Becoming Sean - Prologue (START HERE)

Hey friends! I can't begin to tell you how much I've missed you. I know it has been a long time, but hopefully my head is back in the game. We writers have writer's block a lot, but--for me--it usually only lasts a few weeks, a couple of months tops. It's a scary feeling when the voices STOP talking. Now it seems that they all want to talk at once, so I guess whoever wins the fight will get my attention the most. Right now it's Sean. And believe me, he has more than just a few bumps and bruises from beating his way to the top. He has a story to tell. It's an important one, so listen up, kids.

Becoming Sean - Part One

Prologue

Summer 1995 - Almost Seven Years Earlier

Sean

I sat on the cold tile floor of the small hospital waiting room with my knees pulled up to my chin and my arms tightly hugging my shins. My mom wouldn't stop crying, so I couldn't stop the buzzing. At least that's what I called it. My whole body felt like it was buzzing or vibrating. It's what it felt like when I was about to lose control.

At eleven years old, I didn't know much about doctor-talk, or even how to pronounce what the shrink my dad made me talk to called my disorder. I just knew not everyone was like me. Not everybody felt the buzzing and did things that would get them into trouble when they couldn't control it. All I knew was I was angry all the time… and scared. I was scared to death.

"Sean," Dad said in a quiet voice as he held my crying mom. "Why don't you sit in the chair, Son? It's—"

"No," I said for the third time. "I'm fine."

"How much longer, Daddy? When can we go see Sissy?" my little sister said for at least the millionth time. My dad sighed. I wouldn't be able to hear it again without yelling at her. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't understand why we were here. Nobody had explained anything to her. Of course, nobody had explained anything to me, either. I just knew whatever it was, it wasn't good or Mom wouldn't be crying like that.

"Jesus, why haven't we heard anything yet?" Dad said.

"Stacie, come sit by me." I straightened my legs out then reached over and gently pulled her down beside me. I wasn't sure if I did it to shut her up or to use her as a distraction for my benefit.

Stacie was fourteen months younger than me, but was still quite a bit smaller. She was born deaf in one ear, and only had partial hearing in the other, so we all learned sign language when the doctors told us she would be completely deaf by age twelve.

I signed to her, "Only a little while longer."

I searched through my duffle bag and found the sucker coach gave each of the players on the baseball team for doing a great job during practice, and then held it out to her.

Just as Stacie took the sucker, the only door in the room opened and a sobbing woman, with dark red hair and black streaks on her face ran in. Mom stood and they hugged each other tightly as they cried. I blinked in confusion, and then the buzzing grew bigger and louder when I realized the woman was Charlie's mom.

Why was Charlie's mom here?

"Jeff," Dad said, and my head whipped around as my breaths became shallower. I watched with wide eyes as Dad shook hands with Charlie's dad. Her daddy seemed almost as upset as her mom, but why? And why wasn't Charlie with them?

I pushed Stacie out of the way and quickly got to my feet. "Where's Charlie?" I said to her daddy. "She's supposed to be with you by now. Chan and Sara were supposed to take her home right after school."

By the sad look her dad gave me, I knew I wouldn't like what his answer would be. Instead of replying to me, he looked back at Dad, and said, "Have the doctors talked to you yet, Cameron?"

Dad shook his head.

Jeff glanced down at me and Stacie, and then back to my dad with a hopeless expression on his pale, tired-looking face. "Maybe we should talk outside."

All of a sudden, I felt as if I might throw up. The buzzing was getting worse. I didn't have a good feeling about this at all. Where was Charlie? Why wouldn't her daddy tell me where she was? All I knew was they weren't leaving this room without me. "Dad, I wanna go."

Dad held his hand out, stopping me when I took a step toward the door. "Stay in here with Stacie and your mom, Sean. I'm going to go check on Sara, and then I'll be right back, okay?"

"No!" I shoved him, and then backed away and glared up at him. "I need to go. I can't stay in this room another minute or I'm going to lose it. You have to let me go with you. Please!"

Dad looked at Jeff then back to me and gave a single nod. He put a hand on my back and we walked out of the room that had been my prison for the past forty-five miserable minutes.

Just as we arrived at a long counter, an older man in a white coat walked out of an elevator and headed straight for us.

"Mr. Reese?" the doctor said.

Dad put his hand on my shoulder and nodded. "Yes. Is my daughter going to be all right?"

Sorrow filled the older man's eyes as he gestured with a hand for us to return to the waiting room. I didn't want to go back in there. Nothing good would happen if I went back in that room. Where was Charlie?

Dad choked back a sob and wiped at his face with one hand as he took my hand with the other. I had never seen him look so broken before. What had happened? I didn't understand.

As the doctor talked to my family and Charlie's family, the buzzing grew fierce in my ears. I missed words, sentences, whole paragraphs as the man explained what happened, only catching things like 'vehicle accident', 'still in surgery', 'Charlie', 'Chandler', 'pray' and 'injuries too extensive'. My head shot up and my vision blurred when the doctor said, "I'm sorry. We did everything we could. Sara didn't make it. She is… she is dead."

Sara didn't make it. She is dead. Sara didn't make it. She is dead.

I needed Charlie.