Hello everyone! Here is the prologue to Never Standing Still, which is Kalli's story. I hope you all enjoy it and are looking forward to reading her books! Remember, this is protected under copyright law and is subject to change. Enjoy! Never Standing Still releases May 12th!
Prologue
This wasn’t
how I’d imagined my seventh birthday would turn out. The balloons were great, the Rainbow Brite
birthday cake was just how it looked in the book at the grocery store, and even
some of my friends showed up to my party.
That part
was awesome.
But as I lay
in my bed, listening to my parents argue, their yelling only getting louder and
angrier, I tried to keep my tears in.
They didn’t need to hear me crying. I didn’t want to cry, either. I’d cried a lot lately and it never seemed to
do any good. I startled when I heard a
cabinet slam shut as my father’s shouts floated down the hallway.
“I just
couldn’t be here,” he said in a growly voice.
I imagined him braced against the kitchen counter, elbows locked, head
bowed. “The house was filled with kids I
don’t know and their parents. It just
wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day.”
“It’s her
birthday, Kevin.”
“I know.”
“A father
should be with his daughter on her birthday.”
“It doesn’t
matter, Alli. She didn’t notice that I wasn’t
here.”
I had
noticed. But he was right, it didn’t
matter that he wasn’t there. I wasn’t
surprised. He never seemed to be around,
so I didn’t think my birthday party would be any different.
I heard a
frustrated grunt leave my father and I could picture his hands coming to his
hair, scraping it back, leaving it sticking up in all directions. It was what he always did when he fought with
Mommy; he pulled his own hair.
“I’m so
sick of the same fight. I can’t keep
having the same stupid argument with you, Alli.
I’m not the person you want me to be.
I never was.”
“So
change! You don’t have to do it for me,
but you should do it for that little
girl. She’s your flesh and blood.”
“I didn’t
ask for this!” He screamed. “I didn’t want to be a father. I didn’t want to be tied down for the rest of
my life. I didn’t want this kind of
responsibility.”
“She’s your
daughter! Not some obligation! Don’t you
feel any kind of pull to be good for
her? To be the kind of man she can look
up to?”
“Honestly Alli,
all I feel is like I’m tied down, like I’m standing still and can’t move. I don’t want to stand still anymore.”
The
arguments weren’t new. They fought all
the time. I usually didn’t have trouble
sleeping through it; the rhythm of their voices yelling at each other usually
lulled me to sleep. But tonight, for
some reason, I heard everything he said.
His words shot down the darkened hallway like an arrow and found its way
through the crack in my door and hit its target right in my chest.
I held the
tears in as long as I could, but when I heard the back door slam shut, my mom
yelling at him to never come back, I couldn’t keep the tears from falling. They soaked through my pillowcase, but I
didn’t care. I pressed my face into my
pillow so my mom wouldn’t hear me crying.
Eventually
I stopped crying and listened to the frogs, which lived outside my window in
the wet months, when the water would pool outside my bedroom from all the rain. I listened to the frogs and waited to hear
the back door open again, signaling that my father had returned. But the door stayed closed, and I never heard
him come home.
