The Scars Within

To the Mall

Within five minutes, Dad is back downstairs. He's changed out of his sweatpants and T-shirt into jeans and a sweatshirt. It's really weird to see him not wearing a suit. He almost never dresses casually. He smiles when he sees me staring, then grabs his keys and wallet off the coffee table.

"Ready to go Bub?"

"Yea." Pausing for a second, I quickly ask, "Hey Dad? Can I drive?" He looks at me for a few seconds, then sighs and gives me the keys. "Yes!" I then turn and run outside. Getting into the driver's side of Dad's Audi, and, after buckling up of course, I start the engine and back the car out of the driveway. Once I stop, Dad climbs into the passenger side, and buckles up. Putting the car in drive, we make our way down the road, heading for the highway.

"Any place in particular we're going?" Dad asks. Thinking for a few moments, I respond as we get onto the highway.

"I was thinking we could go to Jerrisville. They have a new mall there with a super large food court. I've been wanting to go there for a while now but I haven't had the time. How's that?"

"That sounds good to me Bub." The rest of the ride is spent in silence listening to the radio. I never really like to talk much in the car, especially when I'm driving. Dad usually talks, but it's obvious he's still got a lot on his mind. Hopefully this trip will help relieve some of his stress.

The drive to Jerrisville takes about an hour. Once we get there, it doesn't take long to find the mall. That place is huge! Quickly finding a parking spot close to the entrance, I hop out of the car. Dad seems to take forever to get out and by the time he does I'm practically shaking from excitement and impatience.

"Haha, calm down Bub. You're going to have a heart attack before we even lock the car!"

"But I'm excited! C'mon, let's go!" With that, I take off running towards the entrance, leaving Dad to chase after me. The moment I get inside, I freeze. This. Is. AWESOME! There are, like, three floors with shops everywhere! They even have escalators everywhere! I love escalators! While I'm looking around, Dad catches up to me.

"You know, I'm not as young as you are Bub. Sometimes you need to wait for the old fart to catch up." We both laugh, then start wandering through the mall. We spend hours going into different shops, making jokes, and dressing up in funny clothes. I'm glad Dad's smiling and laughing. We both really needed this trip. By the time we decide to get lunch, we're both shopped out. We decide to get some Chinese food, and find an open table in the middle of the food court. We talk while eating, and decide to leave after we're finished.

"Hey, I forgot to tell you, we're getting some new neighbors next week. I believe they have a daughter about your age." Dad says. Looking up at him, I tilt my head.

"I didn't know that the neighbors were selling their house."

"They put it on a private market. Mom was actually their agent. This family is actually from Canada as well. Maybe they could teach you some French. That would be fun, right?" While he was talking, I noticed he slightly flinched when he mentioned Mom, but I didn't say anything about it.

"That's really cool. I've always wanted to learn French so if they could teach me it would be awesome. Thanks for letting me know Dad." We finish our food, and put the empty containers in the garbage. While walking out to the car, Dad says that he'll drive home. Hopping into the passenger seat, I wait for him to start the car. Within a couple of minutes we're homeward bound.

By the time we get home, I'm almost asleep in the passenger seat. It's only about 3:00 but I'm dead tired. After grabbing my bags from the trunk, I drag them upstairs to my room. When I'm done putting all of my new clothes and shoes away, I change back into the shorts and tank top from earlier. Walking over to my door, I yell down to Dad that I'm going to take a quick nap before dinner. Lying down in my bed, I feel the tiredness leave me. It's replaced by a feeling of sadness. I've tried not to think about everything, but now that I'm left alone with my thoughts it's hard not to.

In the course of 24 hours I've started another long school year, learned that my parents were getting divorced, I've been bothered by a narcissistic pervert, and said pervert got drunk and killed my mother. Great. Just great. And now I'm crying. Another thing to add to the list. Wiping my eyes, I look over at the wall. On said wall are pictures of my family and I. Getting up, I walk over to the wall.

I have pictures from all of my birthday parties. In every one, my Dad is on the left, Mom on the right, and me in the middle. That became the tradition for every photo all of us were in. Then there are pictures from all of the different countries we've visited. There are a pictures from China, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Spain, and Russia. We were planning to go to Turkey and Japan over Christmas break, but I don't know if we will now. I love traveling with my family. It's one of the few times that I was the only thing that held my parent's attention.

My favorite memory from traveling is from when we were in Russia. The day after we arrived there was a huge snow storm and there was about four feet of snow on the ground. I was about 10 years old, so, of course, I decided to run off into the snow. I dug tunnels everywhere under the snow, built snowmen, and started a snowball fight with my parents. The snow had a hardened crust over it so, if a person was careful, they could walk on top of it. Mom and Dad were walking on top when they went over one of my tunnels and fell through. They landed on top of each other and we all burst out laughing. We all ended up with colds for the rest of our time there, but we didn't let that keep us inside. We just made sure to have hot cocoa with mini marshmallows whenever we went back inside.

Before I know it, I'm crying again. All of these memories of her, and she's gone. It still doesn't seem real. I know these things happen everyday, but I never thought they would happen to me. Heh, I'm sure everyone thinks that. 'Oh, that'll never happen to me.' Well, I thought that too, but here I am.

Sighing, I walk back to my bed and sit down. So much for my nap. After sitting for a few minutes, I get back up and go into my bathroom. Seeing my reflection; red eyes, messy hair, and tear stained cheeks, I decide to wash my face. Once I'm done, I walk downstairs to see what we're having for dinner.