The Things We Do For Happiness

Today is the day

Today is the day, I just told my dad that I'm going out to stay somewhere for a few days with my friends. Can you blame me? I don't even want to call him dad, my mother had every right to leave him. He was an abusive drunk, he cheated on her multiple times and she stayed...she didn't deserve that. She did the job of both  parents, she came to all my baseball games, she talked to me about school, about any problems I had with any girls. She'd always be smiling, laughing, hiding her broken heart. Then one day...I don't know what it was but she got into a demented, colossal argument with my dad...they would always fight but not like this. He said something but I couldn't make out what he said because their room was sound proof. 

At that moment, I was only 12, my mom ran into the guest room and started wailing, she locked herself in and dad couldn't care less. She didn't come out the entire day, the next morning at 6, I saw that she had written me two sentences 'Baby, I love you but your dad would never let you come with me. I have to go'. 

I call Emaline 'Hey Emaline, meet me at the local bus stop like we planned'.

I head there and I spot her. Standing still with fiery locks of auburn hair and the gentlest colour of white painted over her face, she's at ease which is why I can't be.

'What took you so long?'

'Come on, I came here pretty fast'.

'So fast that you almost missed the bus'.

In less than a moment, she took my hand and dragged me into the bus that could've only arrived a nano second before.

She's sitting beside me, and all I can think of is how much she means to me.

'Yea?'

'We're gonna find her and I'm gonna be right there when you hug the crap out of her'.

With her head out the window, resting on her arms, her hair flying from the force of the wind, she just smiles at me. A kind of smile that gives me a rush of a feeling I can't comprehend,  rushing through more than just my veins.

In a heartbeat, the bus stops and a person comes up to us and says 'Alright Fellas, it's your stop'.  It's here...it's actually here. My heart jumps to my throat and then back and then jumps again. 

As we step off the buss, I notice we are on a road in the middle of the woods. A tall man greets us and says 'Thank you for your interest in 'Help Me Through The Forest Wonders'. I am your forest guide and I guarantee safety as I am highly skilled in defensive fields, knowledge of nature and will help you get to the place and person you have asked for in no time'.

Emaline takes the lead and kindly tells him thank you with such a heartfelt smile. Then we hop in his truck to go in a narrower road deeper in the forest, he is in the front and glass acts as a border between the two front seats and the two back, me and Emaline are in the back so he can't hear us.

'Arlo, I didn't tell you how much this means to me. You're my best friend, no one else would do this for me. I'm gonna cry'. She wasn't lying. I could see the rivers forming in her eyes, thus, with no hesitation.

I got closer to her and put her head on my chest, embraced her. Her lavender scented perfume shrivelled up my nose, her auburn hair messing up the slightest bit. 

I looked at her and thought damn, she's beautiful, her eyes glistened in the dampness of the truck. How could anybody leave her? I don't understand why her mother would ever leave her, she's stunning, kind, smart, she's funny. What more could anyone want? 

For a moment, our eyes caught each other when her face was barely two centimetres away from mine. I think my eye's gaze told her exactly what I was feeling, her shyness quickly caused her to shake it off.

Something else hits me like waves coming from behind. She tries to hide it but I know's she's got a broken heart armour, she's secretly scared she wasn't good enough, the way she acts, I can tell that she's been through it. What kind of mother ghosts her daughter for eight years anyways? How could anyone run from somebody like her?

Emaline only says good things about her mother, 'she left because she had to', but from my point of view, her father never took the responsibility of being a husband or a father, she never knew him, so her mother didn't leave because of problems with her husband. She had raised her for twelve straight years from birth alone, then one day she suddenly leaves her on her sister's porch, with a note saying 'take care of her, please'. Fury builds in my veins at the thought of it. Emaline just wants a family, a real one, she's more desperate that the first time she heard 'Mom's not coming home'.