Sweet Children

I gently strummed my cherry red hohner acoustic guitar that my father bought me before he passed away to a random chord progression that I made up as I went along. The chords went something like...E, C#, A, B. It sounded pretty good... I found a pen which was on my old hand-me-down nightstand and found a crumbled up piece of lined paper that was randomly on my bedroom floor. I tried to write down the chords, but nothing came out. I shook the pen furiously, pressed down hard against the top left corner of the paper, and randomly drew scribbles in an attempt to make the ink work. Once it began to work after about the third attempt, I wrote the chords down, opened my dresser drawer, and stuffed the paper inside. My alarm clock now read, 10:31 am. Better try and get Emilie up...

I put my guitar carefully inside its case and placed it in the corner of my room next to all my dirty clothes and my collections of Guitar World and Rolling Stone magazines. I then went over to my bed that Emilie was still peacefully sleeping in. I almost didn't want to wake her up. She looked so beautiful all curled up inside my bedsheets. I gently moved her hair that had fallen in front of her away from her face and nudged her shoulder.

"Em... Emilie, wake up."

She moaned and turned away from me. I smirked.

"Emilie.."

"Hmm..?"

"Do you wanna get up now?" I asked. "It's 10 o' clock in the morning."

She nodded and slowly sat up on my bed. She yawned and stetched. She then rubbed the sleeping dust out of her eyes and smiled at me.

"Good morning sunshine." I jokingly said with a crooked smile.

She laughed and threw a pillow at me. "You're such a dork!"

"A cute dork?" I innocently asked.

She smiled. "A very cute dork."

I smiled back and my heart started to beat faster. We sat there in silence for a moment. "So.." I finally spoke. "Are you hungry?"

"A little, yeah." She answered.

"Alright, well..let's go see what there all is in the kitchen.." I said.

She nodded and stood up from my bed. She walked slowly a few steps, stumbled, and began to fall foward and landed in my arms.

"Are you okay?" I asked laughing.

She gave me a small smile. "Yeah. I think I'm good."

We then walked out of my room which was in the way back of my house, turned left and then right until we came to the kitchen. I then opened the refrigerator door which displayed random family pictures and colorful magnets, one magnet which said, "Home is where the heart is" on it. There wasn't much in the fridge. Ketchup, cheese, strawberry jelly, eggs, milk, leftover pizza from the night before, and other things that I had no idea how long they've been in there. I then closed the fridge and began opening cabinets that where above the stove, one cabinet which had all our cups and plates in, one with random papers, pencils, and bills inside, and another that actually was for food. There wasn't much in there either. Cereal, potato chips, bread, peanut butter, and cans of tomato soup.

"Hey Em, would pizza be alright?" I asked Emilie who was now in the livingroom on the couch flipping through channels on our small TV.

"Yeah, that's fine." She replied, not taking her eyes off the TV screen.

"How many pieces do you want?" I asked.

"Two please." she said.

I nodded, went back to the fridge, and grabbed the leftover pizza that was on the top shelf. I then got out two plates from the cabinet and opened the box of pizza finding four pieces inside, just enough for us to have two each. I quickly put them in the microwave for about four minutes and then placed two on each plate.

"Be careful. They're a little hot" I told her as I handed the plate to her.

She just nodded and I sat down next to her on the couch to eat beside her. After we ate we decided to go this old park near our neighborhood where we always used to play when we were little kids, since there was nothing else better to do on a boring Saturday morning.

One of our favorite things to do at the park when we were younger, was to play on the swings. We also loved to write things in the dirt, which was around the swings, by using sticks from trees that randomly would scatter on the ground. We'd also make forts and castles in the dirt. We'd call them "dirt castles" instead of sand castles for obvious reasons. We were really weird kids.

So..anyway, Emilie and I sat on the swings right next to each other, just swaying slowly back and forth. It was a pretty nice day out, pretty warm with a slight breeze. I found it kind of strange that we were the only ones at the park on such a nice day like this. You would think that there would be tons of little kids running around everywhere. I guess a lot of people left for vacation since it's summer and all. Anyone who wanted to stay in a small boring town like Rodeo all summer is beyond me...

I bent down and grabbed a stick that was close to my swing and randomly drew lines and shapes in the dirt. Then I began to peel off all the bark on the stick.

"So..does your mom actually know where you are?" I asked her, trying to strike up a conversation of some sort.

"Yeah," she answered. "I wrote her a note and taped it to the front of my bedroom door last night."

"Oh. What all did you say?"

"Just that i'd be at your house and not to worry. Told her I loved her. That sort of thing." She replied. "Why?"

"Just wondering I guess." I answered "How is she?"

She sighed. "I don't know...I really don't know why she's still with him."

I shook my head. "Me neither. Have you ever asked her?"

"Yeah, I have. She just told me that, "I still love your father, you're too young to understand." What am I too young to understand? I can damn well understand when someone is hurting someone else. Hurting me, hurting Natalie, hurting her..."

I didn't answer. I just waited for her to speak again.

"It's just...I feel so unsafe around my own father. I always think, if my mom really loved me and Natalie, she'd just leave him. I mean..that's what i'd do if someone was hurting my kids. That's just something you're supposed to do. It's just so frustrating when she says that I'm too young to understand. I'm fifteen years old, I'm not a little kid anymore, you know?"

She looked at me and I could see tears forming in her eyes. I had this sudden urge to lean over in my swing to kiss her, and I didn't know why. I just looked at her and nodded understandingly.

"Yeah, Em. I know..."

She smiled at me and began to swing a little faster. I smiled back at her and took my hand and pulled the chain on her swing closer to me, making her swing side to side.

"Hey!" she shouted laughing. "Goddamn it Billie!"

I laughed and she took her left leg and kicked my swing playfully.

"Ow!" I cried.

"Oh, suck it up! You're such a baby Billie!" Emilie said jokingly.

I just stuck my tongue out at her. What do girls know anyway?