Paper Hearts | ✓ | [ e d i t i n g ]

Chapter Twenty-five - Happiness

" Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." 

- Omar Khayyam

Theo smiled, revealing pearly white teeth. His silky, dark brown hair lay tousled on his head, twisted by the way he ran his fingers through it, tossed by the way the wind played with each strand. 

Corra, finally, mastered the wheelie. Her blond hair, currently styled with side swept bangs and fancy little layers, swayed freely around her shoulders, " I'm, like, Jesus right now! Look me!" She laughed, barely balancing the wheelchair.

When they smiled, I smiled. 

It's truly amazing the way a few people could shape your life. It was amazing how one could go from doing the smallest and most unproductive activities known to man - Netflix, sleeping, cutting magazines - to doing extravagant things. Like setting things on fire in the middle of an apple orchard, baking cookies with old people after paying for a blind homeless man's lunch. Running at four am because you're free, not because if you don't hurry home, your mother's going to kill you. Things like spray painting carousel horses and happiness on the sides of an abandoned barn in hopes that an alien might see and try to abduct you.

Things like getting barreled into by an extremely tall feminist and getting mauled by her dog. Watching her go from running to wheelchair after one accident with a moped. Cutting her hair from flat to cute with a pair of dull scissors. 

Definitely things like holding a boy on the beach while he told you about his scars. Watching him smile because he's finally happy with where he's at. Making smoothies with him and selling them much like lemonade, which is a classic, by the way. Or picking apples with him at the earliest hours in the morning. Like falling in love with him on a pair of swings.

Happiness, I learned, is not something you have to go above and beyond to get. It's not something that you can materialize with fame and money and all of those other things that come with it. I can tell you it certainly isn't having fake friends, or no friends.

I can't tell you exactly what it is. I can tell you what it feels like - really warm, like butterflies, light, fuzzy, and extremely satisfying.

I can tell you some of the ways to find it, too. You can find it in people, especially people who are kind of like you. You can find it in stories, in doing things. You can find it in helping other's. You can find it in hugs, oddly enough in tears, and in kisses. I've found it in wheelies, or at least watching them.

While I threw my backpack over my shoulder, I realized that I found it in me. It's something we all strive for. even if it's subconsciously, you're looking for it. Right now. 

I can assure you, you'll find it. It might take awhile, but you'll find it. And it might be in something very small, but it'll be there. It'll be worth it.

Theo wrapped his arms around me, his lips close to my ear, and said, " See you in what, eight hours?"

" Oh god, i'm gonna die." I groaned.

His smile could be heard, " Please don't."

Hugging him back, pushing my face into his shoulder, I said, " If you insist."

Corra waved her arm vibrantly, and I worried about her breaking it too. A broken arm and a broken leg, wouldn't she be lucky. 

Climbing into the back of the beater, I crossed my legs on the back of the passenger seat and looked at my mom, " Hey."

" hey," she replied, grinning, " you excited?"

" for school? ha." I huffed.

She rolled her eyes, and backed out of the driveway with godlike skill. I opened my window and leaned out it, waving back to Theo and Corra. Theo smiled, and I could help the warmness the came from my stomach, like a bunch of butterflies on drugs chewing at the walls of my tummy. " Bye!" Corra yelled. 

I laughed. And before the car turned out of sight, Theo waved himself.

That was it, my two friends. My old car with my mother in the driver's seat. My uncle Ernie sending me a letter back apologizing, explaining everything, and reminding me that he still loved me too. It was in the Orchard we drove past, in the nursing home forty minutes away from New Brooks, in the box on in the ally next to the cafe holding a blind old man. In a scary big dog named Chancey. In ocean blue eyes. 

Everything, all of it, wasn't overly large. But it was it.

It was happiness.

a/n

maaaaaaaaaaan I can't explain how much I enjoyed this story. The ending might not be overly wonderful but I'm undercommitted so yeah. But this is a first draft so I'll edit any odd writing patterns or grammar mistakes in the near or later future.

I might go do some of the things on these lists, you can too if you want. Boo, I dare you to, so ha. 

Thanks for reading my first completed story, it means a butt ton. 

Yours truly,

cassie j. w. 

xx