Morby One-Shots

Smooth Sailing

I look back on my teenage years fondly. Despite everything that was going wrong with my life at the time, there was one person who made it all worth it.

When we were about 12, we spent almost every day together, playing video games or just hanging out in general - Which led my parents to believe that there was something going on between us before there actually was. They told me that it was wrong, that I should be ashamed of myself, that I wouldn't end up in a good place in life. They told me to stop seeing him - or else.

Of course I didn't listen to them. I was a rebellious teen. Not only that, but I was a rebellious teen who was being accused of something I didnt do.

All of this combined made me bottle up a lot of anger. Over time, he started to notice my change in attitude and personality. He tried his best to comfort me and find out what was going on, but of course I was too stubborn to realize that I needed help.

A few more months had passed. Months of anti social behaviour, yelling, and anger. Not only that, but my little brother was now starting to outperform me in school. He was two years younger than me. He had a large group of friends, and worst of all, a girlfriend.

I, then 13, had never been in a romantic relationship in my life. I tried to convince myself that I just needed to wait for the right girl to come along, but she never did. It was around this time that my parents forbid me from seeing him. He wasn't allowed at my house, I wasn't allowed at his.

Naturally this led to me sneaking out. I would wait for my parents to go to bed before slipping out of my bedroom window onto the roof, sliding down a drain pipe before walking over to his house at some odd hour in the morning. As tired as he would be sometimes, he would always smile and welcome me in to play some video games or watch some movies. We would snuggle up on his bed - with blankets, not each other - and fall asleep together. The lock on my bedroom door prevented my parents from finding out about my little expeditions. At least for a while.

My parents didn't find out for the first few months, but when they did, it was hell. They took away my TV, my phone, my laptop... anything which I could have used to contact him. They yelled at me for hours, pointing to Don as an example of what I should be like.

I hated them.

Insults turned into yelling, yelling turned into arguments, and arguments turned into fights. To make it worse, Don would always take their side. Of course he would.

One morning, I decided that enough was enough. I wrote a letter for him, in which I can recall referring to my own mother as a cunt, letting him know that I was going.
And I went.

I got the bus at 5:14am some morning, and started travelling. A couple days passed of me just hopping between buses. The only time I stopped was when I needed food or water, which I paid for with the $100 I stole from my dad before I left. Only only realized how far i had went when I saw the sign which said 'Welcome to Miami' in bold letters.

Suddenly, a feeling of isolation like no other that I had ever experienced engulfed me. I felt like an uprooted tree. None of the people around me were familiar. Every face I saw was a new one, and the first time I saw it would also be the last. It cant have been more than two weeks before Miami PD found me. By that point, I was done with the supposed 'adventure' of being this far away from home. I distinctly remember crying to the officer who found me, begging him to take me home.

A couple days later, I was back in California. I never thought I'd be so happy to see my home. My mother and father rushed out to greet me, showering me in affection. At the time, I had thought that this was a turning point for them; they had finally realized the toll their actions were taking on me.