The "I Can't Say It" Blog Fest AND Wednesday WIP!

Shelley at Stories in the Ordinary is hosting the "I Can't Say That!" Blog Fest today. Follow the link and stop on by. Check out the other wonderful and varied offerings from other writers in the blogisphere.

Since said Blog Fest fell on a Wednesday (Wednesday WIP), I wrote mine as yet another scrap to arrange into my WIP (and edit later when I have more of that chapter). I even had a place for said scrap before I wrote it, just hadnt gotten to it yet. The below bit will be in my WIP 'Ghost Mountain and will be used as a flashback later in the story. A scene that helps the reader better understand why my MC Wyatt made some of the choices he did.

Enough chat. Here we go...

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"Ya tell people what they’ve meant to you, boy…"

Wyatt shook away his Uncles words and stood a little straighter in the doorway of his father’s hospital room. ‘I can do this.’

“So ya just gonna slouch there moping? You were always such a god damned mope.”

“How would you know Eli, you haven’t seen me in six years…”

“That was your choice, boy. You and that milquetoast brother of mine. I say you deserve one another.”

It WAS Wyatt’s choice and it was his uncle who gave it to him—his Uncle, Ms. Sissy and Mary. A chance at a new life away from this man.

“So you think showing up at your daddies deathbed is gonna make it all better then!” A harsh bark became a fit of ragged coughs. Emaciated, life worn, cancer riddled and as mean streaked as he always was or would be, Eli Paxton bent forward in his hospital bed clutching his snot rag to his mouth and then spat another clot of blood into the emptied bed pan in his lap.

Wyatt made no move to help the man, nor did he leave. He was here to tell Eli—this never-was-a-father-by-a-long-shot man exactly what he meant to him. How after all Eli had done, it would not stop Wyatt from becoming a better man than the man who bore him. Wyatt was going to tell him so he could let him go…

“And you brought that Givens girl with ya.” Eli nodded past Wyatt to the young girl down the hospital hall. “I heard about you two. My do-nothing mope of a son fornicating with that uppity little Givens girl.”

“Leave her alone…”

Eli snorted at Wyatt’s disdain. “Oh I am certain her pa is none too pleased. Already knows what kind of mate Paxton’s make. You’ll mess her up good, boy. And you’ll run just like your mamma.”

Silence fell between the men where Wyatt had wanted his words to begin and underlying fears found their way into Wyatt’s heart. He wanted to tell his old man he’d never run. He wanted to shout that it was Eli who chased his mother away. And he wanted to swear he would never hurt Mary—never Mary. But the words didn’t come. There would be no strength in them and his Uncle always told him saying nothing was better than saying something you didn’t feel.

Not long after, Wyatt stepped out into the hall knowing if he’d said how he felt to the old man the words could have built in strength. Maybe he would have believed them in time if he’d just said them aloud. And not long after Mary wrapped her arms around his ridged form in support, did Wyatt realize he would let his father’s dying words come true.