How To Save A Life Read Online Free Page A

beachside blur into a mirage of colour all mixed together, blues and greens and bricks and sand. It's sped up, as if in fast motion—
    Then it happens.
    It settles in the base of my stomach, a sense of impending dread.
    We pull up in the drive and my heart pounds, a deep, angry thud against my ribcage.
    "Stay in the car." I grab Mum's arm, but I'm not in control of my limbs any more, and Dream Lia happily sits there while Mum opens her door, then helps her to her feet.
    "Odd." Mum furrows her brow, noticing Dad's car in the open garage.
    Don't go inside.
    I try to scream the words, but I'm watching from the outer, and no one hears what I'm saying.
    Running forward, I slam my body into Dream Lia, pushing her down, trying to distract these stupid people, and stop them from the impending disaster they're about to walk into.
    Dream Lia limps forward, Mum smiling and laughing, gaily chattering away about what bad daytime television she's got planned for her poor sick daughter.
    By the time they reach the door, I'm yelling, throwing myself in their path, throwing other things in their path—the family photo on the side table by the front door. Dad's shoes, neatly toed off in line by the mat.
    Nothing.
    When Mum places me on the couch and then turns to walk upstairs, I give it everything I've got. I grab hold of the banister and wrench the wood from the railing off, but despite this destruction, she keeps walking. My heart races, and tears streak down either side of my face as I silently chant, "No, no, no, no." It's like watching a horror movie. I'm begging her to turn around, to not go there , only this nightmare is real—it's all too real.
    I know what she'll find up those stairs, and it will start a chain of events that will ruin her life forever.
    Our lives.
    And then it happens.
    Mum screams.
    And she doesn't smile so much anymore.
    ***
    Eventually, I wake up, covered in sweat, my heart in my throat. With shaking hands, I reach for my phone. Four am . Of course.
    It’s a time when it’s too close to my alarm to go back to sleep, and yet still an hour when it’s inconvenient to wake.
    It’s the time I wake after every nightmare about those days.
    I stumble downstairs. The living room is empty, and I pause to wonder if Mum went out last night, and if she did, if she came home. Or if she did as she likes to do every once in a while, and just shut herself in her room before I get home from practice, hiding under the covers. Sometimes, blankets protect her from reality.
    But most of the time, the booze does.
    In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of water, sculling it in one go, then I pull myself up the stairs with the bannister, all so I can lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and not sleep for the next hour until I have to get ready for work.
    After the nightmare, I never go back to sleep.
    It's easiest to deal with the horror when I'm awake.
    ***
    Sunrise on a Saturday is the time I like the most.
    Everything's still at sunrise. There are no cars about, no people moving fast, getting things done, ticking items off their lists.
    Downstairs, the house is silent. The only movement will be the birds warbling in the crisp morning air, and the rushing of the water in the lake that runs to the ocean from the wilderness strip behind our house. The lake I walk along every Saturday morning on my way to work.
    I rub my hands together to ward off the chill that sets in as soon as I've stepped out the front of our house—our vacant house, I should add—and start off to The View, the café where I make what have been referred to as 'the best coffees in all of Emerald Cove'. I could drive; it'd make light work of the thirty-minute hike. But this peacefulness, the sense of calm I get from being so close to the clarity of the water and the occasional aviary wildlife that populate it ... nothing can beat that. It's where I go to be alone. And being alone is almost as good as being with Duke.
    Duke.
    The thought makes guilt once again