*Writers note*
This is a young adult about: love, abuse, betrayal, hurt, anxiety, depression, etcetera. If you suffer from one of the above (not love ;) ), this book will be very confronting.
Thank you all for reading this, I really appreciate it.
If you see some mistakes in my grammar or sentences, feel free to indicate it. English is not my first language.
Thank you in advance and enjoy reading ;)
Ps: the chapters will be big, I hope you like it.
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A shout from the opposite team. The baseball that I spin in my hand. How will I throw it? How should I throw it? That are the only questions I am asking.
All the sound around me is muffled, I am in my utmost concentration. Have the sunlight in my eyes, or it's just the sweat that's rolling from my forehead and my coach who is screaming from the sideline counteracts all of that. But nevertheless it's still a good Saturday.
Or that's what I thought. What I didn't know is that something bad would happen in the middle of my game, but I wouldn't know that. I was left in the dark winning the game with 1 point difference because of my home run, making it to the finals. No... I didn't knew what was about to happen.
At the end of the game I couldn't be happier. Everything was perfect. Isn't everything when you are 12 years old? 12 years old and unbeatable, afraid of nothing, maybe only for seventh grade where you go after the summer holidays. Where you would likely lose most of your friends and never see them again. Although that was the story for me.
On that game day I wasn't scared at all. Not yet. We were too busy to watch the news, to see the big accident what had happened on the highway just a few miles away from Manhattan.
We were to busy celebrating our win. Eating a large bag of fries, with a lot of sauce and a big glass of cola. We had to train three times harder at the next training because of this, but we couldn't care less.
The only thing missing were my parents. My dad was busy with work at home, he had been waiting ages to get the promotion that he would get at the end of the year if everything kept running smoothly.
My mom, on the other hand was driving back from Colorado, she had to take some trips for work and this trip didn't do her overworked feeling much good. All that made up for it was that she knew that she was going to see dad and I. We were all real close family and hated to be apart.
Although it's always been hectic at home. I was always busy with baseball, daddy with his job as a programmer for a large tech company and my mom with helping out in a nursing home.
My dad worked for the tech company when it was built up from the ground and my mom is a secretary, but she travels with her boss all over America for meetings. That's not what she like to do though.
When my little brother passed when he was 6 years old, my mom promised herself and him that she would help other kids and disabled people. So she signed up for volunteer work at one of the nursing homes and she got in. 2 years later they gave her an contract, which she gratefully denied. Another year later she accepted it, she wanted to work there full time, but couldn't let go of her other job, which she despised.
But that didn't matter that day, my mom would take us that evening to a restaurant or that was the plan. We would celebrate me going to finals. Unfortunately for me that dinner would never happen.
Some information about me. I started playing baseball at the age of 3. My grandpa was a big fan of baseball, played at the top for a while until he got injured and was told he could never play again. And then when I got born as his first grandchild, he passed his passion to me. A girl, a girl who is just as fanatic as he is and knocks all the boys off the field.
That day I was as happy as I was when grandpa took me to the track every weekend to play. I would never forget this day, not in a good way though. The next events that is what I will never forget.
My dad runs into the cafeteria in blind panic. Happy and cheering I throw myself into his arms and tell him the good news. I didn't realize that he was panicking, sad, maybe even grieving. I only saw that when he said nothing and kept looking at me.
I got Angry. "Aren't you happy, daddy?" He never comes to my games, can't he just be happy for me once?
Dad just stared at me, with so much sorrow and sadness that I took a step back. "What?"
"Sweetie." It was the first thing he said to me and he never said that to me, it was always: Jaydor, Jay, kiddo even Raven would have been a better fit than Sweetie and I hate that name.
"Dad."
He shook his head, bent down to get a closer look and grabbed my hands, his hands were warm and a little sticky. Was he nervous? "Something happend and I want you to stay calm, okay?"
At this point, my whole team was watching us, all of them were boys, more than half of them weren't my friends and they were already starting to laugh a little. That didn't make it easier. Not at all.
"Okay." I said softly, almost so soft it couldn't be heard, but dad nodded.
"There has been an accident Jaydie, a bad accident." His eyes filled with tears. "Mommy is..." my legs started to shake and I didn't wanted to hear the last words. No. "Mommy got shoveled by a car... She's in the h-hospital, getting ready for surgery."
A single tear rolled down his cheek, even though I know he didn't want that to happen. "They don't know if she is going to make it." The last part was a whisper, he doesn't want to believe it.
I just stare at him, numb. I feel tears failing, but I don't remember starting to cry and then my dad hugs me, he holds me tight and I hear him say that it will be okay. Was this how I should celebrate this win?
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The month May is only waiting. Waiting if she gets through surgery. Waiting if she still breathes after the first night. Waiting if she wakes up from her coma.
And then the day before daddy's birthday she wakes. The doctors told us that it would be unlikely that mom would wake up, because there was less to no activity in her brain. But when daddy and I walked that Monday in her room, she looked at us.
Dad ran out of the room, screaming for a doctor and I just stood there. Frozen. I watched the women that lied in my moms hospital bed. I didn't recognized her anymore and she didn't recognize me it seemed. She didn't said anything, she didn't smiled, she didn't even move a finger to greet me.
Who was this women? Because I didn't know anymore. She wasn't my happy, sweet mommy, who I could tell everything to, she wasn't that caring women that took care of everyone, that watched my games. Something broke in me that day.
It took her 3 weeks to became a little herself again. And just before the summer holidays she could come home. It was quiet in our house, very, very quiet.
Daddy drowned himself in booze because of the hospital depths and mom layed in bed all day, she didn't do anything at all, she said nothing.
Dad and I both knew that she wasn't okay. She was agressive sometimes and mom was never agressive. She said things that were rude and not even true, she said things that hurted.
Sometimes when it was really late at night mom would go downstairs, she would talk to the tv or to herself and just before dad and I would wake up she went back to bed.
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Then it was Friday, just the day before the summer vacation started. When I got home I found my dad at the kitchen tabel. Drinking a beer and from the smell and the empty bottles, he had already drank a few dozen of them. Even in the doorway I could see and smell that he was drunk.
Out of nothing he turned to me, looking me straight in the eye. "What's up, Raffie, how are you kiddo?" He played it cool, I could see that in his eyes. He was also a little sarcastic. "Mommy is hospitalized by the way." He laughed, loud and fake.
I just stood there, frozen in place. Hospitalized? What happend?
"She went crazy, attacked someone and they took her right away." Dad bursted into tears. I had seen him cry about mom's condition zero times and now he just broke, into an million pieces. I knew from that day on that something in him died and everything would change, nothing stays the same.
My mom, an lunatic? That's what everyone called her after the summer. A madman who attacked someone in the grocery store.
During the holiday, Judge Wells, ordered my mother to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital until she was declared well. There was one problem. She wouldn't get better.