Breaking Dawn Page 8

  I let go.

  I open my mouth and breathe in the water and all its chemicals. My body jerks from the force of the water filling my lungs. I can’t breathe. My body wants to stay alive. Survival is a natural instinct. I’m fighting against it. I start to black out. This is it.

  I hear a noise. A splash. Something is coming down towards me. A figure.

  Perry?

  I open my eyes. There’s a light, a face. I’m wet, lying on a hard floor. Am I still in the water? I cough, expelling liquid from my lungs, and try to focus on the face floating above mine. There are voices. Then darkness.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ A voice is calling to me through the blackness. ‘Dawn! Open your eyes!’

  I hear the voice, but I can’t respond. Is it Perry? Am I dead?

  ‘Dawn, open your eyes.’

  I open my eyes. There are people around me. I am strapped to a stretcher inside an ambulance. I have to focus. I look up into the soft, blue eyes of… Brian? He is leaning over me, dripping wet. I’m struggling to understand what is going on.

  What’s happened?

  Where am I?

  My mind is all muddled. It is hard to think.

  ‘There you are.’ Brian smiles. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

  I find some scrubs in a cupboard inside the hospital room and change out of my gown. Perry’s coat is on a hanger. It is still wet, but that doesn’t matter; I slip it on. There are a few bus tokens inside the hidden inner breast pocket. I can get into so much trouble for this, I know. No one seems to notice me as I walk pass the nurses’ station. Brian is in the waiting room, speaking to the police.

  I walk out of the hospital, unchallenged, into the cold and down the stone steps. It’s a short walk to the corner, to the bus stop. All the time I’m feeling… something – I don’t know what. I know I shouldn’t have left the hospital. I should have waited for my mom and dad.

  At the bus stop, I brush some snow off the bench to make a clean spot. It is cold and getting colder as the night starts to come down. There is a light, crisp wind, and it lashes bitterly through Perry’s wet coat. I wait in the cold, thinking any minute now someone will come to take me back to the hospital. Any minute now. Where is that damn bus?

  Then the bus arrives on time, opening its doors onto a semi-heated interior and the few passengers it is transporting. I walk to the back of the bus and settle into a seat away from the other passengers. I have a specific destination in mind and I want to be alone.

  I get off the stop nearest to Perry’s house. The cold through the wet leather jacket is crippling, making me feel sick.

  I trudge along icy pavements and approach Perry’s house, sitting back from a snow-covered yard. I imagine the path the paramedics had taken to get there. I imagine them pulling up in front of the house, followed by police cars. I imagine them rushing up the path and in through the front door. I see Brian and me sitting on the couch in the front room. And Perry lying dead on his bed.

  I stop in front of Perry’s house and stare at the red door.

  Perry is gone and I’ll have no reason to come to this house again. All of the time I’ve spent in this house over the years, coming to know it inside and out; all the summers, the winters, the days and the nights. All of that is just a memory now. Those times have become my past, however much they will help to shape the person I’ll become. And I realise that I will have to move on.

  I walk on past the house, and it feels like a weight is lifting from me. I force myself to look forward and fight the urge to look back, fight the urge to relive that horrible day. I won’t look back. I have to keep walking.

  It is dark by the time I get home. I walk through the door and Mom comes rushing over. It’s obvious she’s been out of her mind with worry.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Mom asks, kneading her hands together. ‘Dad’s been out driving around, looking for you.’

  I stand there taking off the wet coat and look at her and for the first time in weeks, I speak one short sentence to her. ‘I’m okay, Mom.’

  Mom just hugs me for a while. And then, just like she has every day for the last couple of weeks, Mom tells me that she has a plate for me in the oven. Tonight, I think I’m going to try to eat something. It will be another step forward.

  In the kitchen I pull the still warm plate of meat and mashed potatoes from the oven and set it on the table. I grab a fizzy drink from the refrigerator and set it down in front of my plate. I’m still not hungry and I know this food will lie heavy in my stomach, but I have to try. I never thought a person could forget how to eat, but I have to concentrate on every aspect of getting the food into my mouth and chewing and swallowing.

  As I begin to pick at my mashed potatoes, I hear the front door open and close.

  ‘She’s here,’ I hear Mom say from the other room. ‘She’s in the kitchen… eating.’

  I watch the kitchen door, waiting for one of them to appear but they don’t. They give me my space and allow me to go at my own pace.

  My plate is barely half-empty by the time I call it quits. My stomach is feeling a burden it hasn’t felt in weeks and my jaw muscles are tired of working. I put my plate into the sink and go upstairs to change into some pyjamas.

  I am about to get into my bed when I remember Perry’s manuscript, still in my locker at school. Perry had asked me to do something for him.

  I search around underneath my bed and pull out my notebook computer. I haven’t used it for months. I hope that I can remember how. I find all the chords and plug everything in and switch on the power.

