Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Heels Over Head
    Heels Over Head
    Heels Over Head
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    Heels Over Head

    By Deborah Atkinson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    After you've been an automobile passenger in a serious wreck, you might be squeamish about getting in another vehicle, and you might even have qualms about getting in a car again with the same driver. What if you were the driver? How do you develop the stamina to get behind the wheel again, and how do you justify taking lives into your hands again by allowing others in your vehicle?

    Walk the walk, ride the bicycle and drive the drive alongside Deborah Atkinson as she recounts the journey of healing, personal forgiveness, overcoming self-doubt, regaining confidence and returning to a spirit of adventure after a rollover accident that miraculously didn't claim any lives but altered lifestyles and personalities.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDeborah Atkinson
    Release dateApr 9, 2013
    ISBN9781301238248
    Heels Over Head
    Author

    Deborah Atkinson

    Fiber, photographic and digital art tickle my creative desires, itching to escape my soul. I love to quilt, crochet, knit, sew, embroider, design, digitally manipulate, garden, bake and write when I'm not on my bicycle, cross-country skis or any of the awesome trails anywhere in Colorado. I'm almost always found with camera in hand. And smile on face.

    Related to Heels Over Head

    Related ebooks

    Self-Improvement For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Kane and Abel

      Feb 10, 2024

      I boarded the train in Council Bluffs. The cargo headed for Cheyenne included a large sum of cash meant to be the payroll for a large mining operation. Any train moving large sums of cash and passengers with all their earthly belongings was a target.

      9 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reads

      Dec 30, 2019

      Summer Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      After the Hurricane

      Aug 27, 2020

      After the Hurricane
      4 min read

    • Article

      The First Day: One man’s walk to his own cremation.

      Aug 7, 2014

      The fog was thick when I left my bedsit and ventured out alone into the barren and murky city. I was heading for what used to be called a crematorium and these days is known as a funeral parlor. I had received a notice instructing me to arrive by 9 a

      15 min read

    • Article

      Deer Crossing

      Dec 24, 2021

      Deer Crossing
      4 min read

    • Article

      Finding Peace—and Briefly, Freedom—at My Grandfather’s Funeral

      Oct 11, 2019

      “Saying goodbye with the people who loved him—and me—I remember that I am not the tomb that imprisons me.”

      6 min read

    • Article

      KILL A STRANGER Chapter 2

      Dec 31, 2020

      If you’ve never been in a situation like this before, you just can’t understand it. I’ll be blunt. It was absolutely terrifying. The nightmare started just like that. Bang. I literally woke with a start, and realised that I was being flung around in

      5 min read

    • Article

      Getting Out of Prison Meant Leaving Dear Friends Behind

      Jun 1, 2018

      I have spent countless nights like this, lying awake, anticipating life, trying to escape imprisonment through my mind’s eye. I imagine the things I will do once I’m free. Flashes of me laughing with family and friends at a cookout or enjoying the co

      5 min read

    • Article

      Pile Up

      Apr 1, 2021

      Pile Up
      6 min read

    • Article

      Bahrain on Horseback

      Aug 14, 2019

      Bahrain on Horseback
      12 min read

    • Article

      A Good Samaritan

      Dec 6, 2022

      It was hot that day, hot for the morning and hot for April and with a stickiness in the air that suggested something had to break. I was headed up the street to ask my neighbor Meech to give me a jump when I heard a scream come from the fourplex next

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Family Plot

      May 7, 2020

      The Family Plot
      10 min read

    • Article

      Love, Lust, and More

      Feb 12, 2020

      Fleetwood Mac was singing She is dancing away from you now, and I squirmed in my seat. Kabir was rubbing my thigh as he drove, a gesture I once thought was reserved for me. Bah! I also used to think he only took naked selfies in bed with me, but then

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Sound Of Bongo

      Oct 2, 2019

      The Sound Of Bongo
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Nightmare

      Jun 9, 2022

      The Nightmare
      7 min read

    • Article

      Get Me Out Of here!

      Dec 1, 2022

      Get Me Out Of here!
      5 min read

    • Article

      Get Me Out Of here!

      Dec 1, 2022

      Get Me Out Of here!
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Voice in the Rain

      May 26, 2023

      A Voice in the Rain
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Night the Moon Cries

      Aug 16, 2021

      The Night the Moon Cries
      5 min read

    • Article

      Three Blocks

      Aug 10, 2023

      I lock my car and shove my keys into the pocket of my big coat. The parking garage is nearly full this morning, so I have to use the elevator to get down to the exit. The moment the doors slide open, there is a woman waiting for me. She is wearing my

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Heels Over Head

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Heels Over Head - Deborah Atkinson

      Heels Over Head

      by Deborah Atkinson

      * * * * *

      Published by Deborah Atkinson on Smashwords

      Copyright 2006-2013 by Deborah Atkinson

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      * * * * *

      to anyone who's ever had a bad wreck

      Table of Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Epilogue

      About the Author

      Bonus Chapter: Heart Strings

      Chapter One

      For a brief instant, I didn't know for sure if I'd be alive when the car stopped moving. I knew I was upside down, but I didn't know what direction I was heading. Or where the car would land.

