Palm

Abstract

Written for Laurel Fantauzzo’s “Form and Theory of Fiction” class, this short story focuses on the concept of rejection. The narrator, Alyssa, has received bad news and arrives home knowing that she will have to tell her mother. Their relationship has grown strained over the years. Alyssa worries that it may be too late to repair it. Staggering under the weight of failure, Alyssa starts to understand the way that she rejected and was rejected by others, with her mother by her side.