The Writer's Cafe discussion

Prologue



Sitting in the office of my dad’s doctor waiting for her to come in to explain what was going on was extremely exasperating. Besides the fact that I hated doctors anyway. I looked over at my dad, he was wringing his hands in his lap, I put my hand on his shoulder and smiled at him when he looked at me.

“Thanks for being here Abby.” he said.

I just nodded my head. I was as nervous as he was; I felt my hands tighten their grip on the arm rests. Maybe more, I thought to myself. I looked around the room; it was a typical doctor’s office. A degree from Harvard was up on the wall, there was a picture on the desk of her family, I picked it up and looked at it closer. The smiles all looked so fake like they were pretending to be happy. Just painted on, but if someone just glanced at the picture they looked like genuine smiles. But I hadn’t I had looked closer just like everyone should because if we do maybe we will notice the things that others don’t. I was fairly good at reading people, not like psychic reading, just reading what's real and what's not I guess you could say.

Doctor Shay came through the door and smiled at us. I feel myself relax and then look at her eyes and tense up, she looks sad. I smile a weak smile back at her, I feel drained and weak like my smile. She sits down slowly, and clears her throat.

“Well, we found a tumor in your brain, we think…” she cleared her throat again. “We think its cancerous.”

“Oh…” My dad said.

My heart stopped for a moment, how could it be? He was only 37. It can’t be, my brain kept saying over and over. I was tuning out their voices, I wanted to wake up, I can’t be awake, this has to be a dream. But it is real, I told myself sternly. I kept the tears in my eyes and started to listen to their voices again. Swearing on my life that I would help my dad with this as much as possible.

~~~

"Abby, Are you alright?" Dad asked once we got back from the doctor.

"What?"

"I said are you alright?"

"I’ll be fine. Just sad, you know.” I felt tears come to my eyes.

"Honey," He said softly, "everything is going to be alright, I will never leave you."

"You can't promise me that dad." I said just as softly, from the look on his face it looked like I might have just stuck a knife in his heart.

“I'm sorry.” I said quickly, hoping he’d forget what I had said.

“It’s ok, I understand.” He said.

“No I guess…oh I just don't know how to handle this.” I said.

He opened his arms just like he always did and I like always accepted them.

"Dad, what are we going to do?" I asked.

"What do you think honey?"

"I don't know that’s why I asked you!"

He chuckled, "I guess we'll figure it out sooner or later, right?"






If you'd like to read more go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

I would love some feedack :)

This is a powerful and gut wrenching scene to be sure. There is one thing I would point out right now that you might want to pay attention to. In the 4th paragraph you suddenly switch into present tense for the duration of the paragraph, and then you jump back into past tense. Keep any eye on that ... it's an easy mistake to make when writing first person. Good luck with your writing!