Friday Excerpt: From a new book collection

Paradevo.net is working on putting out a second collection of short stories. The first, Paradox, is 400 pages from a variety of dev authors (and it just made its debut on Kindle, where it is free until tomorrow!)

I’ve submitted a story called Faster for the second collection. It will not be appearing anywhere else.

Here is an excerpt from it…

In the next weeks, my family wanted to talk about it endlessly. Mom, dad, and Melanie wanted to change what had happened with the spell of words. Eric’s neck was broken. Just one simple moment, a freak accident, and his body was damaged beyond any repair. A sunny day and a person out of control of a golf cart and Eric’s life was as different as it was possible to be. I pretended I didn’t care so they wouldn’t make me go and see him. My family called me heartless, but they had always thought that.

I listened, though. I heard them talking and kept up with his progress that way. I heard when he was stable and was moved out of ICU. And then I did go to the hospital. I walked over after school. No one knew I was there. Slowly, I pushed open his door.

He looked at me, his head wrapped in a metal frame. His mouth twitched. “Hey, Jess,” he said.

I nodded. He was laying back almost flat and only his eyes followed me. It was strange to see him so still, as he never had been before. I wanted to escape. To sprint down the corridor, out the door and feel my hair snatched up in the breeze. I wanted to run until there were no familiar faces and nothing to remind me of where I had been. Instead I sat.

Eric gave a sharp, brief laugh and said, “Melanie is secretly glad.”

He was probably right. Melanie was good at the whole mothering and nurturing thing. She’d probably get off on taking care of him and finally having all of his attention. He would have not a single moment away from her. She’d think he wouldn’t miss running, that one passion is easily traded for another.

I wanted to be able to tell him that everything would be all right. I wanted to say, “It’s like everyone around you has shiny white sneakers, but yours are worn thin and you have to keep running even if they fall off your feet.” I wanted to say, “I know exactly what you need.”

Instead I said, “Life isn’t fair.”

He wasn’t listening to me. He gazed past me as I spoke. He was still running. In his mind he raced and raced. He raced until all the feelings and people tuned into blurs, until he couldn’t feel anger anymore.