Update Link: Hits Different – Part 32

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a great week. I left the building with my grading up to date which is nearly impossible, lol.

This has been such a fun flash fiction to share with you guys! It’s definitely going on the list to edit, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you might like to see fleshed out or if there were areas you might have thought was missing. Flash Fics tend to be distilled down to the essential scenes since they’re first drafts, and you don’t always know what you wished you would have done until you get to later parts of the story 😛

You’re reading a “first draft” as I write it, so it’s always helpful to hear your thoughts and opinions about what’s going on and where it might go. You influence story a lot more than you think, especially early on. I try to write my flash fictions by planning the first act, and then letting feedback and the actual work push me through Act 2, and then I plan Act 3 when I have a better sense of the world.

On THAT note, let’s talk schedule for next week!

A brilliant reader left an incredibly insightful review of For the Broken Girl over on Archive Of Our Own, and it got me thinking, and you know that’s a dangerous thing for me, lol. I opened a Google Doc and started brainstorming, and I have something. (If you’re interested, I’m attaching the section of my Google Doc where I set out the premise at the bottom of this post).

Either Saturday or Monday, I’m going to start the new series voted on by my Patreon Readers, Chain Reaction. On Wednesday, I’ll give you the first part of Warning Shots, inspired by LilaB at Archive Of Our Own.  I’ll alternate both stories until mid June, when school ends and I can add a fourth day to write both at once. Because I REALLY want to write this story, lol.

Synopses (Preliminary)

Chain Reaction
Set in Fall 2003. Jason and Elizabeth reconnect the night that Emily marries Zander, and find comfort in each other while waiting for the news that the woman they both love has passed away. Emily lives, and old feelings have been stirred up that aren’t as easily put away again. It should be as simple as Elizabeth completing her divorce from psycho husband Ric, and Jason breaking his troubled engagement to Courtney. But this is Port Charles, and nothing comes easy. Especially when Sonny Corinthos, on the brink of a breakdown, is involved.

Warning Shots
Set Fall 1999-Summer 2000. Lucky and Elizabeth, stuck in Port Charles after Elizabeth’s art school funding apart, have been growing apart since Elizabeth opted for PCU and the campus experience living with Emily in the dorms, and Lucky decided to stick to working for Jason and Sonny as their tech support. Elizabeth is living her best life, thriving in her art program, and even rushing for a sorority. Rediscovering Lizzie, the brash, impulsive girl she’d been before she’d been shattered. But not everyone is happy by Lizzie’s resurgence, and Elizabeth begins to wonder just which parts of her Lucky fell in love with. When Emily is blackmailed after waking up next to a dead cop without any memory, it’s not going to be Lucky that Elizabeth can count on. It’s going to be someone else — someone who’s been on the fringes of her life for months, quietly bolstering and encouraging her fledgling confidence.  When push comes to shove, will Elizabeth stay with the comfort of the old or move on to new adventures and new love?

PREMISE – Warning Shots

In Broken Girl, in one of the later chapters, I have Elizabeth and Lucky (post Manny reconciliation phase) argue at Luke’s about her “Lizzie” days.

“That’s what you meant that day back in the hospital,” she said. He frowned at her. “When you asked where that girl went—you really did hate Lizzie Webber, and all this time—all this time, you’ve been acting like that girl died the night Tom Baker pulled me into the bushes—”

“Elizabeth—”

“No, that’s not—” Lucky exhaled slowly. “No. That’s not what I meant, Elizabeth. I’m—” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’m sorry if that’s how it sounds. But you know I’m not imagining things. You were different after.”

“Lucky,” Emily murmured. “This really isn’t—”

“I was different after that night.” Elizabeth twisted her wedding ring on her hand, wishing she hadn’t picked this fight. Lucky wasn’t wrong, but he also didn’t get it. And maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing. But it felt like it mattered. “I guess I didn’t realize how important that was to you.”

Lucky frowned. “Of course it was. That’s who I fell in love with—”

Emily closed her eyes. “Oh, you idiot—”

“Got it.” Elizabeth got to her feet, tossed back the last of her margarita, and picked up her purse. “I’m going to call a cab home. Good night.”

And then later, Emily and Liz talk about this and Liz comes to the stark realization that she’d thrown Jason away, a man who knew and loved her as she was, to save a boy who wouldn’t love her she was now.  It’s her “dark moment” – her lowest point.

A reader replied just yesterday:

I would love a story set in 1999 in which the garage fire either never happened or it actually was an accident and Lucky didn’t die. No Helena at all. Then you could explore the TRUTH you exposed in this chapter and in “The Ghost in the Girl”: Lucky never loved Elizabeth. He loved who she was when she was traumatized after being raped. I truly think if Lucky hadn’t “died”, then he and Elizabeth would have broken up because her true personality started to emerge more and more as she was healing from what happened to her. And he would have hated it. Because he prefers her quiet; which is the most damning thing I think can be said about a relationship. I always thought that Elizabeth and pre-2009 Jason were a perfect match on every level. What would have happened if Lucky was alive when Elizabeth started getting close to Jason in 1999?

And you know me, of course my brain started wondering – how would LL2.1 (pre-fire JJ) have looked if Elizabeth had continued healing and finding her “Lizzie” self again – would she and Lucky have grown together and stayed in love – could Liason have worked without that “origin story” of Elizabeth mourning Lucky. 

I mean, the answer should be yes for the Liason question. A well-matched couple works together no matter how they “meet”. 

But now – I have to wonder – how does that story look different? So here I am, trying to see if I can figure out how to answer that question.

+18