The Paralyzed Dream (COMPLETED)

Chapter One

       The crowd cheered loudly as Lacey flew into the arena racing towards the first barrel in the cloverleaf pattern. She expertly turned her horse around the barrel, keeping the reins short, she cut the turn close and sharp to get a good lead off of the first barrel, towards the second. As Lacey rounded the second barrel, she took a deep seat in her saddle and didn't loosen her tight grip on her saddle horn as she steered her horse, Smokey, around the barrel. After another clean turn, Lacey made her way to the third and final barrel. A third perfect turn around the barrel, and Lacey spurred Smokey faster as they galloped their way to the gate to complete their run.
The crowd's cheering was almost deafening as Lacey's horse kicked up dust as they galloped their way back to the gate. The crowd knew who the new barrel racing champion was, their cheering proved it. With a perfect, solid, quick run, there was no denying that that new barrel racing champion was Lacey Anne Ferry.

       With a look back over her shoulder right before she crossed the gate, Lacey checked her time. She smiled when she saw the time. That smile immediately faded as Lacey felt a jolt between her legs.

Lacey woke gasping for air. Sweat plastered hair to her face. She tried sitting up, but then she remembered her nightmare was real. Trying hard to catch her breath, Lacey propped herself up on her elbows.
Lacey heard her door open, and her mom came rushing in to her side. Luella Ferry, Lacey's mom, held Lacey in her arms and rocked her. Lacey didn't need to explain the nightmare to her mom because Luella already knew. As her mom rocked her, Lacey tried hard to slow her breathing and snap back to reality...but her nightmare was reality.
"It's okay, honey. Shh. Just breath. It's okay." Luella said, rocking Lacey. Lacey buried her face in her mom's shoulder and tried taking deep breaths. After several minutes of rocking and comfort from her mom, Lacey was able to slow her breathing back to a normal pace. The sweat had almost dried on Lacey's face and her heart rate returned back to a steady pace.
Luella helped Lacey lay back down, then sat in a chair next to her bed and waited until Lacey fell asleep before making her way back to her room. What Lacey's mom didn't know was that Lacey wasn't really sleeping...she never did after she had that nightmare.

