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Available now on Amazon.com. |
Because You Left Me unfolds through the poignant voices of its teen characters and best friends Garrett_Linden, Cory_Rodriguez, Ahmed_Rahman, and Howie_Goldstein. Despite their diverse backgrounds and living conditions, they support each other while facing unusual challenges during their first semester of high school. To avoid the foster system, Garrett hides his mother’s unexpected death. Cory, a Gold Star son, hopes to find a way out of his abusive group home. Immigrant Ahmed longs to see his father, who is a wartime hostage more than seven thousand miles away. A brilliant nerd, Howie braces himself for his dad’s prolonged absence while working on an invention that may save the climate and the world. Overcoming an ordinary problem is difficult enough, but the obstacles in these extraordinary lives are anything but ordinary. They deal with their unique struggles in remarkable ways while their camaraderie and stories evolve with surprising outcomes. Because You Left Me is an uplifting, modern-day, humorous, and suspenseful teen novel that takes place in Southern Arizona.
Because You Left Me is now available on Amazon.com. You can read a portion of the first chapter below.
Chapter One
Garrett
Deeper, I told myself. I heaved the shovel’s blade downward, pierced the ground, and tossed more soil. The pit needed to be deep enough to keep the vultures from circling. There was also Rufus to consider. Mom did a pretty good job of training him, so he no longer tore up her garden, but once Rufus caught the scent of dead flesh below the surface, it was anyone’s guess if he’d return to his old ways. The deeper, the better, I reminded myself. Usually, the caliche was hard and impossible to dig through, but evening monsoon rains had softened the earth. I stayed at the task under a scorching August sun while clouds gathered, promising to cool the desert with another late afternoon shower.
I didn’t kill my mom ― no matter what some people say. I was five when Dad left. I kept wondering, Where is he? What happened to him? Was it my fault? That was years ago. Then Mom got worse, and I wished she’d just chill and leave us alone, but I didn’t intend it as a curse. I figured it would solve things, not turn out the way they did, and I sure didn’t mean for it to come to pass on the first day of the school year. I guess, in a lot of ways, it was my fault. If only I had done things differently that day.
That day I silently decided, Nothing’s going to ruin today, not last night, not Mom, not anything. I stepped outside to the early morning cooing of desert doves, the scent of a rain-drenched desert, and a crystal-blue, cloudless sky. The door closed behind me just as a stray rock caught my eye. One swift kick sent that stone ricocheting off our brick walkway and spinning into the bushes, triggering a sound that sent adrenalin through my veins. Wrong move, I told myself while I froze in place.
“Nothing’s going to mess up today,” I whispered. I stood motionless, mentally calculating the distance of the rattle before deciding it was safe to run to the gate. I thought about going back inside to warn Mom, but I knew she’d be furious if I woke her. I didn’t need to tell Blake. He left for his first day of fourth grade right after he gulped down the toast and eggs I fixed him.
Mom won’t be up for hours. It won’t be around by then, I reasoned. I weighed my options: have Mom yell at me or go to school early to connect with friends. It was a no-brainer. I sprinted to the wrought iron gate, stumbled, and fell flat on my face. I dusted myself off, did a brief injury inspection, and found everything, minus my pride, intact. A glance both ways down the street revealed no witnesses. I gathered my dignity, stood tall, and started walking to Sonoran View High School. Nothing’s going to ruin my first day, I silently reminded myself.
Other than some occasional coordination glitches, Mom was my life’s challenge. The night before, she kept us up, shouting at us, blaming us for things she thought we did that we didn’t do. I told her we had school the next day. Would she listen? No, she was busy freaking out, having one of her episodes. I wished she’d do a better job timing those crazy bouts, but she probably had no control over them. Last year, Mom told us she was bipolar, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the whole truth because it seemed she snacked on her prescription medicine like candy. Besides that, she had other pills in unlabeled plastic sandwich bags that came from God knows where.
Ahmed
Before we left our country, we did not go to school. There was too much danger, too much gunfire. Then the bombs came and the gas. When we arrived in Arizona, my brother, Abdul, started American elementary school. My sister, Huda, and I began our first day of American middle school. I thought Americans were crazy. They wore strange clothes. There was a party in the last class. I did not speak English. I did not understand what was happening. A girl dressed as a cat gave me a cupcake. A girl wearing witch clothes gave me two cookies. Some boys had tangled hair and wore torn clothes with fake blood. They turned on a speaker and played music. I worried about Father.
Over eleven thousand kilometers, I thought, if only I could see him. I ate my cupcake and wondered if my friends in my country were okay. Everyone in the room laughed and talked. Some danced. I ate my two cookies and asked myself, How can they laugh and dance when there is war?
I tried to be like Americans on my second day of American middle school. I dressed like Americans. I wore torn clothes and ketchup for fake blood. No one wore torn clothes. No one was a witch or a cat. I was the only one with strange clothes. Sixth period, Linnie, the girl who gave me a cupcake, pointed to a day on the calendar.
