NoQS Monster 1 - 28 Days, YA Contemp.

Name: Abbey L. Nash
Twitter Handle: @nash_abbey
Title: 28 DAYS
Genre: YA Contemporary
Word Count: 73K



My Main Character's Most Fearsome Obsession is:

Eli’s perfect life is a lie. His deepest fear is that one day he’ll slip up, and everyone will see he’s a fraud. Without Grandpa’s money, Eli wouldn't have set foot in LionsHeart Academy; Savannah wouldn't have given him a second glance. The real Eli, the one that whispers from the darkest corners of his mind, begging for the pills hidden in his sock drawer, knows he doesn’t deserve what he has. His own father didn’t think he was worth sticking around for. Eventually everyone at school will figure it out, too: Eli’s a Nobody. He doesn’t matter at all.

Query:

Rehab is for junkies—not popular high school seniors like Eli Ross. Eli’s just been named captain of the lacrosse team, and he’s dating Savannah—the hottest, most popular girl at LionsHeart Academy. And even though he uses heroin occasionally, he definitely doesn’t have a drug problem. Everybody uses once in awhile…right?

It’s not until Eli overdoses at a party that his perfect life falls apart. His girlfriend breaks up with him. He’s kicked off the lacrosse team. And his mom decides to send him to LakeShore Recovery Center, an inpatient substance abuse treatment program where he’ll spend the next twenty-eight days.

Eli floats through his treatment program, counting the days until he can get back to his life. But all of that changes when he meets Libby, an artist with razor-sharp edges and a dark secret of her own. Libby is the first person to see into Eli’s heart, shining a light on the emotional scars his father left behind.

But Libby gets discharged, only to return in an ambulance. She’s relapsed—OD’d. Now Eli, on the cusp of relapse himself, must decide if he can embrace recovery when it means abandoning the first girl who’s ever loved him…scars and all.

First 250:

You don’t think about these things as they happen. The days, the moments, the final seconds before everything changes.

You’re invincible. Nothing can touch you.

Until it does.

__________


Before

Sudden death.

First game of the season, and we’re heading into overtime, neck and neck with our arch rivals, the Wolves. Four minutes left. First goal wins.

Four minutes to prove to Coach Wilson and smug President Schaeffer that they made the right choice by naming me lacrosse captain this year.

My eyes are blurry with sweat, and something wet drips down my chin. My nose is running.
I yank up my helmet and swipe my nose across my sleeve.

Coach Wilson stands beside the bench, his thick arms crossed over his pot belly. He glances down at me. “You alright, kid?”

“Allergies,” I mutter, lowering my helmet. “I’m fine.”

“Still,” he says, “better drink up.” He tosses me a Gatorade.

I squirt blue liquid through my mouthpiece and look over my shoulder at the bleachers. The crowd’s all riled up. I spot Savannah with her friends, anxiously clutching a frappacino. She painted my number on her tee shirt; it’s knotted up in the back, showing off the tight skin of her stomach above her jeans.

Grandpa’s down front, working the crowd like he does at the country club, chatting up the other old-timer alums cheering on their high school alma mater. Mom’s on the phone—a work call, probably. She gives me a thumbs-up that I ignore.