----Chapter 1: Left in the dark----

A Chapter by Courtney

The first chapter that will keep you guessing.

The river rushed below me, angry and vile. My eyes stayed glued to it as if my life depended upon it. It was memorizing as hypnosis. The water green and brown from the mud it had stolen from the bank. The peculiar smell of a fishy earth mix tickled my nose. But even though I was aware of my surroundings I wasn’t. The river was all I could think about. I wasn’t even blinking, just �" staring.

A figure began to move, slowly and hesitantly. As if whoever or whatever it was wasn’t in a raging river, but a pool of crystal clear cascading water. Suddenly a realization hit me. The river wasn’t what I was staring at; it wasn’t what I cared about. It was what was in the river that I was concerned about. Then as it always has, a flash of lightening struck from the sky above, like God wanted to strike something down and remove it from existence.

He did.

Me.

I felt the pain as it ripped through my body, it almost felt freezing. But that’s when my eyes fluttered open. Darkness all I could see was darkness. Something burst through the air but I realized that it was just my scream. I looked down to see how badly I was burnt but all I saw was my chest rising and falling faintly in the darkness. The second it rose it fell. Blood pulsed in my ears along with something else. It sounded something like a guitar ripping and drums beating to form a familiar toon. I yanked my head phones out and tossed them along with my iPod to the floor of where ever I was. As far as I was concerned a cracked screen on my iPod was the least of my problems. The one that was defiantly a problem was . . . well the obvious.

My emerald green eyes scanned around me. Just pitch black darkness. It was when I sat up I realized it was no where good. Whatever it was that I was sitting upon was cold, hard and, wet. Considering the various places I had ended waking up in, which were sometimes not the most convenient places.

I scrambled to my feet; my arms slipped sending me to the ground of where ever I was. I was apparently so drozy that I didn’t feel anything. Desperate for an answer I ran my hands along the ground in which I landed. Hard cold not wet put every so often there was a crack but it was filled with something that reminded me of cement. Crap I better not be on the side walk again! I hissed at myself. These days I pretty much had no control over what happened after I drifted off into the land of dreams and raging rivers. So that meant I could wake up practically anywhere at any time, which in today’s case happened to be my bathroom. As I flipped on the light I saw all of the water splashed all over the floor .Along with the bright red that would make even the most color loving people squint.

This, now this was an all new record. I’d woken up on the top of Jillian’s bunk bed and even on the side walk, but never the bathroom. I leaned up against the closed bathroom door for support and ran my hands through my wet hair. Crazy, crazy, crazy! I screamed as I smacked myself in the head lightly.

I rummaged through my desk drawer like a mad woman. Which I was now convinced I was. Water dripped from my hair onto the papers and note books I was tossing around.

Conflicted was the only word to describe me. I was angry enough to kill something and I was sad enough to cry my eyes out and burn down the house.

“Crazy, crazy, crazy!’’ I hissed over and over. “Where is it?’’ I asked the air in front of me. My hands stopped digging. “Oh wait I’m CRAZY so never mine!’’ I yelled like the ranting lunatic I was and probably always had been. I just needed a nice and hellish push over the edge. So now I was plummeting in to the land of insanity. My hands stopped in their tracks. A little black ring box sat at the bottom of the wooden drawer. I reached a shaky hand in and tightened my fist around it. I set the black box in the palm of my left hand and stared at it. Not quite as intently as I had the raging river however, but close enough.

I dug my thumb nail under the little dent where it was meant to be opened. It popped open; the yellowish white letter that was folded into a tiny little square greeted me. I grimaced. A tear fell from my cheek slowly landing in the corner of my mouth. I could taste the salt of my despair. Reaching in, I squeezed the square in between my thumb and my index finger, so hard the pink tent in my fingers became white.

In this letter contained her last words. The words that made my heart wrench itself as if trying to ring the execs that was her from it. But not even that worked. There was something I had yet to face and I wasn’t sure I could. Yet I was right on the boarder of sanity and insanity. I knew I had a choice as well. Again a choice I really did not want to face. But what I knew one thing.

I closed my emerald green eyes and pictured her face when I told her I despised her before she left. It was then I made my choice without knowing it. I loosened my hold on the tiny yellow square. My nail snuck under the fold and flipped it open over and over until it was open. My eyes landed on the page. Dear Scarlett, I read.

I wish you the best of luck in life. I’m sorry I’ll never be able to see you get married or have children. But it’s for the best. But know that you will stay and not look for me if you value your life. Trust me Scar it’s better this way. I love you I always have, but face it people change. And I have changed and you have to too. Just don’t search for answers if you love me, you’ll let me be.

My eyes burned with tears as they streamed down my cheeks in a silent sob. I stopped breathing, at that moment I wasn’t sure I wanted to even ever breathe again. The letter trembled in my hand. The way she wrote ‘But face it people change.’ It was like I was her friend and she was going through the people change speech. I’m her just her ex daughter, nothing more and everything less. I felt like screaming until my lungs feel out and rotted just like my mind. Just like my heart was.

There are daughters who are close to their mothers they love them but when they turn eighteen they move across the country out growing her.

The ones who love them so much and live just a few states over.

Then there’s me.

The kind that look to their mother as a best friend a life giver.

Until you’re left in the dark. Abandoned and taken in by their mother’s best friend and forced to live in a house full of all ages of kids. And left without a best friend, a mother, a care taker and a support system, left without anyone. Just left in the dark, like a sweater out grown and tossed into the goodwill donation bin, like I was.

So yes my heart burned and ached and churned. Surprise, surprise I was just crossing over to the edge,

of insanity and hysteria.

© 2013 Courtney

Author's Note

I knew I could do better with this book so I redid it. I know for a fact there are probably many editing mistakes. I'm not the best at it. Criticism welcomed, let me know what you think.

My Review

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Featured Review

Julia Welker

You do have the gift of story telling, but you are right in that your grammar and sometimes spelling could use some attention. Good news is that it can be attained. I believe you could be writing published books once you have your grammar and spelling down. Don't give up. :)