Frozen in Time (Excerpt)
Book 1 in the Alimanti series
Time waits for no man. It has its own schedule and
doesn’t give you extra seconds or minutes. It doesn’t wait for you to say the
things you want or do the things you need to. It doesn’t wait around for you to
say goodbye or to tell someone how much you love
them. Before you know it, it is too late, and you don’t get a chance for a do
over. I know this all too well because last year, my mum lost her battle to
cancer. She was my rock. She was the most beautiful and loving mother who I
loved, and still love, unconditionally. But now I’m left with a gaping hole in
my chest.
If I had hoped that my dad would be
there to comfort me after I lost my mum, then I was sorely mistaken. He became
withdrawn. He quit his job, or rather his employer let him go because he
stopped going in. My dad stopped doing a lot of things, such as washing,
dressing, eating, and even talking. What could I do? I was 14 years old. I
wanted to be held, comforted, to be told that everything was going to be okay,
and that we would get through this together, but that never happened.
One thing I was grateful for was my best
friend, Lauren McLaren, and her family. They were there for me in ways I wished
my dad was. But I never felt complete, and a lot of the time, I felt like a
burden. I knew they had no qualms with me being
there all of the time. I had pretty much moved in with them, and they had
already begun including me in everything they did, but I felt resentment for
what they had.
If I thought things were going to get
better, I was wrong. There I was, a year older and sitting in the Accident and
Emergency room of Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary with doctors and nurses running
around. People were crying, children squealing, and
grownups were complaining, whilst I sat there
frozen in time whilst doctors tried to revive my dad.
Yeah, you read that right. My dad was
lying on a hospital gurney, dying. Dying. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry.
No tears welled up as I sat there in the busy waiting room.
Fifteen years old and I knew that my dad
had given up. He didn’t see me. The fun loving dad I knew and loved had died
the same day my mum had. It was just me who had to carry this burden.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
A haunting snippet.
ReplyDelete