Project Runaway

Chapter One

        My parents where very busy people. By busy I mean they had five children only one year apart from each other.

        My oldest brother David was nineteen, he played soccer, baseball, basketball, football, and was currently undefeated in his college wrestling team. After him was my sister Angela who was eighteen and already graduated college and was now a part time manager to a famous boutique downtown. At seventeen came my brother Evan who decided to get a girl pregnant at this age and now lives with her in a small apartment right next door. Then came me, sixteen and currently not in any extra curricular activities and working in an ice cream place.

         Lastly, the monster and the biggest slut in our family my sister Cindy who was fifteen and already was asked to be in playboy magazines and of course as the money came to be involved my parents agreed to let her be on magazine covers half naked. 

        As a child I grew up making my own lunch at the age of three and potty trained my self by seven. Yes, seven. I skipped preschool and kinder garden so I was placed in first grade at the right age.

        I remember this one time in second grade I fought a fourth grader for calling my older sister a hottie, I was young and did not know what that meant, but it sounded mean and so I ended up in the hospital. I think that contributed to me having trouble focusing on school work. 

        I had started my sophomore year bad, everyone started drooling over the hottest freshman that year, who turned out to be my sister. She was already more popular than I had ever been. 

        "Come on Anthony you're going to be late!" Oh yeah, my name is Anthony Noel Gonzalez, Tony for short. It was Saturday which meant I had to go to work. "I'm coming!" I replied to my mom, who was in a hurry to go to my sisters boutique to pick up little miss princesses dress for tomorrows pageant. "You know what go walking!" she replied as she started walking out the door. 

        My dad was in Los Angeles for the weekend for a job expo. We never really got to see him but when we did he took his little princess for ice cream and left me in charge of the house. Just a year earlier our house had gotten broken into and they left our house completely empty. 

        I put my hoodie on and headed out the door. It was barely the beginning of fall and it was already in the forties here in Chicago. " Good morning Mrs.Grace" I yelled out at my next door neighbor, she was eighty-four and never said anything.

        BEEP! A loud honk hurt my ear drum as I was walking down the street and forgot to look to the other side of the street. I ran into the small shop and got my robe. "Sorry I'm late Mr.Holland" I said to my boss as I walked in fifteen minutes late. 

        "You sure never get here on time" He responded. It's not like we ever had costumers anyway. But he was a wealthy man willing to pay me five-hundred every week.

        I started to bring out the new buckets of ice cream when a family came in. "Good morning" I said surprised we had costumers this early. She said hello but then everything else she said started to fade out. I was busy focusing on her husband playing with his daughter and son in the background. Wondering why my family couldn't be that united. 

        "And a strawberry yogurt" She said finishing her sentence. "I'm sorry can you repeat that?" I asked embarrassed at the fact that I was not paying any attention to her. She repeated her order and I went to the back to get the rest of the ice creams. 

        Once they left Mr.Holland came up to me "You okay son?" He asked putting his hand on my shoulder."Yeah, just a little tired" I responded, I think he knew I was lying. But, he just walked away.

        Later that day I had to walk back home in the rain. I decided to go to the park for a little bit. I watched as a family of ducks swam through large puddle the rain had made. You can tell the young ones where not that old only a couple weeks old. I was noticing how one of them was having trouble swimming but the rest did not seem to care. It reminded me of my self. 

        The sky started to clear up after a while and I decided to go back home. As always my mom was getting everything ready for tomorrows pageant. "You're coming with us" she said. "Is that a question.. or an order?". She looked at me for a couple seconds. "I need help getting everything in and out of the car and your sister needs rest on the way their so you're doing it" she responded. "I'm sorry I have work tomorrow". "YOU'RE COMING AND THAT'S FINAL!" She raised her voice. "You can't make me I need the money to get my own car and finally leave whenever the fuck I wan't to" I replied. "Excuse me I am your mother and in no way or form am I going to let you talk to me like that!" I could see she was starting to get mad. 

        "My mother? you do not deserve the title of a mother! What kind of mother let's her sixteen year old walk all the way to work and not ask where he's been all day, or asks how his day at school was every time he gets back from school? to be called a mother you need to take the role of one and take care of all your children not just ONE!" I ran up to my room and locked the door. 

        "AND AS A SON YOU SHOULD OBEY YOUR MOTHERS ORDERS!" She screamed from the downstairs kitchen. I was hoping that by letting all my anger out she would finally start t realize she was leaving out a son from the equation.

        I looked at the clock and it was close to midnight. So I went on Netflix and started watching Under The Same Moon. That's when i started realizing that sometimes to find your happiness you need to risk what you already have. It was about two in the morning when I finally decided, it was time to go find my happiness.