Aimless...

Despite being freshly plowed, the sidewalk still hid underneath the light dusting of snow that continued to drift from the night sky. It was late, but Faith didn't want to go home.

It wasn't home anyway. Not really. Not anymore.

Her mother's New York apartment had always been too big. It had originally meant to be home to her, her half-siblings and her parents, but in the end, that never happened. Her mother had broken off the engagement to her father not long after she was born. Her parents had stayed friends for several years after, but then suddenly, inexplicably, her father cut ties with them.

She didn't realize her eyes were tearing until she felt the drops overflow and run down her cheeks. Hugging herself, she quickly wiped the tears away before the empty street took notice.

She didn't care about what happened between her parents. She didn't even care about why her father had left.

She just wanted her Papa back.

Her roller blades rhythmically clicked on the seams in the sidewalk. Looking around, she realized she had wandered to some place familiar. The chain-link fence was shorter than she remembered now that she was older, and the playground had been renovated with more slides and swings, but she still recognized the place. She didn't need to read the sign out front to see this was where she had once gone to school.

Skating to the gate, she tested its lock and found it was open. With a sad smile, she slipped in.

She rolled across the pavement towards the swing set, as the snow continued to fall in slow motion around her. She didn't remember much of her time in school; she had only spent two years there. Even then, her clearest memories were of her cousins and those were few. They had had their own friends to play with and she had been too shy to befriend her own.

She seated herself on a swing and sighed. Aaron used to push her on these swings when Ryan would run off with one of his friends. Now Aaron was god-knows-where doing god-knows-what, and Ryan was completely focused on the band and his girlfriend. Faith still had no idea why they had asked her to join them; she still had no idea why she had said 'yes'. Hockey was still her first love, after all.

Planting her blades into the sand and snow around the swing set, she pushed off and let herself swing back and forth like a forlorn pendulum.

Harry, an old family friend, had unintentionally unnerved her when she had run into him a few days ago. Music was his life, so he knew what he was talking about when he began explaining to her the hard work and long nights involved in being part of a band, a level of commitment she wasn't sure she was ready to make.

Not for the first time and likely not the last, she wondered what she was doing with her life. Everybody else had inspiration and motivation, and they were moving forward. Even her mother was finally moving on and dating again (even if she was dating a freaky-haired dork).

Swinging back and forth, she looked up at the sky. As she watched the pure white snow drift down, she realized for the first time she was all alone.

Everybody she knew was leaving her behind.