“Halloween,” Linnie said. She pointed to other days and said, “Not Halloween, not Halloween, not Halloween, not Halloween. Halloween, one day, only one day Halloween. No more Halloween this year.” I nodded and felt shame.
In my country, we had Halloween, but not with costumes and candy. We had what the adults called daily Halloween. In daily Halloween, adults shared stories of our real horror, the daily horror of children suffering from hunger and fear of death. I did not understand American Halloween, and Americans did not understand our Halloween, our people, and what we had been through. They did not understand me, and I did not understand them. Being the smallest at school was difficult, but it was more difficult to understand Americans and American ways.
The next year, I started American high school.
Cory
First period, thin-as-a-pole, gray-haired Miss_Davis must have noticed. How couldn’t she? I hoped Miss_Davis wouldn’t care because I wanted to get through that first day without questions. I could tell all my wishing and wanting was pointless, like everything else. Miss_Davis seemed like a sweet old lady. I was pretty sure it was just an act while hiding her true evil self. She called roll before going desk to desk, handing out math assessment tests. I had the first hint of trouble when I realized Miss_Davis had an ulterior motive that involved me. Why else would she wait until she reached the person in front of me to start asking names?
“What’s your name?” Miss Davis asked.
“Izzie,” the girl sitting in front of me answered.
“That’s a cute name,” Miss_Davis told Izzie. What else could Miss_Davis say? I think your name stinks?
“Izzie is short for Isabelle,” Izzie explained.
“Oh, Isabelle is a lovely name,” Miss_Davis smiled before she moved on to me.
Oh, brother. I knew where this was headed, and there it was.
“And what’s your name?” Miss_Davis asked with a syrupy sweet voice as she placed a test on my desk.
“Cory, Cory Rodriguez,” I told her, even though I suspected her friendly question was only a ploy to collect information to make a report.
“Oh, that’s a nice name,” Miss_Davis said before she continued down the row. My suspicions were confirmed when she stopped asking names once she moved past me. We started our tests while Miss_Davis went to her computer. I watched her fingers prance across the keyboard. Now and then, she glanced at me with that look of pity I knew spelled trouble.
Geez, she’s reporting it! I just knew that was what she was doing. I tried to tell myself I was paranoid, that it was all my imagination. My gut told me otherwise, and sure enough, a few minutes later, Mandy_Liu showed up, jingling bracelets and all, carrying a small slip of paper. Mandy handed the hall pass to Miss_Davis, and Miss_Davis brought the call slip to me while she acted surprised.
“Oh, Mrs._Norton, our school counselor, wants to see you at the end of second period. I wonder what that’s about? It’s probably nothing,” Miss_Davis said, handing me the pass while she acted like she didn’t notice. It was a domino effect of school protocol. Miss_Davis saw the bruises and discretely informed the office, triggering Mrs._Norton to write a pass and call on Mandy, a student office aide. Mandy delivered the hall pass to Miss_Davis, who acted perplexed that I got a call slip.
Yeah, right, you don’t have any idea why I’m being called to the office, I mentally told Miss_Davis before I smiled and said, “Thank you.”
Garrett
I walked through a hall of worn tile and faded pale green walls that screamed for fresh paint while Teddy headed my way with a frantic expression. He looked directly at me while his mouth formed words. I heard muffled sounds, but I wasn’t sure what Teddy was trying to tell me. He seemed a little freaked out, so I figured I needed to hear what he had to say. I pulled out an earbud.
“The light almost got you!” Teddy said. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about because I couldn’t figure out how light could get me. “The light! It almost got you!” Teddy repeated and pointed to an area behind me. A quick look revealed shattered glass spread across the floor. Above, a light fixture was missing a long tube-shaped bulb. Typical. My life was filled with near misses and occasional catastrophes. I wasn’t upset, a little startled, maybe. I figured no harm done, so I continued to Algebra, hoping it wasn’t an omen. A broken mirror ― seven years of bad luck. A broken lightbulb? I didn’t know what that amounted to if anything.
These were the first signs my life was spinning into a warped existence: first, the snake, then the light. I wondered if the whole day would be like that, or worse, my entire first year, or worse than worse, all my high school stint, from then until graduation, or the ultimate worst, the rest of my life. I realized I was beginning to sound like Mom ― disconnected from reality.
Of course, the snake and the light are just a coincidence and mean nothing, I told myself as I entered Algebra.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen. Mom? I asked myself, Why is she calling me? I’m in school! What is she thinking? Personal calls weren’t allowed during the school day, and she knew it, but my mom frequently made poor choices. I didn’t answer, and she didn’t leave a message. I figured she was probably having another one of her episodes. That was when Ahmed walked into Algebra, wearing huge pants that were way too big for him.
Ahmed
I sat by Garrett in Algebra on our first day of ninth grade. He wanted to know why I wore big pants. I told him Teddy loaned me pants. I tried to take off my small sweatshirt, but my arms got caught. Then I made so great a mistake I cannot speak of it. It was a mistake greater than wearing strange clothes to school on not Halloween.