I was out all afternoon with some friends so I didn't have time to write a brand spanking new story for Day 10 of 30 Days, 30 Stories. Sharing an excerpt instead from my unpublished novel, The Time Is Now.
Story #10: Unsettling News
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She hated thinking about that night when her dad's partner showed up with another officer she'd never met before and asked to speak to her mother. Kyra had been at home alone. Her mother was working the night shift at the hospital so the officers told her the news in slow, careful tones. She remembered how their words disappeared. She could see their mouths moving but she heard nothing; her dad's partner, Joe Schmidt, was sobbing--heart-wrenching sobs that unnerved her.

"Your dad was the best partner I ever had," Joe Schmidt said again and again. "The absolute best--damn it, he should be here. He should be coming home to you and your ma."

The other officer was calmer. He kept calling Kyra "ma'am" which she couldn't understand at first. Her mother was "ma'am"...she was Kyra, sixteen years old, Kyra Amelia Halliwell. She was the girl who was in love and was accepted to five different colleges and was going to the prom soon. Her hands shook and then her entire body seemed to vibrate and clatter. And then she was on the floor and she was screaming but she didn't know if the noise was really her or if she was imagining it. But a black hole was opening beneath her and the darkness was pulling her in, and swirling and mawing. She didn't remember anything until something cold and wet stunned her back to reality. The other officer had placed a compress on her forehead and was asking her if they could take her somewhere so she wouldn't be alone. She told them to take her to Chris's house.

"Don't you want to go to your aunt's house on Brown Street?"

She shook her head fiercely. "I want to be with Chris."

So they drove her there. It was nearly midnight when they arrived and Chris's mother didn't want to let her in until Officer Schmidt explained what had happened. Even then, his mother hesitated. It was Chris's father who'd ushered her in and called for Chris. She was still shivering, tears were still streaming down her face and she felt her legs giving way beneath her.

When Chris appeared at the top of the stairs, she just sobbed his name and he practically flew to her. He took her upstairs and ignored his mother's protests that Kyra should go to the guest room. He took her into his room and laid her on the bed and covered her with his quilt. Then he lay down beside her and melded his body to hers, holding her and whispering in her ear that everything would be okay and urging her to close her eyes and just hear his voice. And she drifted to sleep and heard only him and the sound of his breathing and his heart beating and blood rushing through her ears.

They lay like that all night.

Downstairs his parents argued. His mother didn't want some stranger showing up on their doorstep with her problems.

That was how Mrs. Morrison saw it--a police officer, a father gunned down in the line of duty, was an "unsettling problem" that neither they nor Chris needed. She woke once and heard Chris's father talking about compassion and shock and how Kyra was right to come to Chris. But his mother refused to back down. The next morning she drove Kyra home and said she should be supporting her mother rather than clinging to Chris.