Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Alicia's Two Years: The First Six Months
    Alicia's Two Years: The First Six Months
    Alicia's Two Years: The First Six Months
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    Alicia's Two Years: The First Six Months

    By Joshua Renneke

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Alicia's Two Years tells the story of a two-year period in the lives of Alicia and her friends. They're all in their early twenties and living life with no real plan for the future.

    Alicia is 24 and just living her life. Sometimes she feels...not really depressed, just caught up in something too vivid for her. She'll spend what turns out to be the last two years of her life trying to understand it

    Faye is Alicia's best friend. She never speaks above a whisper, but her friends still love her for being a lot wilder than she seems.

    Chad is a laidback guy who likes drinking and going to the beach to chase girls.

    These friends, along with everyone in their lives, begin living a memorable two-year period in their lives.

    Read the first six months for free!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoshua Renneke
    Release dateSep 6, 2011
    ISBN9781465880901
    Alicia's Two Years: The First Six Months
    Author

    Joshua Renneke

    I started writing because I wanted to put something out there that was entertaining but intelligent, and didn't follow a generic template for what a story should be. I don't like stories that tell you what to think or feel, and I'm tired of filler in books I read.I had fun writing all of these stories, and I hope you enjoy reading them. I want to hear from you! Write me at joshuarenneke@yahoo.com or creep my Instagram @deleca

    Read more from Joshua Renneke

    Related to Alicia's Two Years

    Related ebooks

    Coming of Age Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A summer TREAT

      Jun 24, 2021

      A summer TREAT
      10 min read

    • Article

      Freedom

      Aug 6, 2020

      Freedom
      7 min read

    • Article

      Stranger Danger

      May 18, 2022

      Stranger Danger
      10 min read

    • Article

      Stranger Danger

      May 18, 2022

      Stranger Danger
      10 min read

    • Article

      Human Contact

      Aug 10, 2022

      Beer tasted like wet money—or maybe just bad beer did. Viola had never tried any other kind. She preferred white wine, but there was no white wine at this party. “Drink it like medicine,” the guy manning the keg said. “It’ll loosen you up.” He wore a

      18 min read

    • Article

      La Bohème

      Mar 1, 2022

      ON A SATURDAY or Sunday afternoon in the cold early months of 1988, I sat alone at a table for two in a Greenwich Village diner, twenty-four years old, hopelessly young, my notebook open in front of me. At the table next to mine were three people, al

      13 min read

    • Article

      Park’n’ride

      Sep 1, 2022

      FIRST PLACE SHORT STORY Ian Gouge w rote his first story when he was five: an illustrated space adventure he can still visualise today. He has written ever since. He completed his first full-length work of fiction in the 1990s and wrote three books

      4 min read

    • Article

      Evenings with Clarice Lispector’s Newest Translator

      Apr 24, 2018

      1. “I’ve been working on the translation nonstop—it’s like I’m in a trance,” Magdalena Edwards told me in early March 2017, while preparing a gin and tonic at her house in Santa Monica. I walked there from my place—we live very close to one another.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Sienna’s Monster

      Mar 10, 2021

      Sienna lived with a monster, but no one else knew it. The first time Sienna realized that her monster wasn’t like the rest was in 4th grade. The whole grade assembled in the auditorium. A police officer watched them enter from his place on the stage.

      26 min read

    • Article

      The Abortions I Have Known

      Mar 17, 2019

      The Abortions I Have Known
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Lady In The Tent

      Mar 23, 2021

      The Lady In The Tent
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Missing Limousine

      Sep 28, 2021

      The Missing Limousine
      21 min read

    • Article

      Q-tip Options

      Oct 10, 2023

      I am not a good person. Abby was at my door. My reaction when I saw her should have been more charitable. She was young and cute and needy, but all I wanted was a nice relaxing day at home. When the police questioned her, I should have let them take

      16 min read

    • Article

      The Next Morning

      Mar 14, 2018

      The Next Morning
      10 min read

    • Article

      Sienna’s Monster

      Sep 10, 2023

      Sienna lived with a monster, but no one else knew it. The first time Sienna realized her monster wasn’t like the rest was in fourth grade. The whole grade assembled in the auditorium. A police officer watched them enter from his place on the stage. H

      27 min read

    • Article

      The Duplex

      Jun 9, 2020

      I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart. My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey,

      21 min read

    • Article

      CHLÉ On A High

      Aug 16, 2023

      CHLÉ On A High
      9 min read

    • Article

      CHLÉ On A High

      Aug 16, 2023

      CHLÉ On A High
      9 min read

    • Article

      I Do So, Like Durian

      Jun 10, 2021

      The 504-streetcar grated against the curve of the tracks as it entered the station. It pulled to a stop directly in front of Holly. The doors opened with such a clunk that she stepped back, treading on the toes of the person behind her. She was block

      11 min read

    • Article

      Prose

      Jul 6, 2023

      Prose
      2 min read

    • Article

      Star Turn

      Sep 26, 2023

      Star Turn
      5 min read

    • Article

      Suspicious Minds

      Apr 7, 2022

      Suspicious Minds
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Alicia's Two Years

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Alicia's Two Years - Joshua Renneke

      Alicia's Two Years:

      The First Six Months

      by

      Joshua Renneke

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      *****

      PUBLISHED BY:

      Joshua Renneke on Smashwords

      Alicia's Two Years:

      The First Six Months

      Copyright © 2011 by Joshua Renneke

      Discover other titles by Joshua Renneke at

      http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Breasna

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      Chapter One

      June

      Strangers never thought anything of Alicia until they saw her drunk. Every party she went to, she met people who instantly knew they wouldn’t care enough to remember her name even though she seemed nice enough.

