June 2022 Time for Once Chapter Sneak Peek
If you follow me on TikTok, you may have seen this video. The words are from Time for Once, my debut women’s fiction novel that explores the messy process of understanding ourselves, relationships, and life in general, and how time can be such a fickle little bee, eye, tee, C, H—, ahem, and how time plays into those things. I hope you enjoy the extended sneak peek of this snippet.
note: I replaced the character names with their pronouns.
"I ruined it, didn't I?" She asked.
He bit around the nail bed of this thumb.
Crap. It was too late to retract the loaded question. He sat still but full of motion, gnawing it over. She could only wait and see if his skin would break into blood. Or she could try and wash his hands clean with her own vulnerability. If only her words could sanitize his wounds.
"Here's the thing," he said, after he'd successfully reddened the skin around his thumb to a color she'd coined "cuticle apple red." "We will always have the ruins of our past relationship, built by us, weathered down by us, but not completely demolished, right?"
She nodded.
"But there's a unique beauty in ruins," he said. "Like Machu Picchu, or I guess the Colosseum."
"Always wanted to go to both," she said with a sigh.
He dipped his head. "I remember," he said, then glanced at her. "There's beauty in ours too, although less Roman and bloody." He paused as he looked down at his torn-up fingers. "My point is, the evidence of a fallen past still standing in the present day is a sight to behold. A display of strength, of tenacity, of a history that refuses to be forgotten, no matter the years of suffering. So if we're ruined, I say, fuck yeah."
Her own thoughts muted in recognition of his stunning words. "You think we're beautifully ruined?" she asked.
"More than you realize."