Youth is love the eyes can see.

Youth is loving the eyes can see.
by Serena Vilardo.



Emily is a 16-year-old girl whose been in Abbot House orphanage for as long as she can remember. She’s always been curious about the past life she was too young to remember much about. All Emily can remember is small bits and pieces of the beautiful women stroking her hair back from her forehead and singing her a lullaby as she slowly drifts off to sleep, or laughing moments with the mystery women she believes is her mother in the front yard of a house she doesn’t remember a single detail about. She’s been an orphan for 11 years now and after having her curiosity get the better of her she root through her files on her past she knows she has a mother out there in the world still alive and is more determined than ever to find her and find out the reason why she was given up. She has to figure out where she’s going to start and go from there because she knows that no matter how desperate she may be to find her long lost mother she needs somewhere to start and her desperation won’t be enough to get her that start she needs.

Emily went to do research on the women named Lacey morgan labeled under her mother and tried to find some possible leads. After many weeks of research, Emily came to a point where she just decided to start at the heart of where everything started. Lost springs were where Emily was born and raised for the first 5 years of her life before coming to an orphan. Emily packed her things that day told Mrs. Kim her plans of finding her mother and she didn’t take no for an answer she just walked out of the orphanage doors with Mrs. KIm yelling at her to get back inside that she wasn’t ready to find out the truth of things. Emily couldn’t have felt more ready to find out the truth than she had felt the moment she walked out that door and started for the bus stop to take her on the start of her journey.


Emily’s p.o.v:
I was excited and scared as I climbed onto the bus and paid for my ticket. I was excited that I finally would have the chance to see my mother and find out a little about my past but I was scared that I would find out things that I would have been better off not knowing. I mean it’s been 11 years since I was put into Abbot orphanage so who's to say that my mother will remember me or even that she had a child. what if she doesn’t want to see me? Will I be able to handle that kind of heartbreaking let down event in my life? I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to take that kind of news if it turns out to end that way. All I’ve been wanting in my life is a mother it’s all I’ve been able to think about and wish for all of those years living in Abbot Household.

I took a seat in the back of the bus next to a brown hair, green-eyed, broad-shouldered boy, with earbuds in his ears. He glanced over at me when I claimed the seat next to him staring at me for a few seconds before turning away from me and looking out the window as if there was nothing interesting about me and he wouldn’t waste his time so much as speaking to me the stranger of a girl next to him on the bus. I found myself looking ahead trying to ignore the boy next to me, but found it kind of hard to pretend as if he wasn’t there when I felt his arm brush mine ever now and then and could hear the slight sound of the music coming from the earbuds buried in his ears. I couldn’t help but pull the earbud from his ear with an excited smile and shove it into my own when I recognized the tone of my favorite song by Chris Brown. He looked at me as if I was a crazy rude girl that he just wanted to shove out of the seat onto the floor.

“ Oh sorry, My excitement got the better of me I heard the toon to Chris Brown and I acted without thinking “ I blushed to realize my rude mistake.

The way he was looking at me I thought he was going to holler and kick me out of the seat but his dark glare he was shooting my way fell and he began to laugh a deep husky laugh that had my hear stutter in a way that made me want to throw myself out of the bus window with the hopes of getting hit by a big dump truck by doing so.

“You’re a weird one, I like your style though kinda cute in a rude kind of way “ He commented smiling lightly at me. “ what’s your name? I’m Andrew, but my friends call me Drew or Andy “

I held my hand out to him with a bright smile happy that he wasn’t mad at me. He took my hand in his tan big one and shook it friendly.

“Emily, but my friends call me Kate "Andrew raised his eyebrow at me as if to say where the hell do you get Kate from Emily? " Kate is my middle name, it's shorter."

He nodded approvingly and comprehensively.

“Cute name, where are you headed? “

I thought about telling him or not telling him and decided that it didn’t really matter because it wasn’t as if I knew him, or he knew the reason for me wanting to go to Lost Springs.

“Lost springs “

He chuckled.

“Ironic isn’t it that two people going to the same place end up sitting next to each other on a ratty bus? “

It was a bit Ironic now that I knew about it.

“ What are you going to Lost springs for? “

He raised his eyebrow at me as if I had asked him a weird question that he hadn’t been expecting and wasn’t sure if he should answer it.

