- ★ -
Manon Everett was familiar with tragedy.
In the eleven years he had been alive, Manon had become used to everything going wrong instead of right.
Manon was used to family members he loved dying inexplicably. Manon was used to being beat by his mother so hard he saw whole universes instead of the usual galaxies of stars.
He was not, however, used to finding girls with blonde ponytails and constellations of freckles sitting under trees in his own backyard bawling their eyes out.
Nonetheless, Manon found himself walking towards the pretty, melancholy stranger, and in a matter of a few seconds was sitting beside her, back against the hardened wood of the tree.
" I'm s...sorry. If you give me a little while to get myself together. I'll be out of your hair and off your property as quickly as possible," she said, faltering over many of her words.
The girl then stared at Manon with puffy eyes the color of his father's old denim jacket, eyes that seemed expectant of him to say something along the lines of "are you alright?" or to tell her that "everything would be okay".
And God did Manon want to.
Manon wanted to ask her what was wrong and to listen to what she had to say. To hear her tell him about her own troubles as he spilled his own to her, each of them trying to outmatch each other with the weight of their personal tragedies. And then in tears, they would tell each other that it would only get better from there, and that everything would be alright.
However, it wouldn't be because life is not ruled by the wants of two pre-teens crying together in the backyard of a dilapidated old house.
So instead, perhaps with a wisdom beyond his own years, Manon turned to her with the brightest smile that he could manage, and hugged her with everything in him.
And somehow when she squeezed him back equally as tight, he knew she understood that though Manon Everett might not have been familiar with the prospect of comforting a sad girl who depending on how you look at it may or may not have infringed on private property.
Manon Everett was and had always been familiar with the concept of how to be a friend in his own silent way when needed.
- ★ -
Well that was my second entry into the #WondertheMovie contest, and I hope that anyone who has made it this far in reading it has enjoyed it. Thank you so very much for reading.
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The Art Of Being A Friend
Short Story"He was not, however, familiar with girls with blonde ponytails and constellations of freckles sitting under trees in his own backyard, bawling their eyes out." -★- In which it is realized that there are many definitions of being a friend -★- Won...