Prompt: In the Name of Love

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Love is a many splendored thing…(Alright, Sky promises she’ll stop singing now and get on with it.)

My tuneful warbling notwithstanding, love really is pretty wonderful. But it’s also true that ‘The Course of True Love never did run smooth’.

For this month’s prompt, I’d love you to write me a story (200 words minimum) about love gone wrong or a romantic gesture that failed to come off. It can be comical, it can be tragic, it can be tragically comic (Brush up your Shakespeare...). You can end on ever after or scornful laughter. Just show me the downs as well as the ups.

There is no deadline as such for these prompts but if you’d like it to count towards your chance of earning the award for a specific year, we’ll need it by the end of that school year. If you’re comfortable sharing, then post below. If not, email your story to us via hol.bookclub @ gmail.com (without the spaces). Oh and remember it’s a good idea to check through your piece carefully for spelling and grammatical errors as they make it harder for people to properly enjoy your work.

[Prof. Maxim Trevelyan]

Samuel rang the bell and waited for Kathy to answer. If she even would, since their fight was quite ugly. His face was obscured by the large, yellow sunflowers as a heartfelt apology.

After five minutes, the door opened. 'Sorry for the wait, I was shower-' Kathy trailed off when she noticed the flowers and after cranking her neck, the man hiding behind them.

'Samuel what the-' she started, grabbing the towel closer to her body.

'Sorry, Kathy, I need to get this off my chest,' he interrupted her, seemingly not noticing her state of undress. 'I'm really sorry for how I acted yesterday. I was misogynistic and I shouldn't have insinuated that you should do the dishes. I didn’t say that because you’re a woman, but because I really, really hate doing them. Like, give me anything else to do-‘ Samuel stopped his speech when he saw Kathy’s eyes watering with tears.

‘Em, are you o-?’ he yelped the last syllable. Kathy pushed him away from her, so he almost fell down the stairs of her porch.

‘I’m allergic to flowers you idiot!’ Kathy screamed as she slammed the door shut.

Samuel’s whole demeanor drooped. He got his bearings and slowly started the trek to his car when he heard the door open.

‘Call me later,’ Kathy’s voice flowed to Samuel, before she closed the door again.

While the apology was a complete failure, at least he got another chance.

[Silas Hipolito Crist]

John was feeling extremely nervous, he was trying to calm himself and get ready for the move of his life. He was sure he was doing the right things. Everything else was not important. He was going to ask Sarah out obviously.

He breathed heavily again wating for Sarah, while he was listening to the loud music that was coming out of house in which party was going on. Suddenly she was next to him and John shook of surprise.
Sarah greeted: "Yes John, what is the purpose of this secret meating?" She said in a little irritated voice, because it was surely not the place for secret meetings.
Nervously John opened his mouth, but was disturbed by ringing phone. Sarah exclaimed: "Sorry, but I really need to answer this." She turned away and stepped some steps away.
John gulped and listened to coversation, but he could heard only Sarah.
"Yes sweetie. I will come tommorow." "...." "I am at the party.... No, you know I love only you...."
He heard nothing else because of the bolt that hit his heart so much. She was calling someone sweetie and that she loves someone. Everything was ended.
Call finally ended and Sarah came back. "Here you go John, ask."
But John could not do anything and finally concluded: "I justed want to tell you... that I really want to .... dance with you." He stammered.
Sarah was a little confused: "Okay, surely we can dance. Come inside and let's start."

[Shiloh Adlar]

No matter what I did, the boys kept coming. I was getting tired of flirting as cute as it was at first. Now it was getting frustrating. All fighting for my attention when I wasn't interested in them and they didn't really know what they wanted anyway. I made a decision. It was time to cut my hair and change styles. In fact, what would happen if I ended up just being one of the boys?

And that is how I ended up in a pair of trousers and a boy's blazer with cropped cut hair and Ace bandages. It was an experiment that I didn't expect to go as far as it did. Actually, I began to wonder, I can't quite possibly use the boy's bathroom, could I? Then again, I couldn't use the girl's either while pretending to be a boy.

While I was having this dilemma, one of the boy's who was always flirting with me accidentally bumped into me. He apologized and realized that he hadn't seen me before, at least not the way I was now. After communicating that I was new to the school, he pulled me into the boy's bathroom for a man to man talk or something like that. Unfortunately, we weren't the only two in the bathroom, and I turned away quickly. I guess he thought I was acting funny and he said, "Yo, what's up dude? You're turning red all of a sudden."

I ran out of the bathroom so fast and right into the guy that I actually liked. It was amazing how quickly he started laughing when he realized who I was. In fact, he figured it out fast just by a glance. "What in the world are you doing?"

"You know, trying to escape the boy's restroom."

"I won't ask. But by the way, I'm not really into other guys so kissing you might be a little strange."

"What?" I asked taken aback.

But we kissed, while I was dressed up as a boy, outside the boy's restroom and no one cared because we were the only two that mattered in that whole hall.

[River Fenwick]

Sam had always been more introverted, never putting himself out there socially and dreading the attention of the elitists of the school. That was until Emma transferred over. She was smart and funny, with a laugh that could fill an entire room, which had everyone taken with her immediately, but only one person could be assigned as her lab partner in science, and that was Sam.

Sam had gotten to know Emma over the months since she joined the school, slowly but surely finding his heart beat faster when she looked at him and looked forward to the class every day. It got to a point where Sam could no longer contain his feelings, so he hatched a plan to confess to Emma.

Emma mentioned in passing that her favorite movie was Say Anything (1989), which sparked the idea of recapturing one of the iconic scenes to the best of his ability despite his nature to shy away from public attention to pull this off. He had left his final class of the day a little early to go to Emma's car in her parking spot, sprinkling some flower petals around her car and holding a Bluetooth speaker in his pocket, waiting for Emma.

Once he saw he was approaching the car, Same took the speaker out of his pocket and hit play on his phone, playing a song that conveyed his feelings, Someone to You by BANNERS. However, the tune that started to blast out was not that song, but a different one with the same title and opposite meaning. It was an honest mistake, but Sam was embarrassed as he quickly tried to muffle the speaker and frantically pushed the pause button on his phone.

Emma had still heard it, of course, and noticed the petals as she approached her car. She giggled softly, a flicker of amusement in her eyes as he took in the scene before her. "Are you here to ask me out?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam awkwardly rubbed his neck, shifting to the side to avoid looking at her straight on. "It wasn't supposed to go like this, I swear."

"I see," she commented, a teasing smirk growing on her lips. "Well, hopefully the date will go smoother! I'll expect some improvement."

Sam was left speechless by her optimism and agreement to go on a date, stumbling over his words for a minute as Emma watched him flounder until they quickly exchanged numbers to chat and discuss the future date.