“ I live there, what about you? “

And the question that I was avoiding telling anyone was asked. It’s not that I’m ashamed and don’t want anyone to know it’s that I’m not sure if the answers that I’m looking for will ever be answered. I mean it won’t hurt to tell him will it? I mean it’s not like I know him or care if he judges me or feels pity after hearing my reason. It’s not like I’m the first person to go through this, right?

“ I’m an orphan looking for her mom and before you say anything I don’t want your pity or apologies because I’m not telling you to hear any of that from you, I’m telling you because I’m not ashamed and you asked “
I warned him to not feel pity or say I’m sorry or anything such as that because I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t care for it I just told him what he wanted to know because I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of my situation.

“ I wasn’t going to say any of those things, your situation is actually a lot more common than you would think “

He surprised me by saying so.

I was sure he was going to say something like I’m sorry or feel pity for me and part of me, wanted to know why he hadn’t but I didn’t see why that really matter because he was just telling me what I wanted to hear which was a first for me. I was glad that he gave me that much but for some reason, I also found myself a little disappointed and I didn’t understand why I was feeling disappointed. The emotion just didn’t make any sense. Something in his expression spoke to me and I wasn't sure what it was that I was seeing in the hidden expression in those deep green eyes of his, but something told me that when he was talking about my situation is common in a way he was talking about himself. I wanted to ask but I wasn’t sure if I really had that right because I was still a stranger and that’s a very personal question to ask someone who doesn’t even know you.

He smirked sadly at me.

“ Go ahead and ask I can see in your features that you really want to know and I won’t hold back from telling you the truth as long as your brave enough to ask such a personal question “

I was always told that my facial expression always gave me away weather I spoke what was on my mind or not, I just never believed it until now when he was able to read me so well. I took in a deep breath and gather courage from the bottom of my soul pulling up the brave nerves I needed to ask him the question he already knew I so badly wanted to ask.

“ When you said that my situation was common, you were talking about being or had been in such a situation as mine, weren’t you ?”

He chuckled lightly and nodded his head.

“ Yes, I was, My dad was a mystery for a long time in my life and I wanted answers that my mother refused to give me so I had to find things out for myself “

He answered me with a smile that shot straight to my heart not out of pity but out of joy and pride because his smile wasn’t sad but strong and it gave me hope that even if things didn’t work out with finding my mother I can look back at this guy and know that no matter what there is still, a reason to feel happy.

“ If you don’t mind me asking, did you ever uncover the mystery of your dad? “

He shook his head.

“ No, but from what I’ve heard something are left better unknown “

I frowned not liking those words too much.

It hurt me more than it should have without even knowing the story behind those words. I think it only hit me hard because it lowered my faith in the whole situation that maybe I wasn’t doing the right thing after all. That maybe Kim was right I wasn’t ready to find the truth and I was acting too desperate for someone that hardly remembers anything about her past.

“ Sometimes it’s better knowing the truth whether it’s what you want to hear or not, it’s something you need to know and the pain of it will either make you stronger or weaker but in your case, I think that it made you stronger.“ I told him, looking into his deep green eyes and seeing the surprising wonder in them as if he hadn’t made that connection with himself before and me saying it was new to him and he wasn’t sure where I was getting my news from. “ I mean look at you, you’ve been through a tough time and aren’t ashamed of the situation you went through, and you don’t let the things you found out hold you down. you may not notice because you don’t see it as others do, but you’re stronger because the situation made you stronger.”

Andrew watched me through deep green pulls of swirling emotions that I couldn’t decipher from each other. His eyes are beautifully breathtaking for a stranger I feel like just watching and looking into his green eyes I can know almost anything about him. In the good hour or so that I’ve talked to him, I’ve noticed that his eyes tell things that he won’t let his words speak for him. His eyes are the window to his past, wishes, hopes, dreams, strong emotions, almost everything that his mouth could tell you if he was willing to say it out loud. In a way, this is good but also bad because it means people can see everything about you without having to really dig deep and sometimes that’s more dangerous than some of the people in this world themselves. When you have eyes that speak for you like Andrews you have to learn how to block out that blessing and know when it’s the right time to let things be shown through them because if you don’t you can find yourself in tough situations or hurt more than your heart can bear.