  I go online and check my mail. Nothing but spam. I put my cursor in the search bar and look for publishing houses. Finding a few, I go to their home pages, looking for their information and submission guidelines. I find a few and bookmark them. Then I begin to compose an email to the first company on the list:

  Dear Ms Bourne,

  I would like to send you a story about the life and death of special friend of mine…

  CHAPTER 10

  Two years later…

  When the delivery man comes I am up in my room applying the finishing touches to my make-up. Maybe I’m wearing too much, but I have to look good for the cameras. I run downstairs, a little too quickly in heels, and almost lose my footing on the last few steps, but I catch myself just in time. My mom and dad are in the kitchen standing at the table where there is a large brown box. I think that they are more excited than I am.

  Mom hands me a knife to slice through the tape. I just can’t seem to open the box fast enough. I pull open the flaps and reach inside, pulling out a hardback book. The dust jacket is colourful and has a high school picture of Perry on the front. The title of the book is Rainbow in the Shade.

  Mom and Dad reach in to grab a copy each as my fingers examine the book in my hands, feeling the hard cover and paper pages, reassuring myself that it is real. I leaf through the pages, picking out a word here and there, and then turn the book over to read the back of the jacket. Along with a couple of quotes from book reviewers, there is a pledge to donate all proceeds from the sale of this book to troubled teens and to help families cope with suicide.

  ‘This is wonderful!’ Mom exclaims.

  ‘Perry would be so proud,’ Dad says.

  I smile. I don’t have to say anything; I know that he would.

  Mom glances at the clock and puts the book back in the box. ‘We’ll have to admire these later if you want to graduate today.’

  I take the book with me as I grab my hat and gown from the couch and hurry out to the car. I read through the first and last chapters in the book, the only two chapters that I wrote, as Dad drives and Mom is fussing with the video camera. When we get to school, I leave the book in the car and run inside to meet up with my class as Mom and Dad hurry to find seats in the crowd of proud parents.

  I walk past all the kids who will graduate today. I stop to speak with Carla, who is now just beautiful. Her acne has cleared up, she has cut and styled her hair – and she must h
ave got rid of the cat because she no longer smells like cat pee. She has her arms around Gary. It’s amazing to think that they’ve been dating for almost five months now.

  I find Brian off to the side, struggling with the zipper of his gown. He sees me and he blushes. I smack his hands away from the zipper and pick out a few loose threads and zip it up for him. He’s so helpless sometimes.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘You look beautiful.’

  I put my arms around his neck and kiss him.

  ‘The books came today,’ I tell him.

  ‘Did you save one for me?’

  ‘You have to come over and get it.’ I am feeling a bit playful.

  ‘Oh, I’ll come over. I’ll sneak into your bedroom and…’

  He never gets to finish because the teachers are calling to us to line up alphabetically. It is time for the graduating class to line up and prepare to file out of the door.

  The last day of school. Once we are all assembled and waiting at the door for our cue, I look up and down the line. Some of these kids I’ve known since infants. Some of them have become good friends. Some have gone their own ways. A sudden sadness washes over me as I realise that this may be the last time I see many of them. Then it’s gone, as quickly as it came.

  Outside, I hear a song start playing over the speakers – Graduation Day by Vitamin C. It is our cue to start moving out of the door in single file. I walk out with my classmates into the bright sun on this warm day. The only thing missing, the one thing that would make this day perfect is Perry. A lump comes to my throat momentarily. Then I think of Perry’s book. Perry will always be with us through his words. I feel strangely comforted by that thought.

  After today, I feel that the whole world will be opened up for me, and I’m looking forward to the future. Who knows what it might bring? I look along the line of my classmates again. I know that I belong here, with them. And I think – I feel – that Perry would be proud of me.

  About the Author

  Donna Shelton is an award-winning author and poet. Born in Chicago, USA, she started writing aged just eleven. When she’s not writing, she works for an animal rescue organisation and fosters animals.

  IN THE SAME SERIES

  Seeing Red

  PETER LANCETT

  The Questions Within

  TERESA SCHAEFFER

  Breaking Dawn

  DONNA SHELTON

  Marty’s Diary

  FRANCES CROSS

  Don’t Even Think It

  HELEN ORME

  Copyright

  Breaking Dawn

  DONNA SHELTON

  Series Editor: Peter Lancett

  Published by Ransom Publishing Ltd.

  Radley House, 8 St. Cross Road, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 9HX, UK

  www.ransom.co.uk

  ISBN 978 178127 158 2

  First published in 2008

  This ebook edition published 2013

  Copyright © 2008 Ransom Publishing Ltd.

  Cover by Flame Design, Cape Town, South Africa

  A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  The right of Donna Shelton to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.