It’s a good thing San Diego’s on the west coast, because my San Diego Momma free write entry is coming in just under the midnight wire.

This week’s assignement is to tell a story. Which I don’t actually think I’ve accomplished at all. But I did start a story. That’s gotta count for something, right?

She hated her name. Spring. It sounded fresh like the pale purple hyacinth buds poking out of her mother’s front flower bed. It sounded peppy, bouncy, chirpy like an egg yolk-yellow chick. Spring was neither fresh nor chirpy. She was probably nothing like what her mother had expected, or hoped. Her mother with her Baptist Women’s Retreat planning and office supply store work, everything stacked, everything tabbed with color-coded dividers. No, Spring was some sort of genetic mutant. A sullen, cynical, black-eyeliner-wearing deviant.

Sullen. Spring tried the word, feeling its meanness in her mouth, like the inefficient hiss of a garter snake.

She kicked a pebble in front of her as she walked, ignoring the glare of the woman who stepped off the sidewalk to avoid the stone. Old bat. It wasn’t like Spring had hit her. Although she could have, if she’d wanted to.

Suddenly, she remembered a pre-sullen age. Soccer on her elementary school field. The snug grip of her cleats and the smell of quartered oranges, freshly cut and waiting on the sideline.

Why had she quit soccer? Spring snorted. It probably had something to do with…