Bridges Over A Widening Gorge

[Jay_Quessir]

Welcome to my first non-NaNo novel which I actually got to spend time on every word!!! It's no where near finished but y'all will be the first to see it so!

And away we gooooooooo!

[Jay_Quessir]

Bridges Over A Widening Gorge
By Chase Springer

This book is dedicated to the entirety of my family, without whom I could never have become the man I am today. Thanks for everything!

A Special thanks to my grandparents (Mamaw and Papaw), my Mom, Bubba, my brothers (Kyle, Wesley, and Clayton), my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and my best friends (Erin and Diane).

Dedicated in loving memory of my father, Kenneth Wayne Springer, may he rest in peace.


P r o l o g u e
It was the summer after his senior year of high school, the summer I thought I would finally be rid of him forever. Yet, it turned out we had that one final summer together before he would move off to college and I would finally be at peace. The summer heat brought summer tempers sky high, higher than the mountains of Western North Carolina, where we were staying with my uncle and aunt.

He was seventeen years old and his teenage independence and attitude was at an all-time high. I could say the same about myself, though, seeing how I craved independence and had been developing my fifteen-year-old mind-set ever since my birthday back in October. My freshman year had been a hard one riddled with tests, growth, defeat, and the ever-popular sense of teenage angst that follows youth everywhere they go. My little country school was no different, despite its small population.

My name is Chase Springer and this is the tale of the last summer I would be able spend with my brother; a summer that I will never forget and one that I hope he won’t either. It was a summer full of realizations, regret, bliss, hurt, and above all, a summer of bonding with my brother. These were times when I felt so close to Kyle, yet so far away at the same time. The gap grew as a bridge was being built and it seems that while we bonded over basketball games and working for my uncle, we came to understand how our differences would always keep us together, as brothers and friends.

[Jay_Quessir]

Chapter One: 1000 Mile Journey

“Are your things packed, hun? You’re leaving for your Mamaw’s Saturday,” My mom, Stephanie Springer-Neal, peaked her head into my room to give me another warning before heading back out to her little candle shop. She was a wonderful mother, and many of my friends said she was very pretty. I thought so, too. I suppose that’s where I got my devilishly charming looks from…okay, not really. My mom is a kind woman for the most part but I knew I was in trouble when she yelled out the dreaded full name. She raised Kyle and me with Christian beliefs and was not one to spare the rod and spoil the child; I suppose that will pay off when we’re both older. Yet, all things considered, she was pretty lenient with my brother and I and we all lived in a peaceful state of harmony through any of the obstacles life threw our way.

My mom had divorced my father for reasons that I still have no clue of when I was only four but she never took him out of my life. No, I left that up to the drunk driver…but that’s another story for another time. When she divorced him and long after his death, she was single and we lived together in either an apartment or in a trailer house. I always liked the life I lived with her and never had a problem with her single-parent status. Well, except for her burnt rolls that often left us with toast at suppertime. When I was five, she remarried a man named Donnie Wardlow. I didn’t really dislike him but then again I was too young to really know better. I still heard the shouts in my room but it still wasn’t a bad childhood to grow up to, as he never hurt my mom. After Donnie, my mom dated several other guys until she found the one she is with now, his name is Bubba.

Yeah, Bubba. Well, it’s not his real name but that’s what everyone calls him. His actual name is James Wesley Neal Junior and he was the man that brought two stepbrothers into my life, Wesley Laden, being the oldest at twelve, and Clayton Delaynee the youngest at ten. They’re not too bad of stepbrothers, but like all little boys, they can get annoying at times. Bubba is a good stepfather, despite the name that suits his whole lifestyle. He is a one hundred percent certified Texas-style B-U-B-B-A. In fact, the first time I met him, he was wearing torn and severely worn cowboy boots, a tattered old cowboy hat, a shirt filled with so many wholes I didn’t think it was even within the confines of science that it was held together, and a pair of equally holey shorts. That’s Bubba for you, but you’ve got to love him!

Now, when my mother asked if I was ready, I truly was not. She could tell by the look of my room. It was in complete disarray with books strewn across the room and my clothes haphazardly stacked in a suitcase at the foot of my bed. There were several sheets of band music as well as original piano ‘masterpieces’ crumpled on the floor and my compact discs were still in the player, waiting to be packed away. My laptop was still plugged in and its fan was humming as it sat open on my bed playing some random song from the 1980s. My bed was a mess, the pillows were both in the floor next to my piano, and my covers were barely hanging on. My recently discarded debate book was still in my large blue half-moon chair that had recently collected the rejects from my luggage. Of course I was not ready, Mom!

When my mom had come in, she interrupted my search for my extra contacts and the bag I had received from attending the annual T.E.T.A. conference in Dallas this past winter. I had adapted the bag as my book bag and often carried my laptop in it as well. I never left home without it and I surely would not leave for an entire summer without it there to carry the tons of books I was to catch up on during my break.

I had to move a few items from under my bed in order to find the bag and my contacts had been in the obviously place to look; my nightstand but I often overlook the obvious. My best friend, Erin, often says I haven’t enough common sense to ever really be considered smart, but people say she does not have much either. We’re both currently fighting for first in class but only time will truly tell the fate of us all…I’ll win in the end. I just KNOW it. Well, maybe not but my family (as I’m sure with her it’s the same) believes it will be me that gives the valedictorian speech in 2008.

About an hour later, I was finished packing and since that was out of the way, I decided I had best study for my hardest exams that just happened to fall on the last day of my freshman year: Honors English with Kyla Hale and Computer Science with Diane Vannoy. Hopefully, I’ll pass…only time will tell.


A blinding white line shone above me as I blinked my eyes awake. I remember thinking to myself that I had only just gone to sleep if I had even gone to sleep. I did not remember ever actually crawling under my covers nor bringing my two pillows back up on the bed, but I apparently had sometime during the night.

”Can’t you take me to school, Kyle?” I asked my brother, stifling a yawn as I rubbed my eyes and closed the door to my bedroom behind me. I was walking into the room we referred to as the “little living room” and I glanced over at the breakfast bar as I spoke to Kyle.

“Sure. I have to go up there anyway but you better hurry and eat because we have to leave in ten minutes.” Kyle said, disappearing back into his room to put on his shoes.


(Break until I write more) (please comment)