Cover Reveal: Two Breaths Too Late by Rochelle Maya Callen

Two Breaths Too Late

Rochelle Maya Callen

Young Adult

9.10.14 (World Suicide Prevention Day)

www.RochelleMayaCallen.com 

Ellie Walker is a high school senior who commits suicide and then is forced to face the brokenness she leaves behind. 

EXCERPT:

1.

Death,

You aren't a tunnel of light, a choir of angels, or even an ascension of the soul. You are a twitching leg, a spasm of breath, a moment of fear when I realize that the noose I tied didn't snap my neck and I am left dangling with the chair tipped over too far from my toes. You are blackness blotting out my vision, my lungs heaving in breaths that aren't there, because the rope cuts into my throat choking the life out of me, slowly. 

Too slowly.

My fingers claw at the rope that I found in the closet behind liquor bottles and expired cans of vegetables. Life seeps out of me; the oxygen choked out, the carbon dioxide choked in. Where was the peace and quiet? Where was the release? The absence of fear? That is why I hid the rope under my mattress, why I waited till mom and dad left for work, why I climbed on a chair and tied the noose, why I wrapped it around my neck and pulled it tight, said a prayer, squeezed my eyes shut, and stepped off the chair. 

Leaving the screams, the bruises, the scars, the secrets and loneliness behind.

But you aren't taking me away.

I am suffocating in silent screams and the smell of ash. The floor is too far and I am too high. My chest caves in and just as blackness eats my last sliver of being conscious, I realize I regret. I realize I am too late. Death, you aren't beautiful or free or romantic like in all of the novels I have read. You are a girl who had no hope left, dangling from a ceiling beam who, two breaths too late, realized she wanted to live.

I thought you would save me, Death. 

But you are a liar.

Just like everyone else.

The Day He Died...
A Message from the Author of Two Breaths Too Late.

 He was about 6 when I met him. He was my new friend's younger brother and all long limbs, brown hair, and big brown eyes. He had one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen.

 The