Hurt

GOERGE LOOKS BACK

He was 10 years old when George first realized that he hated his life, he hated being controlled by his father and he hated seeing his mother always took her father side, and most of all he hated to be forced to go to school. Like most 10 years old, school had became somewhat of a nightmare, kids would picked on him and he would got very angry and beat them up. Then he would got in trouble at home for it. At the age of 13 his father decided to enrolled him into a disciplinary school and got him lived in a dorm and he hated his father even more for it.

James Covington was an entrepreneur, he owned a little shop in the farmer's market, selling log. It wasn't making him rich but it could provide food on the table. James was an eager and determined businessman, his ultimate dream was to be living side by side with those fancy big mansion in the hillside. He wanted to be as rich as his loyal customers even richer if that's possible. James had 2 children, the oldest was Veronica and the youngest was George and to this younger son he bestowed all his hopes on becoming a rich man.

What James didn't know was that George had no wish to be a rich man, he didn't even care. All he wanted to do was to be on an adventure; be as far away from home as possible, be one with nature. James didn't know that it was Veronica who he should bestowed all of his hopes because that girl had the same mind as her old man. But he never realized in his lifetime.

George lasted a year in those disciplinary school before he got kicked out. The school said that he was too much to handle. At age 15 he started to drink alcohol, smoking, and doing mushroom. He would sneaked out of the house and met with his drunken friends to have parties by the beach and woke up the next day, realizing that he had been sleeping in a ditch all night.

At this point James felt like he was loosing grip on his son, had no power to controlled the boy anymore. James tried everything to handle George, he even gave him his shop at one point for George to run but that didn't last long because George never went to the shop at all. He hated the shop.

At 17 George ran away from home. It was devastating to everybody at home but James being an ignorant man, still reluctant to let George off his grip and the behavior got even worst. George eventually moved back home but he brought a new habbit with him.

George would picked up a hooker from downtown and brought her back to his room just to annoyed his father and gave his mother a massive heart attack. He started doing hooker ever since. He got involved with bad guys at 18.

One night they were planning a robbery and the house in target was one The Willow; the house that belonged to Benjamin Allenby.

Benjamin had just buried his only son the day the robbery occurred. The robbery attempt failed when one of George crew got bit by Mr. Freckles; a cute name for a German Sheppard, a veracious dog he was. It was somewhat a bloody night because the German Sheppard wouldn't let go of his bite and the kid screamed in agony. Eventually the police came and arrested them all.

The next day Benjamin went to the hospital and gave the kid who got bit some money. Enough money to cover the hospital bills and groceries for the kid's parents. After his visit to the hospital, he went to the county prison and bailed George. He did that because James was one of the honest businessman and Benjamin was his loyal customers.

He drove George home and told him that he would be expecting him next morning in The Willows.

Early in the morning, George knocked on the big door of the house that he once tried to rob. A scared looked on his face when the door were opened. He walked behind the tall old Butler to the garden path and then found himself in a big glass house; a glass house almost as big as his house.

The Butler opened the door and let George in. Inside he found Benjamin was watering his plants; whistling then smiling when he saw George. He asked George to take a watering can and started watering the plants on the other side. It was a big glass house and to manually watering all these plants would took them all day but George complied anyway. He thought this must be how this old man demanded repay for what happened last night.

"Why are you watering your plants? Don't you have people work for you to water them?" asked George after what felt like hours of uncomfortable silence. "I thought rich people just supposed to be relaxing all day, not having to work?"

"Well, how boring that sounds to me," said Benjamin.

"My father wants to be rich like you do."

"It's an honorable wish. How about you? Do you want to be rich, George?" asked Ben looking at puzzled face George.

Nobody ever asked him that question before, even his rich-want-to-be-father never asked him that question. "No."

"Well," Ben looked relieved somehow. "Keep watering," And they did continue until it was time for lunch.

Benjamin asked him to join him and his wife, Nora for lunch. George thought of an upcoming lunch feast where they would sit in a big dining room or perhaps sunny patio, to be served by servants. The image of a whole turkey or chicken or duck liver pate or any kind of expensive food swarming in his hungry imagination.

However, he thought wrong. Benjamin took him on to a small kitchen, there cooking Nora. They sat on the kitchen counter and ate a hearty home cooked meal prepared personally by Nora. No fancy food, no fancy servants, no fancy patio or dining room. A small kitchen and a kitchen counter made the whole set up. Very modest but the foods were delicious even more than those fancy foods that he had been dreaming about.

"Nora is a good cook," compliment Benjamin with a twinkle in his eyes. It were evidently his favorite meals.

"Don't you supposed to have a chef or something to prepare your food?" George asked.

"Why? You don't like my cooking?" asked Nora

"No, I just thought..."

"I love cooking." Nora whispered to George as she put the food in front of George. "And to be honest the food would be too much for just 2 people, don't you think?"

George shrugged. He was very surprised to find out that the way the rich lived wasn't the same as they lived in his father's imagination. He found it very funny.

At the end of the day he was prepared to go home when Ben handed him a small pot of soil; it was a dry soil. Ben asked George to threw it away on his way home because the plant on that pot had no more chance of living.

However, George couldn't threw it out; first, because the pot looked expensive. Second, he didn't have the heart to threw them away even though the plant inside looked withered and dry. It was very sad to see it died away in a dumpster so he took it back home and tried to care for the plant anyway.