Forbidden Choices Read online

Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Chapter 25

  Chapter 2Chapter 26 Chapter 3 Chapter 27

  Chapter 4 Chapter 28

  Chapter 5Chapter 29

  Chapter 6 Chapter 30

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2014 by J. J. Weddle

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Cover Design by Melchelle Designs [melchelledesigns.com]

  This first lost adventure is dedicated to Larry and Elke Weddle.

  To Larry because he taught me how to excel at being a dreamer.

  To Elke because she always kept me with my feet grounded if I got too far lost in the clouds.

  I love you mom and dad. Thank you for pushing me to follow my dreams.

  Chapter 1

  I have to keep moving on. Since I was a small child, this urge to never stay in one place has never quite left. It’s not that I love to travel; it’s that I have never found a place that I could truly call home and mean it. I’ve always had the hope that someday something would make me not want to roam so freely.

  It’s another cold and rainy day and I'm staring out the Greyhound bus window, the endless fields of green roll before my eyes. It’s a labyrinth of wonder and nature stretching out before me, this place that I haven’t been to for so long is tinged with dark and rotted memories. I feel so lost, and it’s beginning to be impossible to find whatever it is I’ve been searching for.

  I'm traveling to another lonesome city, a city that I used to refer to as “home.” I feel more disconnected in this place then I have ever felt before.

  My mother and I were never close, but there were many times I wished for closeness between us. I craved for a person to share my feelings, my hopes and experiences with.

  Although, there was a definite lack in my maternal relationship I remember these words quite clearly, and they have never left my mind:

  “Unless someone cares a whole damn lot about you, nothing is going to get better about your life. Remember, you can only depend on yourself.”

  I realize how very right she was as the years fade into forgotten memories and unwanted experiences.

  Does anyone really care, or are we stranded on an island of our own selfish creation?

  The man sitting across from me unfolds a newspaper. I crane my neck to read the tiny print just barely maKing out the misshapen letters to form seamless words about the reality of things.

  The headline reads:

  Stabbed hero dies as more than 20 people stroll past him

  This catches my attention and so I read further:

  A heroic homeless man, stabbed after saving a woman from a knife-wielding attacker, lay dying in a pool of blood for more than an hour as nearly 20 people uninterestedly rushed past him, an appalling surveillance video obtained by The Post reveals.

  Some of the passers-by paused to stare at Eduardo Vanstelt last Thursday morning and others leaned down to get a closer look at his face.

  He had jumped to the aid of a woman attacked on Fifth Street at Lincoln Road at 5:40 a.m., was stabbed multiple times in the chest and collapsed as he chased his assailant.

  I stop reading the article feeling appalled.

  Would he still be alive if one person had offered to help him?

  Was his fate to die in a pool of his own blood with none of his loved ones around to say goodbye?

  My mind fills with unanswered questions. I often feel like that’s all I can think about are these questions without answers to them. I’m always analyzing things that I shouldn’t. Sometimes, especially when I read articles like this, I truly believe that my life is fine as the hermit that I am: even if I feel lonely most of the time.

  I want to live in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it never existed?

  I look at the man who is holding the newspaper. He’s reading it intently, as if every second he’s breathing depends on the story that he’s reading. I watch as his facial expressions change, perhaps he’s contemplating why the journalist chose to use an enormous adjective instead of some simple word. The man looks up. His eyes are dark, empty and soulless and he stares at me. His eyes dart straight to my chest and I feel this strange connection with him for a moment. I realize that he is just as lost and alone as I am. He stops undressing me with his eyes and continues to read the paper and I hum along to the music coming from my headphones.

  The flamboyant bus driver shouts out some ghost town of a name. The town is an empty, desolate place that only the highway seems to escape.

  A pretty girl of about fifteen boards the bus and I watch her closely. She doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings because she’s busy smiling and texting some boy who will probably forget her name by tomorrow. For that moment though she looks content, truly happy.

