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H20 the novel

By Brannon Hollingsworth, Austin Boyd

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(Preview)

<b>Chapter One</b>

Water spilled over the blade of my knife like liquid silk. Flushed by the stream, raw fish swirled down the kitchen drain on a mysterious journey, headed back to Puget Sound and home. Fluid poetry gushed from the tap, beauty rinsing away grime. I held my hand under its caress, entranced. Water was too special, too eternal, to be so common.

“Aren’t you finished yet?” Xavier asked, shaking his head as he peered into the kitchen sink of my Seattle condominium, just an arm’s distance from the fish I prepared. “I can’t believe people eat this stuff.”

I dangled a fresh slice of buttery-rich raw tuna before him and winked. He jerked back as though contact with beady-eyed water creatures might taint him. Perhaps he feared that one brush against piscine slime would transform him into a rough guy on the wharf or a wrinkled old man sitting by a pond with a cane pole.

“Skip the drama, Xavier,” I said with a laugh, biting into the sweet flesh. I brushed bangs out of my eyes with the back of my hand and waved another slice of tuna in his direction. He ignored me.

“My guests will be here in half an hour,” he said, retreating toward the den. “The main dish still has scales on it.”

“You can’t see tuna scales, X. So, quit worrying. I’ll be ready.” I picked up a quarter section of tuna waiting to be skinned and drew in a long whiff, pretending to take a bite out of the whole fish. Xavier just shook his head.

“They’re donating for your cause, but they’re here to eat my sashimi—and they’ll love it.” I popped a second slice of tuna in my mouth and savored it as I went back to slicing fish. “Go pour some more wine or something.” I sighed, wishing he’d go out for a walk and leave me alone.

When I looked up from the knife a few moments later, he stood halfway across the room, his eyes narrowed. I knew the look. “I’ll bet that stuff is what makes you fat,” he said, the last ugly word drawn out for emphasis. The thin arches of his eyebrows rose like black scalpels above eyes that probed for any hint of something soft. Sky-blue irises, devoid of love, scoured my nakedness on the hunt for the plump evidence of joy—as if eating around him could ever be called joy. In his mind, I was failing him, stuck at a hundred and two pounds in a tight size two.

I looked back down to the dead fish, my only friend, and pushed the knife hard against its firm, cool flesh. I knew my failings. But not as well as he did, apparently. I love to cook. I love to eat. And even if I am a size two, the joy of food has left its mark—however slight—on my middle.

“I lost another pound,” I offered, almost under my breath. I didn’t have to see him to feel those black scalpels above his eyes stripping away what little dignity I had left. The truth was easy to see. My tummy was soft. And it always would be. “I’m sure it’s not water weight.” My voice cracked in the midst of the lie.

“What-eeeever, Ms. Pepper.” He frowned and turned away, not looking back.

“Shut up!” I slammed my left fist on the cutting board and stepped toward him, knife in hand. Xavier spun around and caught my glare. When I waved the long razor-sharp Fujiwara in his direction, he backed out of reach. Harping on my weight was one thing, but now he’d gone too far.

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