All in a Lifetime - Prologue
Bethany’s easy, simple life completely comes to a halt as everything starts to turn, and her life flashes before her deep, sea blue eyes. It all happened so fast and now she’s left without an idea of what to do or how everything happened. There she sits crying next to Laura, lying in her hospital bed like a princess under a sleeping spell. How can her best friend be in a coma? Brent sits next to Bethany and tries to calm her down.
“It’s okay, Beth. She’s still alive, and so is Lee, and that’s all that counts. It could have been a lot worse, and I thank God it wasn’t,” says Brent.
“I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s like this long test to see how much sorrow and stress I can take. Look at me, I probably look like a mess.”
“Actually...oh never mind. You are hurting and no one can blame you. I’m here for you, and I will be as long as you need me.”
“Mrs. Harvey can’t even look at her own daughter,” they sit in silence and then Bethany turns to look at Laura and says, “Laura, we all care about you so much and we want you to come back to us as soon as you possibly can. I miss you so much already. Dylan, Jessie, and Aiden are here, too. They are visiting with Lee now. He’s hurt pretty badly, but I think a lot better off than you. Until you both gain consciousness, they won’t be able to tell if either of you are paralyzed. I sure hope not.” Brent helps Beth stand up, since she hurt herself snowboarding. She looks at Laura with that soft, long, brown hair and sun-bronzed skin, and sees so much ahead of her.
“She’s hooked up to life support, morphine, oxygen and who knows what else. She’s only sixteen, darn it, and look at her.”
“Do you want me to go check on Lee and come back? So you can talk to Laura alone?” Brent asks as he puts one of his big, rough, scarred hands around her waist to steady her.
“Yeah, I guess,” she answers as he leaves.
“So this afternoon, Jessie came over, and we kinda listened to Brent and Dylan’s conversation. Brent told Dylan lots of things that really surprised me... I sure hope you gain consciousness before the Christmas Ball, though,” she says as she sits down next to Laura delicately holding her hand as she prays, and then losing strength, she cries. There’s a knock on the door, and Brent walks in.
She looks up, sees him so handsome, and starts babbling.
“What are we going to do? What if she doesn’t wake up? How’s Lee doing? IS Veronica here? What...”
“Beth,” he says, as he sits down next to her and takes her smooth, pale hand, ”relax. It may seem as though everything is crashing down around you, but this is only a test. We can get through it; we just need to stick together. Veronica is visiting with Lee right now. It seems like he’s doing better, but he’s still unconscious. Let’s say good-bye and go home. I work in the morning. If you want to come after lunch, we can visit them.” Not to mention, he thought to himself, I despise hospitals. They say good-bye to everyone and head out.
Once at home, they relax on the couch and watch some television. It was either House or Law and Order, so they chose the first.
“How you doing, Beth?” Brent asks her.
“Well I was just thinking...oh never mind.”
“No, go ‘head I want to hear it.”
“I was just thinking over the last few days, and how much I love my friends and what they do for me.”
She leans her head on his shoulder as he says,”Yeah. The last few days have been quite a lot haven’t they.”
“Sunday seemed so normal, who knew it would be the start of all this.”