      Pavement grinding across the roof of the car and fracturing the windshield had replaced the comforting whispery rhythm of raindrops. The fresh aroma of moisture-laden pine had been replaced by the bitter and suffocating stench of burning plastic. I remember thinking my airbag had replaced a few of my front teeth. With air.

      I assumed my children were dead. They screamed when the tail end of the car veered to the right on the rain soaked interstate. But then they were silent. Frightfully silent. My deepest fear had always been who would take care of them if anything happened to me. For that fragment of a second, however, my life didn't flash before me, and I didn't think of all the things I wouldn't get to do. All I could think of was my kids.

      Who would take care of me if I survived and they didn't?

      What if we all died? Would my children greet me with their customary hugs and smiles when I joined them in that bright white light people talk about as they recount near death experiences? I wondered if Taz and Raz would ever speak to me again, being as I'd been the one behind the wheel when their short lives ended.

      I wondered what I'd say to God.

      I know it must seem right now as if I didn't appreciate Your entrusting these two precious children to my care. I really do love them. I didn't mean for this to happen...

      The car finally came to a halt after skidding off the jersey barrier in the muddy median. The silence was deafening. Not even the blaring of my horn and full throttle revving of my engine could drown out the quiet. I didn't immediately realize the horror was over, or that I was hanging upside down from my seatbelt.

      Even my heart and my lungs were still. I was afraid to move. Until I heard first one scream from the back seat, then a strained second. My heart leaped into action. My children were alive!

      Mom, I can't breathe! Raz cried.

      Mom, I'm choking! Taz yelled simultaneously.

      The smoke from the airbag had filled the car with the vile burnt odor I was inhaling. I unsnapped my seatbelt and promptly fell to the roof ─ a highly unusual sensation. The engine and the horn didn't conceal the twin thud of two pint-sized bodies hitting the roof behind me. They had followed my cue and released their seatbelts.

      My newly extra compacted subcompact car kept me from visually determining the extent of the kids' wounds. All I could see was woven seatcloth. Bloody woven seatcloth.

      I reached up toward my door handle ─ another awkward feeling ─ hoping to unroll my window and allow fresh air to fill the smoky compartment. The window had somehow remained intact, but it wouldn't budge. I had intended to crawl out of what must have become a gnarled mass of metal. I was driven to fling open the back door and free my children. My window would not cooperate, however. The handle felt as though it weighed more than the entire car.

      In frustration I reached across the roof to the passenger side window. I didn't notice until much later during flashback episodes how small the area of the front seats had become. I could see blood dripping from my face, and I could feel what felt like three or four teeth wedged between my gums and my lips, but my mouth didn't hurt. At least not then. My nose didn't hurt. My head didn't hurt. Nothing hurt. All I could feel was an urgency to get my children out of the car. Now!!!

      As I grabbed the passenger-side handle, I realized I had been cranking in the wrong direction. I realized I needed to think upside down. Nothing was in the normal place. I couldn't do automatic things anymore. Nothing was going to work like normal because everything was upside down. I set that thought in my mind as I began to pull on the handle counter clockwise.

      The window began to rise smoothly, almost effortlessly, and the fresh moist air felt invigorating against my skin and inside my wet but burning nose. The refreshing comfort abruptly departed as the impact of another vehicle sent our upside down haven into another spin. The back of my head hit my gearshift, and my left shoulder was smashed into the steering wheel. My car slammed into the concrete barrier. Like a spray of crystals, glass flew everywhere. The children were screaming again, and I had lost all sense of direction.

      The next split second felt almost like a cartoon. I shook my head to halt the spinning. I was instinctively braced for yet another impact. I waited. Nothing happened.

      A wall of damp, muddy concrete outside my now missing driver-side window seemed to form the impenetrable wall of a cold, wet prison.

      I could see mud and grass on the other side of the passenger window. I reached up to finish unrolling that window, ignoring the crippling pangs that traveled through my arms into my chest as I stretched. Once the window was completely open, I put one hand through into the mud, with every intention of pulling myself out of the car and then getting my children away from the wreck before we could be hit again. Almost before I realized what was happening, I was flat on my back on a muddy slope, rain pouring on my face. Someone was holding my head firmly in place, and a woman had knelt beside me to assure me everything would be all right.

      I'm a paramedic, she explained in a steady voice.

      I struggled to free myself from my human restraints, crying that I had to get my children out of the car.

      Your children are fine. They are out of the car. They are not hurt, the woman tried to calm me.

      No, they're still in the car, I cried, feebly fighting the three people now holding me in place. I have to get them out...

      "Ma'am, how many

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1