Welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Each morning I spend fifteen minutes writing on a singular story line. Each morning starts with the last line of the previous day. The goal is to get a (very) rough draft out of the simple story idea and to avoid letting the story idea languish in limbo forever, actually writing it out. This is the third year I have done this writing experiment and each year I learn just a little bit about myself and the way I write as well as creating a framework for the story. But without further ado…
Day 154: She was sure most of those she knew would be in attendance.
She was sure most of those she knew would be in attendance. “After all why hold the wedding before everyone leaves for wherever they are going post summer if you aren’t going to invite everyone?”
Gwen shook her head. If the wedding went off early as it was supposed to, then the memory of it should have faded from conversation. “Everyone has to be talking about something else by now.”
Gwen pulled up her page and saw she had a few friendly posts and mentions. She also saw some messages sent to her. Those she went into first. The messages were not as bad as she feared. They were mostly people asking how she was doing and what her plans were. A couple of people wanted to know if she was going to be back at the end of the summer.
Gwen relaxed at the lack of comments about Lisa and Toby and answered the messages. She let people know that she was coming back to pick up her things but would be leaving soon after. She told them she’d let them know the date when she was certain and left it at that.
Once she checked her messages and notifications, she poked around on the other websites to see what was happening with everyone else. Some were working for the summer and some for the year while others were in more permanent positions. Some were getting ready for fall classes, wither in the local community college or elsewhere outside Westport. A few had already left.
It was interesting to see what everyone was up to. It was however puzzling that she saw no mention of the wedding. Gwen chewed her lip and thought about it. Did she want to know? She thought about going back and being blindsided by information when someone mentioned something out of the blue.
The thought reminded her too much of sitting at the table when Toby told her he had been seeing Lisa.
“Better to know now,” she decided. She clicked onto Lisa’s page. There were no wedding photos and not a single mention of the wedding. There were photos of Lisa that were posted after Gwen left. They were mostly selfies or pictures of food, mainly desserts.
Gwen looked at the pictures wondering if any of them were wedding cake. None of them were.
“Maybe she realized she couldn’t pull the wedding off in less than a month and decided to wait,” Gwen mused as she scrolled through pictures. “Odd that there aren’t any of Toby.”
Gwen looked at every picture on Lisa’s site. Strangely not only were there no new pictures of Toby but any old pictures were taken away as well. There were still pictures of her, but anytime there was a group photo with either Sam or Toby, it had been removed.
Frowning, Gwen scanned through the posts looking to see if she could figure out what happened.
Ten til Midnight 