Tears

May 21st, 2021

Today we tried to escape. We were outside on a hot May day...hehe 'hot may day' it rhymes!

Anyway, we wanted to just leave.

Dad was sitting on stones by the water, overlooking the city skyline. While we were where the grass was, by the trees, hanging on the hammock, laughing, yelling, jumping.

I was pulling Simon's hair, trying to make a braid with his long blonde hair. He told me repeatedly that he wanted a ponytail but I wanted to give him a surprise.

After arguing and laughing, I finally decided to just make him a ponytail.

I told Simon that we should just go, start running while Dad is looking away and just keep going.

"Are you serious?" Simon asked. He looked towards Dad for a quick second then back at me. He was far enough not to hear us.

"Yeah," I answered, jumping out the hammock, grabbing my shoes off the green and brown dirty ground.

It took Simon awhile to put on his shoes. I grew wary as I looked my Dad's way, his head turned, checking on us then looking back at his phone, he would do this many times, then waved at us at one time.
I waved in return, acting like we weren't just about to leave.

Dad then just went back to staring at his phone.

Simon jumped off the hammock and...

"Ready..." I said, then I just ran and so did Simon.

After running really fast we slowed down and looked back. We ran really far, I could still see the hammock and Dad, but it seemed like maybe we were really leaving.

"Let's just walk now," Simon said.  We're walking with the shelter of trees and big green bushes by us and to the other side the big view of the relaxed city lake. People biking by us and families gathered around the grass area, people diving into the water and Simon and I are in the middle of trying to sneak away.
I kept looking back and forward as we walked. Guilt started to creep up on me, regret and realization of consequences.

"He might get mad once he realizes." I look back, "He still hasn't noticed,"

"Yeah," Simon says.  

"Maybe we should go back,"

"Really?" Simon asked.

"Yeah, I mean, we don't have our stuff, it's all at home,"

"Yeah, we would need an elaborate plan," he replied.

"Yeah,"

"Okay,"

So, we began to walk back.
As we walked, we waited for our dad to notice our small disappearance. He then looked toward the hammock and turned his head, searching for us with his eyes.  With that, we tried to hide between the trees and the people.
Our dad then looked back at his phone, ruining the suspense of being found.

"We could just keep walking and he would never notice," Simon says, shrugging and I smirk back at his comment.

We continued walking and watched our father's blurred figure standing up on the stones.

He stood up, looking around then began to walk toward the hammock and he sat on it.

"Are you sure we're not acting like wimps for not actually running away?" I ask.

"Yeah, we're not wimps, plus we want our stuff,"

"Yeah," I say, reassuring myself.

We hide between some more trees and then start running back towards the hammock.

We stood over our dad, when we got back to where he was. He sat in the hammock, slouched down over his phone, swinging slowly.

"There you are." he smiled.

"Did you notice us leave," I ask.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answer, a cheeky grin on my face.