Twenty-Four Seconds from Now: Chapter 3

Which is why he never misses a beat whenever his favorite daughter wants to add what always seems like a giant cymbal crash to their home.

But only movies about summer or winter, love or heartbreak, or that take place on sprawling landscapes.

And on top of all this, Turtle also has this special brain thing called synesthesia.

Took me a long time to learn how to pronounce this, and even longer to understand what it means.

So in those moments when Turtle only wants monochromatic meals, it’s because she gets fixated on a sound that color makes.

And when you got that much going on—Mrs. Wright’s constant practicing, Turtle’s specialized musical training and random moments of color bursts, and Maestro doing...pretty much everything else—the Wright residence is almost never empty.

And when you got that much going on—Mrs. Wright’s constant practicing, Turtle’s specialized musical training and random moments of color bursts, and Maestro doing...pretty much everything else—the Wright residence is almost never empty.

She’s been practicing all month but made it clear that she didn’t want Aria to come, even though Aria is like a one-person pep rally.

At the end of our junior year, I debuted my first short documentary in film class.

Make a film between three and five minutes long using what we’d studied all year: theme, narrative, composition, score, editing.

A masterpiece making a statement on the evolution (or lack thereof) of communication.

Even though I got a C on it, it was clear by the scrunched-up faces that no one in class really understood my avant-garde brilliance.

Aria agreed to sit this one out, first and foremost because her sister asked, and secondmost because she knew this gave us the chance to...be together.

Even though she likes flowers, she don’t like them more than breaded, deep-fried, misshapen chunks of chicken breast.

I’d spent hours down at the hall, minding the suspicious and superstitious bingo players.

Just dole out extra cards to whoever wants them and cash out the winners.

But then I looked at all the good luck charms lined up in front of her—a bottle of pink nail polish, a pair of sunglasses, an old car key, a frayed book, a Barbie doll, a figurine of a dog, a tiny skull, a quarter, a coffee mug, a movie ticket, a corkscrew, and a creased-up funeral program—and decided to just count out the money again.

It had the largest payout, and when Mrs. Monihan Bingo’d!, she stood up and sang it in a dramatic falsetto as if Neon Bingo were a concert hall.

I’d heard the stories about him over the years, but when you hit big after losing so much, you think more about reimbursement than reminiscing.

If I could’ve afforded it or knew where to get it, there would’ve been some caviar on those chicken tenders.

I stared at the car dealership across the street, the fluorescent graffiti advertising the DAZZLING DEALS written huge on the showroom windows.

And if I ain’t have no comeback, I’d just lean in for a kiss, because that’s the ultimate default.

And if I ain’t have no comeback, I’d just lean in for a kiss, because that’s the ultimate default.

And if I ain’t have no comeback, I’d just lean in for a kiss, because that’s the ultimate default.

It was me who felt like my throat was a little blocked, as if the chicken-fried sawdust was lodged somewhere along the runway between apple and sternum, which wasn’t no distance at all.