At 6:00 AM, Lacey figured that it was late enough for her to get out of bed and eat breakfast. She turned her head and saw that her mom had moved her wheelchair right next to her bed and locked the brakes. Lacey propped herself up on her elbows and pushed herself backwards so her back was resting against her headboard on her bed. As she did every day, Lacey used her hands to move her legs to the side of the bed and carefully slide herself into her wheel chair. Once she was seated, she unlocked the brakes and rolled herself to her door and opened it, rolling out into the hallway.
Lacey carefully and expertly moved herself onto the automatic stair lift chair that would carry her to the lower level of the house. Once she was strapped into the chair, Lacey folded up her wheelchair and set it on the track that her dad and brother had made and held onto it as the automatic chair took her downstairs.
Once the chair reached the bottom of the stairs, Lacey unfolded her wheelchair and settled herself into it. After she was safely seated, she rolled to the kitchen just in time to hear her mom tell her dad, "She had another nightmare. I could tell it was the one of her accident." Lacey stopped her wheelchair next to the door of the kitchen to eavesdrop on their conversation.
"Again? This is the third night in a row." Lacey's dad, Zane, said, getting a coffee mug from the cupboard.
"I know." Luella said, a sad tone in her voice. She rested her hands behind her on the counter of the kitchen island and leaned back against it.
"We need to do something about it. It's getting worse." Zane replied, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"I know...Maybe it's time to get her out to the barn...or at least out of the house." Luella whispered as if she knew Lacey was on the other side of the wall listening to their conversation.
"She won't like that." Zane said, matching his wife's quiet volume.
"The doctors said it's not good for her to be inside all day. She has to get outside. Smokey is getting restless." Luella said, her volume returning to normal. Smokey is Lacey's barrel horse that she was riding when her accident happened.
"She's been scared of horses since the accident. I don't see how she could help Smokey." Zane said. He lifted his coffee mug to his lips and took a sip.
Lacey sighed and rolled herself into the kitchen.
"Morning, Lacey, honey. Did you sleep well last night?" Zane asked Lacey, smiling. She hated it when he faked it; when he knew how she really slept because his wife just told him. Lacey shook it off like she always did; all her dad was trying to do was show he cared by starting a conversation. Or he was trying to get her to open up. One of the two.
Lacey looked up to her father and nodded. When she rolled her chair near the cupboards to get a bowl and glass for her breakfast, her dad moved out of the way. Just like everyday, Lacey struggled to just barely reach her bowl. The glasses had been pushed back slightly, because there were a few dirty ones in the sink, to where Lacey couldn't reach them. Shortly after Lacey's accident, Lacey's parents had moved the plates, glasses, and bowls down a shelf in the cupboard so Lacey could reach them from her wheelchair.
"Here, honey, I'll get it for you." Luella said after Lacey tried for the third time to stretch as far as she could to reach a glass.
"No, it's okay. I'm not thirsty." Lacey said and rolled away from the cupboards to go to the refrigerator. She pulled the milk out, then stopped at the pantry to get her cereal.
Lacey returned to the table after grabbing a spoon to prepare her bowl of cereal for breakfast. As she poured her milk, her dad accidentally bumped into the table when he was sitting down, making Lacey spill milk all over her lap. Her dad immediately apologized and grabbed her napkins to wipe up the milk. He cleaned up the spilled milk on the floor since Lacey couldn't reach it.
Lacey poured her cereal and grabbed for her spoon, but it slipped from her wet hands and fell on the floor. Reaching over the side of her wheelchair, Lacey tried hard to reach her spoon...it was just out of reach though. Her mom was immediately right by her side to help her. Luella picked up Lacey's spoon for her and set it on the table after wiping it off.
Before she took a bite of her cereal, she felt her parents watching her out of the corner of their eyes as if ready to pounce at the first sign that she needed help. Lacey sighed and rolled back slightly from the table.
Without looking at her parents, Lacey said, "I'm not hungry. I'm goin' back to my room."
Lacey's mom set her spoon down and stood up as if she was going to help Lacey get upstairs to her room, even though Lacey has been doing that for over 365 days. Lacey rolled away quickly from the table to show she didn't need help. It had been a year since her accident, but her parents still acted like it was Lacey's first day in a wheelchair. That bothered her; the huge adjustment would have been easier if everyone had just let Lacey try on her own, and only help when she asked for it. She appreciated that there was always someone nearby to help her if she asked for it, but when her parents were constantly hounding over her, it made Lacey feel completely incapable of anything.
After Lacey got back to her room, and closed the door behind her, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. While her eyes were closed, Lacey replayed what her mom had said to her dad just a few minutes beforehand. "Maybe it's time to get her out to the barn...or at least out of the house."
Lacey had only gone outside very few times since her accident. The only times that she left the house was for her monthly doctors' appointments and for her once a week physical therapy treatments. Lacey never understood why she had to go to the doctor's once every month after her accident. What were they going to tell her? "Yup. You're still paralyzed...nope, you will never walk again." She didn't need doctors to tell her that; she figured that out every day starting when she woke up.
Shortly after her accident, Lacey's parents had talked about buying her an "all terrain" wheelchair that was supposed to be able to go over nearly all terrains. The wheelchair was too expensive though. It's not like she would've really used it anyways; there was no place she wanted to go...not even out to the barn.
Lacey opened her eyes and looked around her room. Countless ribbons, trophies, certificates, pictures, posters, exhibitor numbers, belt buckles, etc. lined the walls in Lacey's room, showing the success that Lacey had had in rodeo and her work with horses and cattle. Several of the accolades were from 4-H and numerous fairs, expos, and shows. On top of her dresser was a large shadowbox that held all of the rodeo buckles that she had won. A slightly smaller one next to it held belt buckles that were given to her or that she had bought. Several canvas paintings of various sizes were placed strategically on the walls in Lacey's large room. Everything in her room from the decorations, to the bedspread, to the clothes in her closet and dressers, to the saddle in the corner, to the numerous cowboy hats, ball caps, and cowboy boots screamed "cowgirl."
Sighing, Lacey made her way to her dresser to grab her phone. She wasn't surprised to see a text from her best friend since childhood, Brooke. Brooke was one of the very very few people that had stayed a true friend of Lacey's after her accident. Most of the people that she thought were her friends disowned her and ignored her after the accident. It was good to know who her true friends were.
Nearly every day since Lacey's accident, Brooke had sent Lacey an encouraging quote and/or Bible verse. Well, truth is, they had started doing that even before Lacey's accident, but the accident just gave Brooke even more reasons to encourage Lacey and let her know that she is loved. Today's Bible verse was from Jeremiah 29:11. It said, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares The Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.'" The verse was followed with, "Keep your head up, cowgirl. God's got a great plan in store for you. I'm prayin' for you. Love you."
Lacey texted her friend back, telling her thank you for the verse, then Lacey made her way back to her bed to watch a movie on the TV that her parents had set up for her shortly after the accident. Before she knew it, Lacey had fallen asleep. When she woke, Lacey glanced at her phone and saw that it was after two. She couldn't believe that she had slept for almost five hours. Her TV was still on and it was on the menu screen of the movie she had just watched. Turning it off, Lacey looked around her room and tried to decide what to do next. The only thing that sounded good to her right now was sleep which is pretty much all she did anymore since her accident.
Lacey ejected the DVD, put it back in its case, then decided to take another nap. She was awaken about four hours later when her mom brought her up her supper tray. Luella sat down on Lacey's bed and placed a hand on her shoulder. Lacey looked up at her mom.
"I brought you some supper." Luella said.
"I'm not hungry." Lacey said dryly.
"Lacey, honey, you have been sayin' that for days now. Ever since your last doctor's appointment. You need to eat something." Lacey's mom said. She dropped her hand from Lacey's shoulder and scooped up a spoonful of mashed potatoes. "Here, take a bite of mashed taters. Home made. Just how you like them." Luella was right, Lacey hadn't eaten anything since her doctors appointment two days ago. Her doctor told her that she needed to gain more weight, and do the home exercises that her physical therapist gave her to keep up her muscle mass. Lacey was too depressed to eat, though. At this point, it didn't seem to matter if she ate at all; she wasn't going to get better. Eating wouldn't magically make her legs start working again.
"No, thanks, mama." Lacey said plainly, turning her head away from her mom.
"Can you at least take a bite of steak?" Luella said, stabbing a piece of cut up steak onto the fork.
"I'm not hungry." Lacey said again. She pulled the blankets up to her chin. "I'm tired. I just want to go to sleep right now."
Lacey heard her mom set the fork down on the tray. The bed moved, telling Lacey that her mom stood up off of it. Luella bent down and gave Lacey a kiss on her forehead. "Goodnight sweetheart. I love you."
"Love you too, mama." Lacey said, her eyes closed.
With a click, Luella closed Lacey's door and made her way downstairs. As Lacey fell asleep, she thought about her uneventful, typical day. Just another ordinary day in the life of a paralyzed cowgirl.
Little did she know that all of that was about to change.