A Healing Heart - Riverview Series book 1

Chapter One - section one

My ear-piercing scream woke me, and I bolted straight up in bed. My heart pounded in my chest, and I couldn't get it to slow down. I glanced at the clock next to the bed and realized it was only four a.m. I wasn't surprised that no one had come to see why I'd screamed; it was a common occurrence these days. That night a little over two years before still haunted me. I sometimes wondered if I'd ever sleep through the night again without being tormented. So many times I questioned why I survived when no one else did, why I had escaped with such minor injuries when the rest of my family had been killed.

My parents had been pronounced dead at the scene. Brandon had made it to the hospital, but his internal injuries were just too much for his little body, and he was gone before the sun broke through the clouds the following morning. Brooke had lasted the longest. I actually thought she might pull through, but after a week of improvement, her damaged organs couldn't fight anymore and she slipped away from me as well. I had sat by her bedside holding her hand, wishing for a miracle that never came. Those I loved the most were torn from me, and I was living now with my aunt and uncle in Southern California and a huge hole in my heart.

For the past two years, I had shared a room with my cousin Darcy. Darcy was two years older and had moved to Washington the previous fall to attend college. I'm sure, as much as she loved me, she was happy to get away. Maybe she could find peace sleeping again instead of being woken up almost every night with the nightmares that plagued me.

Tanner, my other cousin, was five years older and was already attending college when I moved into the house. He had been spared most of my night terrors, but during his visits home on vacations, he'd experienced them as well. I hated feeling like such a burden to my aunt and uncle and wished that the nightmares would stop.

My aunt had found a therapist for me to talk to after the accident, but even she was unable to help me chase away the nightmares. Her only advice to me after months of sessions was that time would help, and eventually they should lessen. Two years later, I was beginning to think I would never be free of them.

There was no sense in trying to go back to sleep; once I woke up, I was up. Slipping out of bed, the picture of my family on my nightstand caught my eye. It had been taken that last Christmas when my world was still right. I could see the sparkle in my brother's eyes as he leaned over to tickle Brooke, her dimples as she laughed, my parents so happy and so proud of all of us. I turned away, wondering if the pain would ever fade, then grabbed my slippers and went downstairs.

When I reached the kitchen, I made myself some hot chocolate and then sat down on the family room couch to flip through the channels. Of course, at four a.m., there wasn't anything interesting on, but it was too early to start getting ready for school and I had nothing better to do.

After a couple of hours, I heard my aunt and uncle stirring upstairs, starting to get ready for work. I flipped off the TV and went back upstairs to get ready for school.

I was in my junior year of high school, with spring break a few weeks away and my seventeenth birthday not long after that. Shortly after I had moved in with my aunt and uncle I had become fast friends with two girls in my class. Mia Kinney and Natasha Wakefield had basically grown up together in Riverview and had accepted me immediately. The three of us were almost inseparable.

Mia had invited me to come skiing with her family in Mammoth during spring break, but I just wasn't up for skiing. It still held such bittersweet memories for me. My family had always gone on ski trips—it was one of the activities we all enjoyed. I loved the snow and the cold, but ever since the night of the accident, snow made me anxious. I knew the fear of the snow itself was irrational, that it hadn't caused the accident, but it still made me uneasy.