Read Online Racing for Freedom by Bec Botefuhr - Free Book Online

rows and rows of headstones, silently praying for each and every one of them. They were all someone’s loved one, at one stage in their lives, or maybe they weren’t. All the same, they all deserve a little compassion and respect. When I find my mother’s headstone, I swallow down the lump in my throat.
    I lower myself to my knees and reach out, sliding my fingers across the grainy rock. I see a bundle of fresh flowers on her grave and for a moment I wonder who put them there. Did dad come out of the house and put them down for her? Or was it just a friend of hers? Maybe a co-worker? I don’t buy flowers, I just can’t stand the idea of them slowly wilting on her grave. Instead, I place down small, plastic love heart. When I was a little girl, I loved to collect them and every time she went shopping, she would bring me one home. Now every year, I put one down for her.
    “Hey mum,” I whisper, stroking the grave.
    I struggle to hold back my tears, for years I came here and never shed a tear but today my emotions are far worse. I don’t really know why. Perhaps it’s the return of Slade and his father, making it all seem like it was just yesterday.
    “I miss you,” I say to the stone. “I wish you were here every day. Dad doesn’t do so well without you and there are so many things I want to ask you, to tell you, to show you.”
    I let a tear fall and I shuffle closer to the headstone, my chest heaves and my breathing becomes short. I would do anything in the world to bring her back, anything. I can’t though, and it’s the most heart wrenching feeling in the world. When she died, I called her phone over and over, just praying she would pick up. My dad had to wrench the phone from my hands and smash it to pieces, because I got so obsessive, I was calling it every five minutes, not believing that she could possibly be gone.
    “I didn’t forget.”
    I whip my head around at the voice that’s interrupted my moment. Slade is standing behind me, his hair is wet from the rain and his shirt is stuck to his skin. I look down at my own shirt, not having realized I was getting so soaked. He crouches down beside me and points to the flowers.
    “They’re from you?” I whisper.
    “Yesterday, I came and put them here.”
    “How did…how did you know where she was buried?”
    “I knew, I’ve always known.”
    “Why would you…”
    “I loved your mum, Dash. You know I did.”
    “You never even came to her funeral.”
    He bows his head and reaches out to slide his fingers over the headstone, the way I had just been doing.
    “No, I didn’t, and I will regret that for the rest of my life. Just like I’ll regret that night. I don’t know what I can say to you Dash, that’s going to make any of this feel better. I can say I’m sorry a thousand times over, I can plead with you to forgive me but I can’t change it.”
    “I know you’re sorry,” I whisper. “I know you loved her.”
    He nods. “Yeah, I did.”
    “I miss her Slade.”
    My voice cracks and he surprises me by wrapping an arm around my shoulders and sitting down on the ground beside me. We just sit like that for over an hour, staring at her grave, both alone in our thoughts. Slade doesn’t move his arm from my shoulders, and the comfort is…well…comforting. We’re both soaked and I’m beginning to shiver. Slade is too, but he doesn’t move.
    “Dash?” Slade whispers.
    “Yeah?”
    “Will you ever forgive me?”
    I turn and look over at him. “One day, Slade, you might give me a reason to.”
    “Dasha?”
    I turn when I hear my name. I see my father standing in the rain, staring down at Slade and I with shock. I stand quickly and rush over, but he puts his hands up.
    “What is he doing here?”
    “He…”
    “WELL?” he roars.
    “He was just…”
    What can I say? He’s here to pay his respects? He’s here for me? He’s here because he cares? None of those are going to work, because my father hates Slade and his