By: Kelly Risser
Clean Teen Publishing
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the authors' imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Never Forgotten
Copyright ©2014 Kelly Risser
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-940534-86-2
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Nuckels
Editing by: Cynthia Shepp
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Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Acknowledgements
About the Author
10 years earlier
I started to fall asleep when I heard Daddy’s voice. At least, he told me he was my daddy. I’d never met him.
“Daddy?” I called in the dark. My throat felt funny, like when Mommy made me gargle with salt water when I had a cold. I held back a sneeze; a strange smell tickled my nose.
Meara, honey. I’m looking for you. Where are you?
He sounded far away. Why was Daddy sad? My stomach tightened, and my eyes welled with tears. “Where are you, Daddy?”
Silence. The pain vanished, quick as it came. He was gone. I jumped out of bed and ran to my mom’s room.
“Daddy’s so sad!”
I flung myself onto her bed and crawled up until I could wrap my arms around her. Burying my face in her neck, I breathed in the gardenia perfume she always wore. “He wants to see us, Mommy, but he can’t find us,” I mumbled against her skin.
My mom sat up, wrapping her arm around me. She whispered in my ear and stroked my hair. “It’s okay, Meara. You just had a bad dream.”
“I wasn’t asleep.” I raised my head and dared her to challenge me. She didn’t say anything, but she looked funny. Was Mommy scared? My lip quivered. “Mommy, why isn’t Daddy with us?”
“Oh, pumpkin.” Mom sighed and leaned back against the headboard, her arm tight around me. “It’s complicated. I love your father, and he loves us, but it just didn’t work out. He can’t be with us.”
“Why not?” I searched her face, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You won’t understand, sweetie. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy;
for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves;
we must die to one life before we can enter another.
- Anatole France