Disclaimer: I do not own Code Lyoko. (not from lack of trying…)
Journaling
Drew Anderson on Sunday September 7th- first entry
I guess that it hit me around the bottom of the seventh that I had failed. I was playing baseball in my local senior league, so it was the last half inning. I was on the pitcher's mound, and I was throwing a pretty good game. I still hadn't allowed a run, so my team was winning. When I struck out the last batter, I became the only player in my league's history to throw a complete game shutout.
On a normal day, I would have been happy with that. But today, it meant that I had fell short of my goal; a perfect game. I didn't miss my goal to badly either. I gave up a hit in the third, and I walked someone in the fourth. I also struck out ten batters, but that wouldn't change the fact that I had failed.
My team met by the dugout after the game. My coach gave me the game ball as a reward for pitching such a great game. Once again, I would have been ecstatic on a normal day, but today the ball was just a reminder of how close I was to success. When coach wasn't looking I gave the ball to my teammate Nate. He hit a solo-homerun in the fifth inning, and scored our only run. Without the run, we probably would have lost in extra innings.
I skipped the traditional after game treats that our league gives out and decided to just head home. I lived close enough to the ballpark that I could walk, so I did. My mother my only parent that came to games, for the most part. However, today my father decided to come, just to see the outcome of the game. I was lucky that my parents were too lazy to drive though, seeing how I didn't want to face my dad for the next couple of minutes.
The walk home was almost relaxing. It made me come to terms with the fact that I had failed, and that I had to move away; that was the agreement after all. I failed to prove that all the time and money spent on baseball was worth it.
You see, my father was one of the world's leading people in the computer world. He was a millionaire several times over by the time he was eighteen. He is supposedly working on a form of personal quantum computer in the form of a laptop. So my father would rather have me work in the computer world than waste my time on sports. He says it's better for me, and it would more likely lead to a longer, more comfortable life. However, I just think that he is jealous that I made my first million earlier in my life than he did, not that it really matters.
Back when I was about ten, and still interested in what my father did for a living, I started to develop some small games that I would then post on the internet. Eventually, since my games were getting a lot of hits, I made a website, where people would have to pay to download my games. Soon, some company bought my website and all of my games for two million dollars.
Soon afterward, I started to get bored with programming, and decided to focus more on sports, which I had previously been juggling with programming. My dad wasn't happy. He thought that I should continue down the "programming path," since I had such great potential.
About a week ago he started to start getting really mad at me about the fact that I had dropped programming. He kept telling me that I would never make the same amount of money playing sports as I would in programming. I told him that I already had plenty of money, since I hadn't even spent any of it yet. I also pointed out the amount of money that professional baseball players make.
That did nothing to help his mood, so he set me a challenge. He told me to prove to him that I could go pro in baseball; he wanted me to pitch a perfect game.
Now that I failed, part of our "agreement" was that if I failed I would have to go to some boarding school where I would have to pick up programming. He told me that he went there when he was younger, and one of his business associates sent his kid there. The only problem was that the school he wanted me to go to was in France, and I hadn't exactly bothered to learn French.
As soon as I walked in the door, I heard my father's voice.
"You failed son, you know what that means."
"I know," I replied, as I had already accepted defeat at this point. "It means I have to call my friends, and tell them goodbye."
Looking back, that last statement was stretching the truth a bit. The only friend I had was a girl named Rebecca. I guess you could say I liked her, but I never had the courage to ask her out. I guess I will never have the opportunity to now.
"You better hurry up Drew, your plane leaves in an hour," my father told me with an emotionless face, "and I just heard your taxi drive up."
As if to emphasize my father's point, I heard two honks come from outside my house, signaling that I had to hurry up.
I didn't really know how to respond to the situation, and it didn't help when my father handed me a suitcase that he had already packed for me. I couldn't really do anything other than start to walk out the door, still in my baseball uniform. That wasn't the part that bothered me, however. I never got the opportunity to call Rebecca and say goodbye. I never thought that I would be leaving the second I got home. I had assumed that I had a couple of days to get things straightened out before I left.
I started to open the door when I heard my mother say something.
"Don't worry; I have an uncle who works at the school you're going to. I am sure that he will take care of you."
"You also have an brother in the Subdigitals," I responded, "but you never let me join his band…"
A/N: This is my first fanfiction, so any type of review would be nice. Also, the first three or four updates will be part of the first journal entry. I plan to update this at least once every other week. I also promise that the action will pick up, this is just an intro. Please feel free to PM me with any comments or questions.
