A Heart of Gold

Skylar dreams.

He is cowering in the corner of his bed in his room with his arms wrapped around himself; he is trying to give himself some sort of comfort against the harsh words his classmates spoke earlier on that day. Skylar is only seven years old but he already knows that ‘big boys don’t cry’. His dad always says that to him when he’s about to cry, and ruffles his hair affectionately afterwards. Skylar really likes his dad; he is always there to support him and isn’t too busy to play with him. The favorite thing they do together is talk, though; Skylar learns new things every time! He really looks up to his dad.

Skylar came home on the verge of tears; his classmates had called him a girl because he had worn a shirt with a teddy bear on it. It was apparently too girly for a boy to wear. Skylar can’t understand that logic at all. He just loves teddy bears! He would’ve gone to his dad to get comforted, but unfortunately he wasn’t home at the moment. So Skylar doesn’t have any other options but to try to make him feel better himself.

As Skylar hiccups from the unshed tears, his door opens quietly. Skylar doesn’t bother to look who comes in; it’s probably just the cleaning lady coming to pick up his clothes. But when the mattress dips a little from someone’s weight, he looks up. And there his dad is; looking strong as ever, like nothing can bring him down.

Skylar can’t see his face very well, but that doesn’t stop the grin spreading onto his lips. Now everything would be fine. But then all goes horribly wrong. Before Skylar has the chance to hug his father, he takes a firm grip, so that it hurts, from Skylar’s shoulder and starts to speak in a booming voice where another voices can be heard underneath, “We are very disappointed in you, young man. You shouldn’t have run away from us, your only family and your home. We will find you, don’t you dare forget that. You belong here.”

The shadows in the room start to twist and spread wider. Skylar is no longer a child, he is the same age as he would be if he was awake. He feels absolute terror as he sees all the horrible things he’s done in his life before his eyes. Skylar can’t take it anymore. He screams loud, but to no avail; it doesn’t cover the screams and the pleas and the heavy panting. They’re driving him crazy.

But then it all stops. No sounds or visions bother Skylar anymore; there’s just pure whiteness and a warm feeling in his chest, right where the hole is. He takes a deep breath and smells the ocean’s salt in the wind that has started to blow. Skylar also sees a blurry picture of a building that looks like a school, but he can’t be too sure. He gets a sudden urge to go where ever these glimpses he is shown are from. That urge takes control of his body and slowly, it makes him lose consciousness.

But right before everything goes black, Skylar can hear a faint whisper in the wind, “They’ve been taking good care of me, I’m waiting for you.”

Skylar wakes up when the sun shining through the orange-brown curtains hits his eyes. He sits up on the bed and looks around disoriented. Where is he? It takes a moment before all the events from the previous day come back to him. He sighs and rubs his grimy face while shaking his head in disbelief. So after all everything really did happen; it isn’t just his brain tricking him; he smiles.

Skylar gets up from the bed and stretches his sore and stiff muscles. They’ve been through a lot. He slouches in to the bathroom and turns the shower on. It doesn’t start up immediately, but it takes a while to get the water running; a typical motel room shower. Skylar is too busy taking his creased and slightly dirty clothes off to notice that though. He really needs a shower; there is dust from the road and sweat from walking and having that weird dream last night on his skin. He feels absolutely dirty.

Skylar’s mood dampens a little when he remembers what happened in that dream. Stepping into the shower he shivers even though the water is warm enough not to make his body react like that. He knows that his family contacted him last night; there’s no doubt about it. Leaving the City without permission always leads to such messages being sent. Skylar actually was once there when they sent a message like that to a runaway; it wasn’t pretty to hear her ear-piercing screams echoing in the room. How his dream wasn’t that bad, he doesn’t have clue.

He starts to wash himself and tries to forget all about the dream; he should be glad that he’s out of there, and not waste his time fearing what might happen if his parents ever got their hands on him again.

After a while Skylar deems himself to be clean enough and the hot water has relaxed his stiff back muscles, so he gets out of the shower and dries himself carefully, not missing a spot. He can’t stand being only partially dry when putting clothes on, yuck. Skylar puts the clothes from the floor on and walks back to the room. He checks the time from the digital clock on the night stand; it’s nine in the morning, he slept for thirteen hours straight. He didn’t take his mobile phone with him when he ran away; he knows a tracking device has been installed on it, and keeping the phone with him wouldn’t go well with his plan to never be found, now would it?

The motel doesn’t serve any breakfast so Skylar has to find his food somewhere else. Luckily he bought a bag of bagels from the gas station yesterday, and the water in the motel seems drinkable. It’s nothing much but Skylar wants to use his money the best he can; even though he had taken quite a big wad of cash with him, it wouldn’t last forever.

When Skylar has eaten enough, he refills his water bottle from the faucet and packs his things before stepping out of the room and locking the door, remembering to check that he didn’t leave any of his stuff in the room. He walks downstairs to the reception and after a little bit of meaningless small talk and handing the room key to the lady, Skylar is ready to continue his journey.



Skylar is wandering aimlessly on the streets of the city he has finally reached. He takes in all the busy people hurrying down the streets and the growing traffic; it must be rush hour or something. He feels the energy pumping through the city, the vibe it gives is so different from the one his former home town gave. Even the air seems cleaner, although there are lots of exhaust gas clouds rising towards the sky. Taking a look to the left before crossing the busy road filled with honking cars, Skylar sees the unmistakable form of the Gateway Arch in the horizon.

It took Skylar approximately eight hours to get in this city. After arriving he decided to first enjoy his stay before continuing where ever he needs to, because let’s admit it, he has never been outside the City where he grew up. Now that he has, he is going to enjoy every second of it.

After an hour of admiring the places and doing some window shopping, Skylar decides to take a break and grab something to eat. He is walking down a street when he spots an open coffee shop with quite a lot of customers sitting outside around the tables, drinking coffee and eating sandwiches or cake. Perfect.

Skylar walks in and sees that the coffee shop is decorated with dark wood furniture, maybe oak, and the walls are a freshly painted white. It has old looking ornaments scattered all over the place, some look like they would be over centuries old. There aren’t that many customers inside, because the weather is so lovely today. Or so the woman working at the register says. Skylar nods and smiles politely, before ordering a coffee without milk or cream and a bun. He walks to a table next to the window that lets out to the street and sits to the chair.

Skylar starts to sip his coffee when suddenly his eyes notice a magazine lying on the adjacent table. There, on the cover of it, is a building looking exactly like the one in his dream! Skylar gets up and takes the magazine, looking at it closely and taking his seat again. The headline says something about student life in Harvard University, but the only thing that matters to Skylar is the fact that he can actually feel his heart calling for him. The overwhelming need to go where the famous school is almost makes Skylar fall out of his chair.

Luckily that doesn’t happen, and shaking slightly, Skylar puts the magazine back to the table where he got it from and shoves the rest of his bun in his mouth and gulps down the remaining coffee. Now, he knows where he must go. His heart, the one Skylar cut out too many years ago and which left a huge hole in his life, literally, is in the city that is situated in the north-eastern part of the country, in the state of Massachusetts. Once he gets his butt there, he will surely find his heart, and in perfect shape, too. He is certain of it.