Amanda grabbed her backpack, armed with a camera, 2 notebooks, and about 10 assorted writing utensils, and went toward the garage to grab her bike. "I'm going out, Mom!" she called up to her mother in the kitchen from the door.
"That's nice, dear. Be home by dinner," her mom replied.
It was a breezy Saturday afternoon in the spring, and she planned to make the most of it. She slammed the garage door opener, her excitement briefly overwhelming her control. The second the door was opened enough for her to ride out, she darted in, grabbed her bike, and sped out the door. The wheels of her bike glided over the smooth asphalt of her driveway. She pedaled hard and fast down the deserted suburban road, onto a sidewalk at the bottom of the street, and pedaled until the woods was next to her.
A small, thin, twisty path led into the woods just ahead of her, and Amanda braked to turn onto it. She looked around to make sure no one was there to see her, then shoved off the sidewalk onto the dirt path, letting gravity do all the work. By the time she had to pedal she was deep into the red wood forest sitting 15 minutes from her home. She smiled, letting the cool, indifferent exterior she kept up around other people slide off her face like candle wax. She screamed, exhilarated, "YAAAAAAHHHOOOOO!"
She pedaled until the path petered out and a rusted bike rack slumped against a tree. Amanda locked her bike to it and wandered beyond the path into the woods. She had been here so often, that she made a map to know exactly where she was going. And today, she was headed to the tallest tree in the wood.
It wasn't a hard trek; just a hop over a stream, and following it until she reached a clump of berry bushes, and then she walked straight until she found a tree with a trunk 5 feet strong.
She sat against it, put her backpack in front of her, and let even her peaceful facade fade away into tears.
These woods remained the one place that she could be herself, with no judgement. The one place she could cry without fear of retribution.
The one place she could cry about her parent's divorce.
Her dad and mom hadn't gotten along in years, she knew. But the fact that they hadn't called lawyers always made her hope that perhaps things would get better.
An apartment in the city was being rented by her dad. Things hadn't gotten better.
She was strong for her mom, she was happy in front of her dad. But neither of these things were what she actually felt. What she actually felt was out here, in the woods, where no one could see, no one could judge, no one could look so pain-stricken at her sadness.
The tree above her graced her with a gentle breeze and shade. Most kids would make the most of today by going out and enjoying the weather. But for Amanda, these were the days where she could vent all she wanted without anyone listening in. She took out a notebook and tore a piece of paper into a square, making a paper crane. They old story went if you made 1,000 paper cranes, you could make a wish and it would come true.
She carefully placed her 1,000 crane on her safe space and whispered, "I wish my parents would stay together," before taking her stuff and going farther into the woods to decompress before going back to her home.
Her broken, sorrowful home.
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