Set Free

Set Free Prologue

Prologue

The warm morning of May 19th, 2008 was the day my world completely shattered. It was a day I will never forget. And it was the day that changed my whole entire life, past, present, and future. My name is Amber Davidson. And on that May nineteenth of two-thousand and eight, I died inside.

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A phone rang loudly in my comfy living room that afternoon.

I'd just gotten out of bed ten minutes prior and made myself something to eat, and then I had plopped myself down in front of the TV to waste my day away. Ah, Saturdays. Gotta love 'em.

  When the phone rang I smiled in happiness as I paused the TV and ran to the phone. I knew exactly who it would be even before I glanced at the caller id. So like every other normal day, I daintily picked up the phone in my hand, and pressed it to my ear, not being able to contain the excitement that bubbled up in me as I awaited hearing his voice.

"Hey you, how was the drive?"  I asked who I assumed was Justin, my totally awesome boyfriend that I was totally head over heels for.

"Hi, Amber..." Someone mumbled, then the voice trailed off. It sounded like the person was crying.

"Miss Ann...?" I asked. I'd never heard Justin's mom like that before. Worry clenched in my stomach.

"Mhm..." she sniffled. I heard what I thought was her blowing her nose, and then I realized, she was crying. I bit my lip, a nervous habit that worrying always seemed to force onto me.

"What's wrong? Are you alright?" Then another realization hit me like a punch in the gut. "Where's Justin?" I asked her. "Why isn't he the one who called? Is he okay?"

"We got in a wreck, Amber."

My voice caught in my throat. I couldn't believe this. I could barely breathe.

"Is everyone alright? Who's hurt?" I asked.

When there was no answer, I took a deep breath before I dared to ask what I was most afraid of.

"Did anyone....die?" I ventured.

Then I heard someone suddenly wailing in the static-filled background, and a muffled "I can't tell her, I just can't."

"Hello? Can someone please tell me what's going on?!?" I began panicking as I cupped the phone tightly to my ear. I do NOT do well with suspense. In fact, I loathe it.

"Hello, Amber." I recognized that the grave voice now speaking was Justin's dad. "I'm gonna tell it to you straight, I'm not gonna lie to you." He paused. "We've had a wreck, and now we're at the hospital. We got hit by a semi-truck. We think it was a drunk driver------"

I interuppted him, I just couldn't take the wait any longer.

"Is Justin alright?" I burst out. "Which hospital is it? I don't care how far away it is, I really don't. My mom will drive me, and I could be there-----"

He then delivered the words I never wanted to hear in my whole entire life. The very words that shattered me.

"He's gone, Amber."

Tears began pouring down my face as I stood there, shocked.

"He's gone?" I asked, hoping desperately that  I'd somehow heard him wrong. I knew it was totally possible, because my hearing really does suck.

"I'm so very sorry, Amber. He.....he really loved you, you know."

My hands were shaking so badly by then as the realization set in that I would never see Justin again that I just dropped the phone on the floor. My palm remained open, and my tearstained face was blank. I slowly closed my hand into a fist. I acted at first as if I didn't even notice I'd dropped the phone, and I was going to leave it there on the floor. But my anger flared as I stared at it helplessly laying there on the floor, and I cradled it in my hand with love. Somewhere inside my subconscious, I snapped, and the love I held the phone with turned to deep hate as I brought back my hand, and then hurled it into the nearest wall of my living room. I watched it shatter into several pieces, and symbolically I knew I'd just smashed my heart with that phone. So with nothing left to do, I turned, and silently marched to my room like I was a ghost. I didn't even care that I'd just hung up on Justin's parents in probably the cruelest way I could've. But can you blame me?

No one else was home, I was all alone in my big house. And I'd just lost what I thought was my only reason to live. What was there to do? Oh right, tear up my own room. And scream.

I stomped around my room like a child throwing a temper-tantrum, picking up anything in sight and smashing whatever it was into the wall. I knew that breaking things wouldn't make Justin come back, but it was helping me cope somehow. No later than I had thought that, I realized, why should I even be trying to cope at all? Justin was gone, so what was the point anymore? I wanted to die. But how could I do that? And then I remembered where my father kept his pocketknives....

My mother found me later that day curled up in a corner of my dark room wearing one of Justin's shirts. My roomed looked like a tornado had just blown through it. And you know how your mom always tells you that's how your room looks when it's messy and she wants you to clean it? But you just roll your eyes because you know that it's not really THAT bad? Well, my room was THAT bad.

She gasped when she saw me, I was a mess myself. Tears streamed down my face, and they didn't show any signs of stopping. I held one of my dad's pocketknives in my right hand. And all of my long, beautiful, curly dark brown hair lay strewn on the floor surrounding me. I'd tried to kill myself, but in the end I didn't have the guts, so instead I'd cut my hair into a horror-movie version of a pixie cut.

"Oh, my God, Amber...." She had said to me as she wrapped her delicate arms around me. "What happened?"

"He's gone." I replied brokenly. "And he's....never coming back." I rested my head on her shoulder, and began bawling again.

I'd begun to feel a pain inside of me that I was almost positive would never go away. And I thought no one in the entire world could change that.

Until I met the one person who could.