Story Starter Using Book Quote (NMG Creative Writing Challenge #3)

Challenge #3 (modified): Start a story using a random sentence from a book off your shelf. Using a quote from The Pharaoh's Secret by Marissa Moss

I'm both afraid to read more of Meru's book and afraid not to.

He shared the Google Doc with me Saturday morning. The email he had attatched it to had an excited message. I don't remember what it said but I do remember it having a bunch of exclamation points, smiley faces, and something about how he'd been working on it for like 7 months. When I had clicked on it, I was immediatley shocked by how many typos there were. I saw lowercase letters where there should have been capitals, incorrect punctuation and grammar, and an abundance of misspelled words. Immediatley I closed the tab. It would be too hard to read a mess like that. I forgot about that for the rest of the day.

The next morning I went to church, my hair curled and a long skirt draping around my legs. As I sat myself in the wooden pew, Meru scampered up to me. He was wearing a huge grin and a suit that was slightly big on his tiny figure.

"Eliza! Eliza! Did you see the book I shared with you on Google Docs?" he asked excitedly.

"Uh, no, I didn't." I lied, trying not to sound so pained. "I was busy all day yesterday, so I didn't see it. I will try to find the time to read it, I'm sure it's great!" I smiled. 

"It is!" he exclaimed, looking up at me with his big, brown eyes, like a puppy. "You'll love it, Eliza, I know you will!"

As the music director announced that church was starting, Meru sat down next to me, permanently hyper. I felt a pang of guilt. Meru was so excited for me to read his book; I felt bad for lying to him and closing the tab. I guess I would have to read it one way or another.

After church, I went to lunch at the Purple Turtle Cafe with my friends Josh and Katie. Then I went home to my apartment and went to the computer to open up Meru's story once more. This time, I forced myself to look past the typos and read it.

It was BAD. The characters were horrible, the plot (so far) was stupid, and it was so boring that I had to force myself to read it. "For Meru." I told myself. But it was actually painful to read. So I shut the computer and went to grab some cheese crackers.

I feel bad for that, but the image of Meru's puppy-dog eyes and excited grin keeps popping up in my brain. Should I tell him about the poor quality of his work? No, that would break his heart. Not reading the story would also break his heart. I guess I could lie to him about it, but that's just wrong, and knowing Meru, he'd ask me all sorts of questions about it.

So what should I do?