      Nice enough can be a curse if you have nothing else going for you.

      Alicia was a girl you wouldn’t be upset about a friend dating, but not one you’d ever look at and want for yourself.

      This was just a random party. Alicia showed up alone around 11.

      She’d been invited by Rob, who decided at the last minute to stay at home and drink by himself when he found out that none of his ex-girlfriend Sara’s friends would be there, so there’d be nobody to make Sara jealous with stories of Rob taking another girl home.

      Alicia didn’t know whose house it was and it didn’t matter; she walked in unnoticed and pushed through the crowd without drawing the attention of anyone. She was pretty in a subtle way that never registered at first sight unless she was the only girl who wasn’t already hooking up with someone.

      Sober, she was friendly enough and confident enough (to be honest she was generic enough) to never inspire anyone to wish she wasn’t there. While her friends adored her, she unfortunately ended up trapped in social circles with no appreciation for subtlety (though social circles is too polite a term for shallow frat boys).

      She didn’t present herself as willful, slutty or provocative enough to be a threat to girls or a target for boys. But when she was drunk her eyes seemed to deepen, in fact exuded a certain confused depth that mesmerized nearly every person around her.

      Even while carrying on separate conversations, they would sneak glances at her and search for meaning in overheard phrases. She led one to sense that she was a riddle that could be solved by looking in her eyes long enough or searching for greater meaning in innocuous things she said.

      She’d been told this, but always awkwardly and by drunk boys (plus a few girls), and didn’t realize it was true. She felt it but never connected her feelings with what others saw in her.

      Whatever secret her eyes hinted at would never be shared; in two years she would be gone, a casualty of chance and her own inability to handle the depth and ambiguity of what she felt not just when drunk, but also when she was alone and/or inactive.

      It was like she was holding up a picture and watching the people in front of it stare openmouthed in awe at what they were seeing, but when she turned it around it was blank. Sometimes the light hit it just right and she would think that she could see the outline of something deeply familiar yet overwhelming from behind, but always it was blank when she tried to face it directly.

      Countless times, others’ instincts had murmured that this girl (for just an instant) was something like the goddesses of myth, as if touching her (or maybe even just seeing her) could lead to death or madness.

      She would die a virgin at the age of 26, inciting a reaction in those who knew her which (if simplified viciously enough) could be described as See? I knew she was special.

      At this point in the party every guy still held out hope that if Erica (the blond girl in short shorts) got drunk enough, he’d end up fucking her.

      The refrigerator and counters were full of partially empty liquor bottles and things to mix them with. Alicia took her time deciding. At 24, she knew enough to think of the bottles like road signs that pointed toward different destinations, even though she was wrong about what some of them were.

      Rum and pineapple juice, she thought, would make her night end on the bathroom floor with her shirt soaked in sweat and nobody holding her hair back while she threw up. Again.

      Beer would lead to her being just drunk enough to not notice how fast time was going by, but not drunk enough to do anything she’d regret. Somehow this wasn’t what she wanted though.

      Vodka/Red Bull would probably mean…..

      A brunette in too much makeup walked upstairs and within seconds had a preppy introducing himself and asking what she wanted to drink. She smiled and said she didn’t know, why didn’t he help her decide?

      (The night would end with the brunette coyly supplying a fake number but ultimately giving nothing in exchange for all the attention she’d received.)

      No one talked to Alicia or asked what she wanted to drink, so she poured a glass of a brown liquor she’d never heard of and stood in the corner of the kitchen sipping it cautiously.

      She was so used to being invisible when she got to parties that she held the glass against her mouth for a full five seconds when she realized there was a boy on the verge of deciding whether to talk to her. He looked a few years younger than her. Alicia’s instincts murmured Drunk enough to try to hook up with me, but not enough experience to know how.

      You like that? he finally asked.

      Like what?

      You’re drinking my rum. I was hoping you at least like it….

      Oh.

      Well?

      Well….you shouldn’t have left it on the counter at a party.

      He laughed. You must be Justina.

      No. I’m Alicia.

      Oh. He paused, unsure how to end the conversation.

      Fine, I’ll ask. Who’s Justina?

      You know Dustin? Well Dustin told me to avoid Justina because she stole liquor and was a bitch.

      Is this how you flirt with girls?

      No. He grinned. Is this why you’re standing alone?

      Because I’m a bitch that steals liquor?

      Now she laughed.

      No, I’m standing here alone because I don’t see anyone I know. Is Rob here?

      Naw, he called Eric and said he had to work early or something.

      Shit.

      You wanna come play darts downstairs? You’ll meet people.

      She paused a second and said, No, I’ll maybe just go to the bathroom and leave.

      Rejected, he walked away to rejoin the darts game.

      The bathroom counter was full of beer cans and Alicia wiped the toilet seat off without bothering to check if it needed to be. She used the sink to water down her rum after washing her hands,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1