As My Empire Falls

Chapter One: This Empire is mine

"Teddy Fitzgerald is a great man. Everywhere he goes he makes people smile, because as he says, true happiness starts with a single smile. He tries his hardest to give people a good laugh when he can tell they need one, whether he knows them or not.

Not only is he nice and funny, but he is also beyond genius. He's a scientist, and a writer on the side. In his free time he sings and plays guitar, fixes old cars, and every other Sunday he volunteers at a food pantry in the city, even though it's about a hour and a half drive.

He's stories are nearly as brilliant as him. They are mostly based off his family, oh yeah, his family. He has a beautiful wife and two teenage daughters. Now, you may say that's a handful, but he rather enjoys it.

We've established that he's nice, funny, smart, and a family man, but have I mentioned how inspirational he is? He is truly an inspiration to me. No mater what, he will always encourage you to do what you love, even if he disagrees. If you fall down, he'll be there to help you up and encourage you to keep trying and give it your hardest.

As he always says 'This, right now, right here, this is your empire. Look around you at the greatness you've spent so long building. You have the power, don't you ever forget that.'

And I am very proud to say, that man, he's my father." I finished saying with a smile to a round of applause. I headed back to my seat, rather pleased that I got this speech done with. Not even two weeks into my freshman year of collage, and I've already written three essays. This one was only two pages, my shortest one yet.

So far I'm loving NYU. Because I'm majoring in reporting, we have to write and present a lot, I mean a lot a lot. But I rather enjoy it. At my high school, they tried pushing everyone into a math or science field and for some people it works, but not me. You see, I love English and History, and I'm not a Science and Math person. Thanks to my dad, I got out of all the engineering courses and I'm on my way to being a reporter, a rather good one, I hope.

My dad, it always seems to come back to my dad, I think with a smile as someone else jabbers on about their essay. My dad is easily my biggest roll model, that's why when they told us that our next essay will be on someone who inspires us, I immediately thought of him.

I'm so lost in my train of thought, next thing I know everyone is up and leaving the classroom. With a shock I realized class was already over, and I could go back to my dorm now, thank god almighty.

~•~•~

My roommate, Vanessa, was in the dorm eating pizza when I walked in. Grabbing my own slice, I sat next to her on her bed where she was watching Teen Wolf, which was playing on her laptop.

Once I was done my pizza, I got up, walk to the mini fridge and grab two beers from where we stash them behind the hot pockets. Tossing Vanessa one can, I cracked the other one open, relieved to finally be able to wined down for the day, I needed this beer.

Now don't get me wrong, I loved my beer, but I wasn't an alcoholic, though I was not legally aloud to drink yet, only being 18 and all. You might ask who the hell drinks on a Tuesday at 4:30, well I do, that's who. Not only did I need this beer to relax because of stress of the first few weeks of collage, but also I'm parched from presenting my essay. So yes, I happily, illegally, drank my beer at 4:30 on a Tuesday.

As were sipping our beers and watching Teen Wolf, we heard a knock on the door. Immediately we looked at each other, both wide eyed, and scurried to hide our open beer cans. After carefully putting the cans into a storage box under my bed, I opened the door to find another student.

With a sigh of relieve I said "God dammit Charlie you couldn't have announced it's you? You scared the shit outa us." Walking in and shutting the door behind him, Charlie immediately went to grab a beer and sit next to Vanessa, on the side I hadn't already claimed.