“ you know for a stranger I feel like you can read me better than I can read myself in some ways “ Andrew spoke his voice was soft and almost like he was awed by me in some kind of way. I was always good at reading people but it’s not the same way as it is with Andrew as he seems to be thinking. I don’t think he realizes that he makes himself easy to read not by his expresses but by the way his eyes just bore into you and just seem to tell you everything you want to know and yet everything he doesn’t want to say. His eyes are a blessing and a curse and he doesn’t have any idea just how much they speak without him even knowing just pouring out everything unsaid, in a way his eyes are what betray him the most, not his emotions. “ why is it that I don’t even know you and yet I feel as if you could know everything there is to know about me?”

If I believed it was something that wouldn’t make him close up on me I’d tell him how it’s his eyes that tell me everything about him and I’m just smart enough to be able to look him in the eyes and read the pools of stories presenting themselves to me without his permission, but I know that he’d close up like a clam and hide behind the fear of the possibility that the world may be able to know every little detail he’s ever hidden from it just by looking into his deep green beautiful eyes. So I just told him the truth of things without really ever telling him what he was asking.

“ I’m able to read people pretty well “

His face fell as if he didn’t understand or wasn’t sure how to take it. He ended up just shrugging it off as if it meant nothing and had no effect on him whatsoever. Things got quiet between us neither one of us knows what to say now that so much is out in the open for both to see. I felt as if I was playing a game of poker and I played my deck face up with everyone able to see the cards dealt to me by the card handler, now that Andrew knew about the reason behind me heading to Lost springs instead of sitting in the orphanage looking out the window and wonder what life would be like outside of the lonely shut-in walls of my small room away from all of the younger overly loud kids. I didn't like things being award between us and Andrew didn't seem to like it much either because he handed me the ear-bud I had given back to him after rudely snatching it from his ear.

" Here, listen to this "

I shoved the ear-bud back into my ear and watched him closely when he began scrolling through his playlist on his phone. I didn't get to see what he clicked when he finally chose a song because he blocked my view with his hands smiling at me with an your not allowed see kind of way. I sighed and leaned back in my seat and just listened as the song began to play and tried to figure out who was playing.

" wait " I sat up quickly when I recognized the song that was playing. " No way you listen to Michael Jackson? "

Andrew laughed nodding his head lightly.

" My mom always played his songs when I was growing up, so I was hooked by the time I was 10 "

" Wow " I smiled leaning back in my seat, resting my head on the back of the seat closing my eyes and letting the music speak to my soul.
" I love Michael Jackson, His voice is relaxing "

The music was soft and had images floating through my head that went with the song. Michael Jackson always reminded me of a sunshine kind of day maybe mid-summer with lots of different colored flowers. I felt comfortable and safe just listening to Michael Jackson's sweet voice invading my senses.


Andrew’s P. O.V”

When I had given Emily my other ear-bud to keep the awkwardness growing between us at bay I hadn’t known she would end up falling asleep with her head falling onto my shoulder and her hair falling over one-half of her faces like a dark black curtain of silk and shine. I glanced down at her and thought about flicking her in the forehead to wake her up and demanding who she thought she was falling asleep on my shoulder…. A stranger's shoulder. My gentlemen side spoke up and told me to leave her be that it wasn’t a big deal because it wasn’t as if either one of us had planned for it to happen.

I sighed heavily looked down at the stranger of a girl.

“ This should be the part where I push you out of the seat, Right? “
I asked sleeping Emily pulling my other ear-bud from her ear and placing it in my ear-bud free ear and turning to face the window.

I could tell by the look of nature outside how much greener it was outside that we were just about at Lost Springs and I couldn’t suppress the feeling of overly excited joy practically radiating from my skin on finally being back home. I was only gone a week visiting grandpa Kim, but I felt like I had been gone for months. I wasn’t homesick at least that’s what I like to tell myself, but rather I just missed the people and my mother, but I know deep down that I was lying to myself because I was, in fact, homesick for the week that I had been gone.

Time seemed to fly by with me stuck inside my head of swirling thoughts and the beautiful scene of nature passing by outside the window filling my eyes with beauty and comfort. My thoughts didn't seem to stay in one place, my thoughts jumped from one place to the next which seemed to happen a lot lately. I felt like I could never make up my mind anymore because my thoughts would always fall off track and make me second guess my own desitions. My mind began to spin into past memories that I didn't want to fall into but couldn't seem to stop from appearing inside my head with the silence and nothing to rip me from my own head. I was sure that I was going to fall back into those memories and have a breakdown, but was saved by the soft screech of the bus brakes as we came to a stop. I glanced out the window and realized for the first time that we were in Lost Springs.


