His life hadn't been as easy as everyone seemed to think.
The parade of pride and confidence was a mask covering his insecurities and true feelings. He forced himself to watch the stream splashing in front of him as he stared at his moving reflection. Even though he was sitting in the grass, the reflection moved to the ways of the water, leaving him behind to live on its own. Alfred sighed and shifted his eyes to what looked like the end of the river but was really just the farthest his eyes could see of the running water that stretched on for miles. What would it be like to follow his reflection? To see the world from shapeless eyes and form to the will of others? Wait, he already did that.
It was an understatement to say that he liked to please everyone. In truth, it scared the hell out of him if someone was even the least dissatisfied with himself. He couldn't handle that, let alone hatred and frustration. Whenever he saw an angry face he just wanted to scream at the person "GET OVER IT! Leave me alone! Am I not enough for you?" Thinking back on his feelings for the past five years, Alfred buried his face into his arms that were resting on his raised knees. He held back every tear, not letting himself cry over his feelings.
He hadn't always been this way. It was hard to remember himself as a child but he must have had happy times. Right? This must have all started when the divorce happened.
Alfred's eyes grew tighter as his memories overtook him against his will. He saw himself coming back from a normal day at pioneer camp during the summer of five years ago and being told his father just needed a little break, a vacation. He remembered how his father had called him that same week telling him it's not his fault, he was coming back soon! Really! His mind skipped to a later time, when his mom was sitting in the kitchen crying.
"What's wrong mom?"
"I-I don't want him to take you away. He can't have you!"
Alfred's childish face grew worried and confused. "Don't worry mom! I'll just get a rope and if he tries to take me, I'll pull myself back to you!" He smiled at his clever idea, anything to make his mother happy again. Luckily, she smiled back.
"Yeah,"
Alfred's mind ran onto another memory, he couldn't tell if this one had happened before the last one or not. He remembered his father driving him for miles, all the way to the beach and to a place filled with cheap apartments. This was his father's first "house". His bedroom was near the front door of the tiny and cramped space. He would spend the whole weekend every other week here, bored out of his mind, playing with tennis balls on the floors, and doing nothing but watching TV in the depressing apartment with faded white walls and hardwood floors.
There were many fights that had broken out between the two and his other siblings. He could recall one very dark incident.
He couldn't remember how it had started, but his oldest brother managed to get in a fight with his father. The fight grew so bad that his brother was kicked out of the "house" and ended up walking all the way to the nearest Publix in the dark of the night. Midnight, most likely. Alfred and his second oldest brother and younger brother got into their father's truck and tailed the eldest of the four children. Alfred had been only around nine or ten at the time which made his oldest brother about his age now, fourteen. His youngest brother was about four. Alfred's father called his mom and told her to come get the boy from Publix's parking lot. All he could remember from the conversation was him saying "If you're drunk then don't come and get him!" which had scared Alfred to death, thinking his mom was going to die.
Years later he found out that his mom actually wasn't drunk and the only reason his father had said that was to make the three brothers think that she drank. It was an awful memory. For Christmas, they had gotten a pitiful, two-foot tree and decorated it with ornaments from a plastic tin bought at Target. He hated remembering that awful apartment and even when his father finally did get a REAL house, it was still bad.
The house was tiny and didn't even have enough space for the five of them. It ended up being that his oldest brother barely even came to visit their father and the youngest had to sleep in their father's room. The second oldest had his own room because at that time, he had already started living with their father. Alfred couldn't bear to let himself remember the fights in court over custody and his mom sobbing when she lost him to his father. And what a stupid move it was! For in the present, his second oldest brother had been drinking, smoking, and doing drugs. His grades dropped from A's to F's. It was a miracle he had graduated high school now.
Alfred had had a "room" too, in that house. It was so small. The walls a depressing, deep purple, his bed a size too small for him, the sheets coming off constantly, the TV had no channels he liked since Disney and Nickelodeon were now crap, and the worst part. He didn't have a DOOR. No! He had a CURTAIN. People didn't even knock on the side of the wall before coming in! Just imagine being a teenage boy trying to get dressed with a curtain that was close enough to being transparent as the glass on the windows! The trash would be left in his room; people would barge in with laundry because his room held the door to the backyard and the garage with the washer and dryer! His brother had passed his room multiple times one night to get to the backyard, each time coming back in smelling like smoke and thinking Alfred had been asleep.
Coming back to the present, Alfred picked his head up and looked to the sky to see a shade of blue similar to the color of his damp eyes that refused to shed tears but watered just the same.
His head now hurt from all of the horrible flashbacks from the past five years, yet had barely even begun to scrape at the surface of his depression and horrid memories.
Thankfully now, his father had finally let him not stay over at his house anymore. Alfred had put up quite a good fight. He couldn't tell if he hated or just extremely disliked his father. It was a sad thing to be grateful for, but Alfred couldn't help but fill with glee when he realized he had only seen his fathr a few times in the past few months. He had even gone for three months at time without having contact with his father except for a measly text message from the man and a small reply from himself.
Alfred got up from the grass and started walking back to his house, wanting to get away from the sadness that trapped him in whenever he remembered about the divorce. He hated so many things about himself and his life, and things could only get worse sometimes. Alfred's hand stretched out and grasped the handle to the door of his home.
Opening it, he was forever grateful to see that his father was not there.
I don't have anything to say except sorry for so many flashbacks and depressing things. I have so much to explain with this story and to get it started, I had to explain at least a little bit. I usually hate stories where Alfred isn't actually the USA but random things like werewolves and demons but I had to do this. I don't know if this was any good but it will only get better. If this isn't good, I won't continue. I'm just trying to express my life through Alfred. Sorry guys. I also am not rereading and editing this because it's too depressing for me to read right now so please forgive any typos and misspellings. Thanks.