Brannan and Mark
Brannan is a burnout, a hot mess of a high school senior, hiding behind a curtain of jet-black hair and repelling her classmates with bad behavior. Dogged by a past sexual assault and parental abandonment, she’s crafted a snarky, give-a-shit façade to shield herself from human connection long enough to graduate and get the hell out of dodge. If she lives that long. Using alcohol and sex to numb her pain, Brannan is on a road to self-destruction.
Her one escape, her one safe place, away from her shame, away from her guardian uncle who blames Brannan for her mother’s alcohol-poisoning death is an abandoned shack in the woods. When she’s not swinging from a chandelier, Brannan isolates herself there, where she’s surrounded by silence, where she can read, write down her thoughts, and drink the vodka she steals from her uncle’s liquor store. Alone.
However, when the owner of the shack returns to town from college and finds Brannan squatting in his cabin, she sees her one shelter from the world, and from herself, evaporate. But Mark doesn’t kick her out. Instead, he offers her unconditional, platonic friendship and encouragement, and free use of his cabin.
Between Mark and Brannan’s annoyingly kind, Little Miss Sunshine classmate, who wants to be Brannan’s new friend, Brannan’s tough façade cracks. A spark of hope flashes in her heart, and she can finally see a brighter future, one that doesn’t see her following in her mother’s footsteps.
But when Mark crosses the friend-zone line and kisses her, Brannan’s world shatters. Unable to process genuine human affection, she shuts Mark out and falls back into her self-destructive cycle. Only this time, she crosses her one boundary, becomes entrapped by her druggie friends, and must find the courage to see her self-worth before she proves her uncle right and ends up just like her mom.
© 2024 Murphy Ellis