I look around the room. The book in my hand, the baseball bat and ball and the bed in the corner is my only company. But it's dark now. I get up and feel my way to the bed. There's a slight knock on the door, and I'm not going to lie, it scared me at first. "Son? You in here?" Oh. It's my dad. He went blind a few years back, so it doesn't matter how dark it is, he wouldn't be able to see me anyway. I don't want to talk to him. Truth is, my mom died about a month ago. I haven't talked to anyone since. I've lost all of my friends and I don't think my father cares for me much anymore either.

I just keep quiet until he leaves. Oh, and the name's James Buler by the way. I guess I forgot to mention that one. I don't really have a story. I've spent my whole life in this one building, with my once happy family. It used to be my dad, my mom, my little brother Stan and older brother Jared. But, the flow of happiness pretty much got ruined when Jared went off in the war with the Brotherhood of Steel. He had been out at war for a good three years when a man came to our door and said that Jared was M.I.A. And to top it off, Stan had died a year and a half ago because of some sickness. No one knew what it was. And because of that, we had no way to treat it. But that's pretty much all there is to know. I just live a sad life, putting distance between me and my father every day.

A tear starts to roll down my face. I just realized that I'm nothing. Just a miserable shell of a human being that is making my father miserable. I stand up, wipe the tears from my eyes and walk out to the living-room. "Uh... hey... dad." I said, relatively quietly. I walked over and sat beside him on our torn, brown-leather couch. "Sorry for... ignoring you before." He smiled. A subtle smile, but still a smile.

He turned to me. "Son, I know things have been rough lately. But I'm here for you, you know that, don't you?" He said. Even though he was blind, it felt like he was looking directly into my eyes. I looked down and sighed. "Yeah, dad, I do. I just... I can't handle things right now. Things are too difficult to just shrug off." I'm very quiet. He got up and felt his way over to our fireplace. He felt around until he found the picture of his wife... mom... hanging above. He pulled it off and gave it to me. I looked down at it, in silence, tears starting to roll down my face. "Listen to me James. I know things are difficult, but you have to remember the important things in life. Your mother here. She may not be with us, but she's watching us. I know it."

Tears streaming down my face, I looked up at my dad. I got up and ran to him and gave him a great big hug. "I love you dad." I said loudly. It was the first time I had said that to him in months. He didn't say anything back. With that, I walked back to my room. With a smile on my face, I climbed into bed.

Then came the knock. But it was a knock on the front door. And a loud one. I slowly got out of bed. I grabbed the baseball bat from beside my bed and walked to the front door. I opened it, and what I saw took me by surprise.