The Ways of Patching Up | ✓

First

"Bye Elliot!"

His friend's tiny arm waved highly in the air as his mom ushered him to the passenger seat of her car. Elliot shouted his farewell while waving in return, and quietly watched as the vehicle made a quick turn and headed straight off to the distance. Now it was him all alone, accompanied by other unknown older students who have yet to be picked up by their parents.

The little blondie sighed exasperatedly, and slumped onto the bench behind him. He clenched both of his hands on the straps of his Spiderman backpack, swinging his feet back and forth, kicking the snow that seemed to come from this morning. Despite his teacher telling him to wait inside, he never really listened. Besides, she tended to exaggerate a lot about how dangerous the outside world was, so none of the kids took her seriously.

Having no one he was familiar with, Elliot began shifting on his legs and growing stiff. Right now he just wanted Dad to come and bring him home as soon as possible. After all, he was always picked up last compared to his friends and classmates... but understanding the situation his father was in, he kept silent. He didn't want to push and stress his father further.

Dad's car finally showed up, driving into the premises and stopped right in front of him. Elliot promptly opened the door and assumed his seat beside Dad. He then placed his bag to the back and put on his seatbelt. After settling down, Elliot noticed the boring gaze Dad had given him, and so the child stared back.

His eyes were soulless, and his mouth no longer held the brightest of smiles. His beard had grown much more than before, and he looked like he rarely brushed his hair. His working clothes were all wrinkled and tousled, as if he didn't bother and care about appearance. In spite of everything, the child wasn't surprised. He had been this disorganized ever since Mom disappeared out of his life.

The awkwardness between them was too great, and so Elliot decided to cast him a small smile. However, Dad never threw any response, looked away and started driving. His heart sank at the reaction, but there was nothing he could do.

Finding out about Mom and Dad's breakup saddened Elliot to bits, but there was no way to turn time back. He didn't have a power to do that, and the only thing he could do was to move on with life. He was never close to Mom, anyway, and all they did were argue over some silly problems. In spite of the quarrels they did, Elliot still longed for her to come back someday and be united as family again.

With Dad, though, it was a completely different story. No matter how Elliot had tried to lift his spirits up, he still stayed the same, but it didn't mean he gave up on him.

"Hey Dad, you know what?" Elliot began, breaking the awkward silence between them, "my school's going to hold a science fair for the next month! I don't know what experiment I'm gonna do. What do you think?"

"Oh. Interesting," Dad mumbled.

At the short response, Elliot's potential words slipped off his mind. Of course, it was expected of him, so he never argued. Dad will always try to find ways to cut out the talk whenever Elliot wanted to speak about something. The little child slumped back to his seat, unable to continue the conversation. He stared outside the window of the car, watching as the scenery unfolded in front of him.

Despite everything, Elliot never had a situation where he despised his father, not even in the slightest. He knew that deep inside, Dad still loved and cared about him as he did with Mom. Whenever he went outside to play with his friends on the weekends, Dad always warned him to be careful and to come back as soon as possible.

Elliot wanted Dad to know that his son was there to support him whenever he needed anything. He wanted him to know that... he wasn't the only one feeling alone when Mom left.