Don't Go Out in the Woods Tonight...

I push the front door closed behind me. I slid down and sit with my head resting against the door, till my mother comes in. She's holding one of her many huge school books. She pauses and looks down at me.

"Tough day, huh?" She smiles at me and my response is only a small nod, and a sigh. "Oh, honey. I understand. That first day can be a killer."

I look up and see my mother putting her book down on the coffee table. She holds out her hand to me, I take it and leave my massager bag next to couch. She leads me towards the kitchen and sets me down on a barstool.

"Good thing your mother has a few tricks," Mother opens the fringe and pulls out the milk. "I know just the thing to 'turn that frown upside down'"

It sounds so ridiculous, I can't help but smile back as my mother makes a glass of chocolate milk for me. Using real chocolate and let me tell you that you have NOT lived till you've had my mother chocolate milk made with real chocolate.

She pats me on the shoulder and leaves me to clean up my own glass. As I'm putting the cup away, my eyes flick to the windows that look out over the woods. I smile and barrel out of the kitchen and almost make it to the back door.

"Hold it right there Missy," I turn my head to see my father in his study, um... studying. His reading glasses have slid to the end of his nose, giving him a very 'holier-than-thou' kind of look.

"Have you finished your school work?" He asks.

"I was just getting to that." I lie, turning back around from the door and walking back towards my abandon school bag.

"I thought so." Father pushed up his glasses and smiled at me, in the loving father way I am use to. The kind of smile that just needs to be returned.

I grab my bag and head upstairs to my room. I figure that faster I get this stuff done with the faster I can go outside and forget that awful boy. Arrg, too late. AGAIN!

Really, I need to stop reminding myself of things to forget. Because it's just giving me a lot of grief.

I pull out the book for math and the essay prompts for English. Ugh. I stare out the window and space out.

Not sooner, but later I finish my work and I'm out the door. I don't stop running till my lungs burn and my muscles refuse to stop working. I smile and flop down on the ground.

I stare up at the trees and enjoy the colors of the leaf filtered sunset. I sit up and just about freak out. A big black furry blur disappears behind a tree, deep within the foliage and again I don't get a good look. Maybe there is a bear.

I look up and fear starts seeping into my bones, because it's getting dark and I'm so very far from home. That and there's a bear in my woods.