  Another woman carrying a tiny baby in her arms appears. She looks worn and haggard, as if she hasn’t slept for an eternity. The handsome man beside her stares at me. Then he looks down at his hands, and for some reason I feel like I know what he’s thinking: Escape. He wants to escape this life that he didn’t choose for himself.

  Another human boards the bus. I wonder how many people live in this desolate town. This time it’s an old woman and her cheeks are stained with a million tears that could not be wiped away, even by the kindest of hands. Her face is aged and wrinkled, wise beyond recognition. It’s as if each line is a lesson formed by some painful, unforgettable experience and I try to smile warmly at her. She stares at me with her eyes full of misery and I blink and turn my face.

  If God lost faith in humanity then I am not surprised. What’s the point in trying to save something so incredibly lost?

  Tomorrow is my father’s funeral.

  I don’t want anyone getting sentimental. I mean we all end up in the same place eventually. My father was my last living relative—at least, the last one I claimed as a relative. My mother is still alive somewhere, or well, as alive as you can be in a mental institution. Strangely, I remember my life as being pretty normal until the day I turned 13.

  I let myself escape to a past that I’ve tried so hard to forget. I also let the tears that I have been holding in for so long escape in a flood of fury.

  It was seven years ago. It was the day that my father finally left my mother. I can still recall the day impeccably, as if it were engraved into my mind and all I had to do was push the play button to see it. I remember every detail: Every miniscule moment.

  I felt a new sense of excitement, who wouldn’t be excited about finally being a teenager? One step closer to being an adult, and isn’t that what every innocent child dreams of?

  I was now on the road to becoming a grown-up in my still youthful eyes.

  I had asked for a Schwinn bike that year. Not just any bike though, it was a hot pink one with tassels dangling daintily off of the handle bars. The seat was a blinding white metallic that glistened in the sunlight. I had seen the bike on my last day of school before summer vacation began.

  I press my nose against the glass window, and leave a smudge against the pane. An indent, a memory of a time wh
en things were so much simpler that would eventually fade away.

  I rush down the stairs that day in May. I am flying into a catastrophe that my unflawed eyes could never predict.

  My spiraled pigtails bounce giddily with me, until we reach the bottom step. My hair stops bouncing as quickly as my insides. My father stands in the doorway, his arms are crossed and his suitcases are in a pile next to his feet. Three suitcases stand in a row, each larger then the next one.

  His eyes show some deep torture, but his face shows something else: Regret.

  I wear the party dress that my mother had forced me into wearing that day. It is white with pastel pink polka-dots and an overly large pink bow in the front. I know it is hideous; it is an over-compensation for all the times that I haven’t worn a dress to please my mother. Some sadistic way to get back at me, but I want to make her happy so I wear it today.

  My mother leans against the stairwell, a calm expression sweeps smugly across her face as she looks me up and down. An eerily strange look that I have never seen painted on her face before.

  My father stares at me. His eyes full of a tender love that my mother has never quite shown towards me. The world begins to spin. My mind still intact is full of youthful hope, but I’m aware of what is about to take place.

  It has been happening to my friend’s parents lately, but I never imagined that it would happen to mine: Divorce. That single word that could pull apart happy, loving families and rip them out of a galaxy of contented happiness.

  My parents have never really happy.

  I always try to imagine our family as joyful and hopeful like the families I have so often envied on television, but the older I become the more that delusion moves farther away.

  I think the most frightening thing about it is that I am not in the least bit surprised that my father stands prepping for an escape; a luxury I will never get to enjoy.

  I know my parents don’t love each other.

  At least they don’t feel that kind of emotion anymore, but I like to think they did feel it strongly at one time. I still like to believe that love is like in the fairytales my father used to read to me at night. He used to whisper tales of hope, loss and love in the wee hours of the night until my eyes became so heavy that I couldn’t battle sleep anymore. Then I would dream of having something so magical and beautiful in my life one day.

  I think what really bothers my selfish, adolescent mind is that my father chose the most sacred day of all for someone my age to do it on. Why would you leave on your child’s birthday?

  It is the day that she enters the world, and you decide to leave hers.

