EDIT: Here's the rest of Chapter 1! Please let me know what you think!
Daniel's Way is a novel that I am currently writing. I would like to get chapter-by-chapter critiques and post more as I write it. This is my 4th attempt at novel writing.
Daniel's Way is the story of a disturbed young man who shoots himself, but is not killed. He is forced to stay in the hospital for a while--all the better considering his dad made it clear he was not to come home--and meets some remarkable people that help him see the joy of living.
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Pull the trigger, pull the trigger, make it all go away. I rocked back and forth to that, my new mantra, as I held the cold barrel of the gun to my head and listened to the steady screeching that came from my iPod. You can do it, Daniel. You can make all the pain go away. Tears streamed down my cheeks as images of my mother flashed before my eyes. My throat convulsed and I could almost feel Dad’s belt across my face; could almost smell the liquor on his breath.
No more. But just as I pulled the trigger back, I snatched the gun away from my head. The sound was deafening, the pain blinding. I felt my head loll as my vision grew dark. Bloody red rimmed the blackness until unconsciousness overtook me like a cold tide. What have I done?
Chapter 1
Home? What Home?
If this was hell it looked awfully familiar. Once, as the darkness faded, I heard sirens. I was on my back, it felt like I was bouncing. “No, sir. We have to go now.” The bouncing stopped and I was pulled back under. The next time I was in a bright room that smelled sharply of alcohol. People in scrubs ran around me as I…floated into another room. A woman with red hair, and the face of an angel leaned down over me.
“We’re going to put you back to sleep now, darling.” I tried to object but my mouth wouldn’t work right. The next thing I knew I was drowning again.
I smelled pancakes and butter mixed with something too sanitary, too clean. I breathed deeply and winced as a sharp pain ran up the side of my head. A hospital, that’s what it smelled like. Drip, drip, drip. I didn’t even have to guess what that noise was. I knew. And that knowledge stung worse that my skull. It was like my heart had caught the bullet rather than my head.
“Ah, there’s my sunshine boy. Take it slow now, laddie.” A sweet lilting accent said near by. My eyes were heavy, but I forced them open. The room was dimly lit by a light that stood against the wall to my left and a door to the front of my room. I could see a reception desk and people strolling through the bright hall. I let my eyes scan the room around me, afraid to test my head just yet.
It was similar to the room they had put my mother in. White walls, a window facing east, a framed pastel colored painting to my right… The one major difference was the smiling red haired woman setting a plate of pancakes and sausage on a bed table near me.
I wet my lips and asked shakily, “Why am I here?”
Her face softened a bit and she let her hands rest on the railings of my bed. “That’s what we’ve all been wondering, sweet pea.”
My head buzzed like a thousand nettles but I forced myself to focus on what I had been doing last. It was all fuzzy and blurred, but there was no doubt about what had gotten me here. I had gone through with it. After six months of contemplating, I finally did it. And it didn’t work. I closed my eyes not yet sure if this was a miracle or a tragedy.
“That’s right. Just rest a bit while I go get the doctor.”
After she had gone I opened my eyes and looked to the white board across the room. ‘Your nurse is:’ was printed across the top and ‘Dympna’ was written in a swirling hand with bright red marker.
I closed my eyes again and sighed. When I heard the door open and close I figured it was the doctor, but I nearly shot bolt right when someone shook the bed violently. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
My dad’s dark face loomed above me. If looks could kill, I would have been dead a long time ago. He still smelled of stale bear and corn nuts. “What are you doing here?” I asked quietly not looking into his piercing eyes.
“Dammit, boy, I can be anywhere I want to be. Now, answer my question!” He shook the side rail again and I tried not to shudder. It felt like my head was going to explode.
“Leave,” I told him. Finally looking into his sharp blue eyes, “Please, just go.” My voice was too close to tears, which hurt me worse than anything.
“Oh, I’ll go alright.” He practically growled, taking me by the front of my hospital gown and leaning down so that his face was inches from mine. “And I won’t come back. But don’t you even think about coming home. You are no son of mine.”
Vertigo overwhelmed me, but my sense of pride was hard set and I pushed it down just enough to smile cockily and reply, “What home?”
“You little smart ass!” Dad’s voice raised and he slammed me back against the bed causing me to whimper in pain before he stormed out the door. He brushed Dympna and the doctor on his way out.
Dympna’s face was startled as she leaned over to make sure I wasn’t hurt and check the IV bags. As she did I realized for the first time that I was handcuffed to the side of the bed by my left arm.
The doctor, a handsome man in his mid thirties, began flipping through his chart. When he found what he was looking for he looked back up at me and smiled. “Hi, I’m Doctor Peterson, and I’m guessing you’re Daniel, right?”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Can you tell me how old you are?”
“Sixteen.”
“And your birth date?”
“November 5th.”
“Very good. Now, Daniel, you do know why you’re here, don’t you?”
I looked away from him. “Why am I here?” I asked not because I didn’t remember shooting myself, but because I wanted to know why it didn’t work.
“You shot yourself, Daniel. In the back of the head. You’re extremely lucky that the bullet only grazed your skull. It’s a miracle you don’t have brain damage.”
A travesty’s more like it. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“Well,” Doc Peterson said, running thin fingers through his blond hair. “You are currently stable, but you’ll need to stay here a couple of nights for observation. Other than that I can’t say. A board will be meeting to decide what to do with you next week. You may be admitted to stay here for a longer period of time, until we feel you’re mentally stable again.”
“Alright.”
He smiled and asked me some questions about the pain before talking to the nurse about the different medications he wanted me on. “Now, you try and eat some of this breakfast Dym has brought for you and get some rest.”
When he left I looked down at my hands. One wrist was chained to the railing of my bed, and the other had an IV in it. For the first time, I realized my scars were showing; the thick pinkish ones on my forearms. No doubt they thought it was another suicide attempt. No one would believe that my father had lashed me with a leather belt hard enough to leave scars like that. I cringed and looked up at my nurse. She was cutting my pancakes with a fork. “Do you mind if I help you eat today?” She asked, three worry lines etched deep into her creamy forehead.
“Thank you.”
