#SampleSunday - After the Pain

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and if you didn't celebrate, I still hope you had a wonderful week! Here's a sample from my forthcoming book, After the Pain, which is Book I of my new Latter Rain Series-coming January 12, 2016. 

Enjoy!!

It smelled like rain the day I lost my mind.

As a matter of fact, the scent of rain clung to the air like an unfulfilled promise until the sun set. I spent that day, the entire day, sitting on my front porch, staring at nothing in particular. I can’t say I was deep in thought because I wasn’t. As a matter of fact, all that seemed to fill my head was static—white noise. It was as if someone had flipped the switch in my head from on to off. 

I just sat there and rubbed my hand over my freshly-cut hair, the hair I’d had cut because I just didn’t have the desire to keep it up, to go the beauty shop every week like I had in the past. I didn’t eat or drink anything. I didn’t use the toilet. I didn’t answer the phone when it rang. I didn’t smile or return the mailman’s hello. I didn’t wave when my neighbor greeted me. I didn’t utter a word or move a muscle until the sun began its daily descent. And once the moon took its place in the sky, I stood from my seat, walked out into my yard and fell to the ground. Pressing my face into the grass, I cried for the rain, begged for it to stop playing around and go ahead and pour down on me. In my mind, the rain would make things better, maybe water down some of the pain. I writhed on the ground, pulling up handfuls of grass until my tears dried and transformed into soft wails.

“LaVonda? You all right?” my neighbor, Bunny, shrieked when she stepped outside her house and saw me. What a dumb question that was. I was rolling around on the ground begging for rain, wasn’t I? Of course I wasn’t okay. And then I saw the worried expression on her face and the ugly dress on her body and all I could do was laugh. I laughed so hard that I started to cry again...