Chapter 1

"I'm leaving, be back later," Sara shouted over her shoulder. Not waiting for an answer, she headed out the back door. It closed behind her with a loud bang, startling her, but failing to jolt the whirling thoughts in her head.

Lost in the mass of thoughts that made no sense, she stepped into the penetrating cold of the bitter, late January wind wearing only the short spring jacket she had grabbed on her way out. Physical feeling seemed as elusive right now as did the sanity she desperately searched for.

With the wind whipping her long black hair into tangled knots around her face, and fingers tucked tenuously into tight blue-jean pockets, the teen headed slowly down the mile-long, gravel road hill known as Speckled Drive.

Even though her big brown eyes remained glued to the toes of her tattered canvas tennis shoes, she seemed to not notice how quickly her feet grew cold as slush soaked through the cloth.

Sara's thoughts had begun the tumbling, whirling motion weeks before, and now it seemed they spun faster and faster with each passing day. At first, she'd tried to organize the madness, grab one thought at a time and work it through, but that had proved a futile activity and finally she let the craziness have its way.

One thought after another jumped and bounced, evading all attempts to be captured, dealt with, and settled into some kind of pattern for future reference. It seemed she couldn't hold on to anything, so she simply let it all go, let it all tumble, head over heels, on and on and on. Never really sure what her mind contained at any given moment, Sara felt everything around her crashing to the ground.

For several weeks she'd simply avoided all thought, thus avoiding her fears by keeping busy. With her high school graduation just months away, life was the only thing she needed to think about right now, and she did that by performing the mindless tasks necessary to get by from day to day, not looking ahead at all.

She didn't need any other thoughts getting in her way, but a dreary Saturday at home alone, with just her sister for company, had given her to much space.

Her maddening thought process had tumbled over into that empty space, filling it with crazy ideas that she couldn't shake off. Finally, to silence the turmoil, Sara made the only decision she'd been able to make in the past few weeks.

Walking swiftly now, through her suburban neighborhood, where neat little houses were

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Novel excerpts: Loss of innocence?
We want to hear your view. Write now!