You know the drill, read the excerpt and post a comment!  This week’s Hook is from budding author Erin Stevens.  A prolific poet and short story writer, this is her first novel.

The Accident

There are moments in life that you just can’t prepare for. That even if you could prepare, you wouldn’t know where to start. I never would’ve anticipated the event that would forever distort a good life and turn it into one of misery.

Before the accident, I thought I had a pretty good idea of who I was. Ava Carver: high school junior, reluctant member of the tennis team, hardworking but always one point short of a 4.0, even with my hours of academic labor. I was friendly enough to everyone, but no more open than I had to be. I was the new girl, the girl who had lived in four different states and attended six different schools. I wasn’t going anywhere this time– dad promised.

Anyway, I got along pretty well with my parents; especially when they vowed to let me finish high school without being uprooted. Again. My dad was a financial consultant, and he was always getting offered “bigger and better” positions every few years. He claimed it was in our family’s best interest, but I think he just got bored being stuck in the same town for more than a few years. He got me involved with tennis, and spent endless hours on the driveway drilling strategy into my brain. Naturally, I felt like I had to keep playing for him. His intentions were good though, so I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wanted to retire my tennis career.

My mother was a natural worrywart; since she didn’t work, she directed that worry at my brother, Cameron, and me. If I were a bug, then she would be the microscope, endlessly hovering over me. Both of them over-bearing, I still loved my parents. They, however, had a weird relationship. They split their attention between my brother and me so well that they practically danced around each other. No fights or huge disagreements, but no signs of affection either. I worried about what they would be like once Cameron and I weren’t there anymore.

My brother Cameron, he’s a different story. The only time either of us have ever agreed on anything was when we both begged our dad to not make us move again. He pleaded for a different reason though: hockey. His world revolved around hockey, and although he was a freshman and new to the school, he’d already proven during the summer to be the high school’s hockey prodigy. Imagine, walking down the hall as a junior, finally starting to tread water when someone approaches and says: “Hey, you’re Cameron’s sister right?” Plus, ever since his talent started to “shine through,” Cam sucked up every inch of my dad’s time. That created a lovely mixture of sibling tension.

While Cameron wanted to stay for hockey, I begged to stay because I wanted to actually make friends. I remember moving in eighth grade, already expecting to be on my own since most friendships were already established. It didn’t bother me so much anymore; I’d become independent over the years and sometimes preferred the solitude. Still, as I found myself discreetly occupying a back corner desk, I couldn’t help but hope that things would, for once, be different.

Now I’ve started at another high school for my junior year. For the first two weeks I spent lunch hours and study time observing a group of girls. They weren’t the most popular, but it was a group that I could see myself meshing with. I imagined conversations I would have with them at lunch, maybe not even talking, but sitting with a core group of friends instead of other loners would be a step up. The only friend I had was a journal, but it does nothing for social stimulation. I spent my lunch hour looking at textbooks and homework so I could get ahead in my AP classes.

My love life was… taking an indefinite vacation. I’d been on a few dates, and was asked to Homecoming the previous year at my old school (I’d been there a record of two years) by the drop– dead– gorgeous football captain Evan Mathis whom I discovered, to my embarrassment, only asked me to make one of his ex-girlfriends jealous. Then there was Nolan Reeves, the quiet, soulful boy who sat next to me in my fourth period math class at my current school. We’d barely spoken more than a few words, but I found him interesting. He always asked me for a number two pencil. Every day I always supplied it, and he always gave it back after spending an entire class period sketching. The light scratch of the pencil soothed me into a place where I didn’t feel the pain of the quadratic formula. I guess I wasn’t in too big of a rush to find “my true love,” and since I hadn’t found anyone yet, I wasn’t too worried.

All in all, everything seemed pretty good. I wasn’t ungrateful for my life; I was complacent, actually, because I knew I should be. Still, while I greeted the world with a smile, my eyes searched relentlessly for something that would satisfy me. Most people would think I was pining after the cute guy seven lockers down, or envying the girl who walked past me wearing the shirt I wanted to buy two weeks ago, but that was so far off the mark.

I was claimed by others, but I didn’t feel claimed to myself, and I was feeling an emptiness inside. I had no idea what any of this meant. Not until after, when I finally came into myself.

That’s what I was thinking about when it happened. I was trying to drown out my dad’s endless babble about training for the big tennis match the following weekend. He hadn’t come right out and said that I wasn’t playing well, but his condescending tone gave him away. He tried to make jokes after his overly critical speech, but the damage was done. I pressed my face against the cool window as I watched the world go by. I made up stories about the people we passed, each person having a piece of the life I wanted. It was in the middle of imagining the middle aged woman who looked like she was a lawyer when life threw me an unexpected curve ball.

Maybe it was that split second my Dad glanced over at me, offering an olive branch. Maybe it was the other driver who ran the red light just as we pulled through the busiest intersection in town. I heard the screaming brakes, the sound of metal against metal, horns blaring, glass shattering, and a few choice words from dad. I saw my father’s face masked in one of horror, the red, speeding bullet growing closer, and finally, my own shocked face reflected in the glass.

And then I saw nothing at all.