" We have arrived at Lost Springs people, so make sure that the person next to you is awake so no one misses this stop "
The bus driver said loudly to everyone on the bus making me remember the sleeping girl next to me whose head still lay on my shoulder and her face holding a peaceful look brought over her features by sleep.


" Hey Emily, get up " I tapped the sleeping girl's shoulder, but she mumbled nonsense that I couldn't understand and slapped my hand that was tapping her away.


Great, she's one of those hard to get up sleepers I thought to myself rolling my eyes.

" well I could always leave her here " I chuckled to myself but knew that that wasn't the kind of person I was as I began to tap her again. " Get up Emily, we're at Lost Springs"

" 5 more minutes Mrs. Kim " She mumbled with a slight whining tone.


I flicked her hard in the forehead making her jump up with a yelp holding her forehead.

" I said get up "

Emily shot me a glare as she rubbed her forehead.

" you could have just told me instead of flicking me so damn hard "

" I did about 3 times and you didn't listen "

I ignored her glare as I got to my feet brushed past her and made my way off the bus with her glares boring into my back. I just smirked to myself feeling satisfied as I clambered down the bus steps and taking my first step back onto Lost Springs soil for the first time in a whole week. I took a big whiff of the fresh air happily and smiled.


" Smells like home " I laughed

" Glad to see your happy cause my forehead fucking hurts " I heard Emily complaining behind me and turned to face her.

" Damn I got you good " I laughed starring at the red mark on her forehead, she rolled her eyes at me and walked off pulling out a slip of paper from the back pocket of her black jeans. I watched her leave looking like she had no idea where she was going and I forced down the need to want to help her get where she wanted to go and started off in the opposite direction towards my mother's house.




Emily's P.O.V :
I stared down at the map with the picture of my mom clipped to the top as a reminder of what my goal for this whole adventure was. I don't even know where I was going all I knew was that I had to start somewhere. The most important thing is to keep moving forward and hope that at some point along the way I'll get some more clues or hints of where my next lead will be. If there's one thing I've learned in my past 11 years living at the orphanage it's that answer aren't something that's just handed out to you whenever you need it. Answers are something that you have to figure out by yourself. If all of your answers to life were easy then it probably means they weren't the right answers to begin with. No matter how long I seemed to stare at the map nothing really screamed start here. I looked away from the map with a sigh of half irritation and a half of something else I wasn't quiet able to identify with its weird tingly sensation in my stomach.

" I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but damn at least give me somewhere to start with universe. "

I glanced back down at the map.

" now where do people go that always as some kinda answer? "


I looked over the map once more and when I read the word library I almost felt disappointed in myself. Come in Emily library practically screams the words I have answers every time you walk into one I internally scolded myself. I found the apt where I am on the map and then traced my fingers along the smooth page all the way up to the little library picture. I was trying to give myself a slight sense of direction just enough were I would need the map. After tracing the path a few more time until I felt confident I folded the map and tucked it inside my shirt. I started my short walk towards the library hoping it would still be open by the time I got there.

Andrew's p.o.v:

For some reason I could get that strange Emily girl out of my head. It wasn't like I was attached to a stranger I just met, but rather some of what she had spoke to me was worth letting my thoughts travel back too. I climbed my way up the porch steps making sure to leave all thoughts pertaining to Emily behind me when I walked in the front do.

" grams I am home "

I hollered as I hung my jacket up on the hook by the door. I could hear the banging of pans long before grams even answered me.

" I in the kitchen baking child "

Grams responded in that sweet low smooth yet gravely tone if hers. I kicked my shoes off and lined them against the left wall of the hallway before stalking off towards the kitchen. As soon as I walked into to small all white kitchen I was hit by the delicious smell of grams famous pecan cherry pie. People in this town would pay big money for grams recipes if she'd let them. Grams is the Betty Crocker of our small town. The people in this town always come to her on holidays, and birthdays when every they need something baked grams is always their got to answer.
I snatched a fork off the counter ready to dig in and was hella disappoint when she snatched the fork from me.

" now you don't just come in here and dig into my hard work when it doesn't even have your name on it child. "


Grams waved the fork at me like a scolding stick, but I was more focus on the need to want to pout like a 3 year old that was denied dessert even though they are their veggies. I was trying to act my age, but the pouting won over in the end.


" You can't call me in here with my favorite dessert on the table practically screaming my name and not expect me not to want to eat it. "


I shot back like a child. Grams shook her head at me and said nothing as she placed the fork back in the drawer.