Dear Dad

May 10th

May 10th,

             It was only a week until prom.  The excitement was growing.  I couldn’t wait to see Anabella in her dress.  I don’t even know what it looks like but I knew she was going to look stunning.

            Anabella still seemed depressed.  She was stressed from school.  That combined with her being upset about her family life put her in a sad mood.  She needed to get away.  I knew what to do.

            We got in the car to drive to school.  We drove down the main road but instead of turning left at the fork at the end I turned right.  ‘What are you doing?’  I saw Anabella sign out of the corner of my eye.  “We are going to have an adventure.  Don’t worry, I had mom call us out of school sick.”

            I drove up the trail in the park, up the mountain and parked at the peak.  I tuned to Anabella.  “We’re here.”  I said enthusiastically and jumped out of the car.  She got out and followed me to the front of the car.  I hopped onto the hood and helped Anabella up.  I put my arm around her and began to explain what we were doing on top of a mountain on a school day.  “I thought you could use a break,” I started, “I knew you needed to go somewhere where you could be free from society and just people in general.  I thought, what better place than up here where there’s not a human in sight, it’s just you and me.  Right now, we are free to do whatever our hearts please.  Up here, there’s no rules, no worries, no cares.  There’s just you, me, and freedom.”  She smiled and looked out across the horizon.  You could see the entire town and beyond from up here. 

“You know it’s a nice place to scream too.”  I said taking my arm off her shoulder and cupping it around my mouth.  I screamed.  She covered her ears and smiled with delight at the thought of letting go and screaming.  “Have you ever,” I said turning to her, “had one of those days where absolutely everything was wrong?  Where life got you so mad or frustrated you just wanted to scream but you couldn’t for the fear that society would judge.”  She shook her head.  “I bet you’ve had a lot of them.”  I said somberly.  I screamed again.  Anabella tried to scream but nothing came out.   All she did was turn her cheeks pink trying.  “Here,” I said, “I’ll scream for you.”  I knew how upset with the world she was, I could tell how much she wanted to scream at it every day for all the pain it’s caused her.  I sat up and let out the loudest, longest scream I could.  I turned to Anabella.  “How was that?”  She gave me a thumbs up.  “If I could scream louder and longer, I would for you.  The world needs to learn that it’s not fair to people.  The world needs to be screamed at.”  She nodded her head in agreement.

          We spent the rest of the day lying on the hood of the car watching the clouds pass.  We had  small conversations here and there but most of the time we just laid in silence watching the clouds move as time moved.  Oh what a beautiful sight it was.