulip-pink skirt and tuck my hands into the pockets. My fingers curl around my father’s timepiece there.

            Someone named Marcus, or Malcolm, tells me how sorry he is for my loss. He says he’s my father’s cousin, but I’ve never seen him before.

            Marcus-Malcolm shakes my hand. His wife gives me a soft hug and her weak body trembles. When she pulls away, I notice the chain around her neck, the Clock ticking there.

“Eight days,” I say, reading the numbers counting down.