  My hands tremble awkwardly, uncontrollably and my entire world feels like it is about to collapse. It is going to implode into a million pieces that I will never be able to put back together even if I have an eternity to do so.

  I try to hold my emotions in, but my body feels as if it is convulsing. I soon find myself on the ground as my body shakes and trembles. I sob. I don’t want him to go, how can he leave me?

  “Ali, one day you will grow and you will see that this was all for your benefit.”

  The words will haunt me. How can this pain ever benefit me?

  I wish that I could tell him the truth. I wish I could tell him that I’ve missed him that I love him but most of all that I forgive him. Now I guess I will never get that chance.

  I interrupt his attempt at soothing me with my own hateful tone full of agony and seeking vengeance.

  I pick myself up off the ground; my head feels light and heavy in the same moment. Why couldn’t he have picked a different day to leave?

  “I have to go. Your mother wants me to leave.”

  I sob harder, but what if I don’t want you to leave? I wish I could tell him that. I hold it inside.

  He looks at me with a sad guilt blazing in his eyes.

  I stop shaking now. I feel a sudden current of anger racing through my body. I ball my fists at my sides, two tiny guardians of a hopeful girl who doesn’t want to be left behind and forgotten. Thirteen years of my suppressed anger boils to the top, and I feel sorry for anyone that is in its direct line of fire.

  I look at my father, the sweetest look I can muster plastered to my mannequin face – So sweet, so innocent and so deadly.

  “Daddy, one day I will grow up. I will grow up into a strong woman that will be able to defend herself. You promised me that I would always be your little Princess, but if that was the truth you wouldn’t leave me.”

  I look up from my words to see if I have wounded him yet. His face scrunches into a frown and I continue.

  “Do you know what would be the best birthday present of all? If you would leave, but not just leave because even that wouldn’t be good enough. I wish I could erase you from my memory so that you wouldn’t even be missed.”

  I finish the painful words that I will never be able to take back and they linger in the air, making it hard to breathe. I look down at my hands, and I see that they are bleeding. I had clenched my knuckles too hard and my fingernails had dug into my skin. Strangely, I cannot feel the pain.

  The one thing I will never forget is the single tear drop rolling down my father’s face. His expression is full of pain as he stumbles to grab his suitcases, still trying to turn the door handle with as much dignity as he has left within him.

  I race to the kitchen window and stand on my tiptoes to get one last look. I watch him with his head hanging so low, it looks as if it could touch the ground and his shoulders slumped. I watch him as he places his belongings in the trunk of the taxi, and he turns around looking longingly at the house with his deep red, swollen eyes.

  My heart is broken for the first time. I didn’t get to tell him goodbye the way I should have…

  A hot breath caresses insistently at the back of my neck. Shivers race down my spine.

  “Alison Callahan, I think you have made a very grave mistake.”

  My mother stands behind me. I look down to see her tangled mass of wild, red hair when I look into the reflection of a very sharp knife. My breath halts and I choke out ghastly sounds. I cannot escape now.

  “Your father was the only one who could stop me from doing this to you. Oh, he will be very happy to know that his leaving has caused his precious little Princess to lose her head.”

  She cackles and she brings the knife’s edge down hard against my throat. I can feel life seep out of me. The blood flows endlessly. I try to scream but everything is beginning to become so far away and all I can see is a light that blinds my eyes. I look down and the blood trickles like an overturned hourglass ticking away time. Extraordinarily, something happens. As quickly as the blood was trickling through my fingers a moment ago, it stops. I feel stronger than before and I elbow my mother hard in the ribcage ripping the knife from her bloodied hands.

  I cry out in agony as she bites my ankle and I scream so loudly that it reverberates off of the walls, a constant echo in my mind. I scream for what seems like an eternity until our neighbor blasts through the door. A sweet old lady by the name of Ms. McHenderson scoops me up in her arms and stares peculiarly down at my mother with her bloodied hands sobbing and whispering the same words.

  “It has begun and it cannot be undone...”