ON YOUR LAST BREATH | Mike Schmidt ✔️

prologue .. mouthful of neglect

PROLOGUE —    " mouthful of neglect "

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          "... CONGRATULATIONS!" A MEDAL WENT OVER her head and around her neck, slightly heavy decoration falling right on her chest. Just as the words of the coach had gotten to her, bringing her out of a saddening trance of watching the tribunes, the announcer's voice stole her attention away, calling out her name.

"Winner of the State Championship of Winter Juniors in Swimming, Haley Anne Reed."

A bright flash stopped her from studying the tribunes for a second time, swiping her into a world of photographs for the local newspaper. It was hard to keep track with just who did she take a picture as all sorts of people apart from her teammates and her coach passed her by for a handshake, as firm as a ten year old could manage; she figured the coaches of all those other towns that came to her own for the sake of this championship. Who those people were didn't matter to her, not really, because those who were supposed to be there, weren't.

"And a picture with the parents?" The photographer for the newspaper looked up at the coach, inquiring hopefully, though almost instantly, the corner of his eyes realized the sudden gloom he had brought on Haley's face.

Though the coach had gestured from behind her that the high school senior shut up about the parents ordeal in an attempt not to remind her of that absence, the wound was already opened.

"Well, how was it, pumpkin?" Her father chuckled on the phone, minutes later when, wrapped in a towel, Haley sat on the bench at the very end of the girls locker room, so she may use the wired phone stuck to the wall. The vroom of hairdryers, the chatter around and the running of shower heads, made for a difficult background noise, but, hunched forward, Haley pressed the phone on her right ear and kept her left hand pressed over the left year too, to try and bring the noise down and hear her dad.

"It was alright," Haley looked down at her lap, where she held the medal. First Place title stared her back, begging for that boasting on the back of her tongue to be let out. Instead of giving in, she looked away and gulped down those words, only to replace them with a bitter statement. "Mom's not here."

A moment of silence from the other end told Haley all she needed to know about the state of things between her parents at the time. She had no friends with divorced parents, but there was plenty of talk about surrounding the topic now that the whole school saw her parents arguing at pick-up; parents talk and kids like to gossip just as much as the adults they surround themselves with.

"I'll give her a call," her father promised. "She will come pick you up, alright. I am sure mom just got busy at work and that's why she's late..."

"I think she forgot," Haley admitted with a defeated shrug.

"She didn't," he argued back with determination, given how his wife's moods already slipped the harmful words of how Haley's little swimming passion will get her nowhere in life. Those weren't the things to say to a passionate kid. "But you know how she gets when busy. I'll call her. So you wait inside until she comes to pick you up."

"I wish you were here," Haley sighed.

"I wish I was there too, pumpkin. And I will make it up—" Some indistinguishable chatter interrupted her father and when he returned to their conversation, Haley already knew he was about to brush her off for the sake of work.