“Oakley get up, you’re going to be late for school!” I groggily opened my eyes as I listened to my mom’s footsteps quickly retreat downstairs. I looked at the clock and saw that I was blinking 7:00. I jumped out of bed and raced around to get ready for school. When I was ready, I hurried downstairs, and grabbed breakfast and I decided that I wanted the chauffeur to drive me today. As I climbed into the car, in my mind I went back 3 years to how I’d come to this point. “I felt like I was falling apart at the seams…” My mom had found receipts for things that you’d give a girl, except she wasn’t receiving any of it. She decided that they shouldn’t be together any more. So they got a divorce and split everything that they had until it came down to me. I was just another item to acquire, to be able to say that they got one more thing then the other. They both had business trips that took them to places far away and for periods of time. Which they used against each other in court to try and get custody of me. I’m Oakley Barrett. I’m about 5”and I have long sandy brown hair and olive green eyes that mom and dad used to joke about how they don’t know where I got those eyes. I have perfect nails, perfect hair, perfect grades, perfect scores on all of the extra college classes that I take, perfect reseme for my work, perfect cheerleading routine, perfect waves to surf on, perfect friends to talk to who’s darkest secrets don’t show like mine do. Perfect boyfriend, as you can see I like everything perfect because the rest of my life is…un-perfect. I have a new and now my only friend is Hailey. I even broke up with my boyfriend because he didn’t understand and wasn’t compassionate with what I was going through. I climbed into bed that night and woke up to my mom telling me that I needed to hurry up and get ready for court. I showered and got dressed and did the normal things to get ready. I hurried out and jumped into the car. My family is one if the richest in the world. I went to the courtroom wearing black because I seriously was attending a funeral. The funeral of my whole family and my perfect relationships with them and theirs with each other. I had slowly slipped into the wrong crowd with all of this going on partly because I needed to pretend like my home life wasn’t real and plus, the wrong crowd equaled out everything good. Also, there were a lot of good things that I saw in the people that I hung out with that other people didn’t see. I went to the courtroom wearing black because I seriously was attending a funeral. The funeral of my whole family and my perfect relationships with them and theirs with each other. All of these months before I’d hated them and wanted them extinct and absolutely wanted nothing more. But now that the day was here I felt weak because I didn’t know what to do. It’s easier to be strong about something, until it’s staring you in the face. I was in the court and was called as a witness and I told the whole story the way that I saw it. Then all of the horrible things that I wanted to say just melted away and I said everything that I’ve felt this past while. I feel like a tricycle that’s missing 2 wheels that it needs because this tricycle doesn’t have all of the parts that it needs to become a unicycle yet. I need my parents. Both of them. Then I said everything about them and how it had changed and how it had changed and how they were two of the most amazing people that I had ever met. I loved them so much. Then my voice hardened because I was angry and I had never really been angry before. Just irritated. And my parents both saw this and listened closely to what I said next. “They are nothing. NOTHING. Without each other. They are the tricycle that got the parts to become a unicycle and when they met each other, they slowly got the parts to become a bicycle and they tossed the part from the other cycles that they didn’t need along the way. So they need each other to function and they won’t feel complete, because they aren’t complete. Not without each other.” Everyone was silent for a long time and I looked from mom to dad and they both were crying harder than I’ve ever seen anyone cry. They had confused and helpless looks like they didn’t know what they were doing here. They looked at each other and they briefly smiled like that’s our girl. The judge softly asked, “Are you guys sure that you want to go through with this?” Dad’s lawyer stood up and said that dad had said that nothing was going to sway him from his path and that his papers were signed. Mom’s lawyer just said that her papers were signed and ready too, they just awaited the stamp of approval. So the judge sighed looked at me and I looked at him with desperate eyes and he closed his eyes like he was praying and he didn’t see the panicked and sad looked that mom and dad shared. I was muddled. I was so lost and I didn’t know what to do as the judge swung and smacked down and bellowed out in a sad and lost voice that said that it didn’t know if love existed in the world. “DIVORCED!” They sat looking at each other for a moment like that and then it faded to that detached look that I hated. How could you be so detached? It was then that I realized that this was their way of escaping reality and not facing the pain. I’m not sure if it was better for them then drugs or alcohol though. Facing it was the healthiest way. I was determined to try and do that. The judge had also said that I would go with mom and dad had visiting hours. If dad wanted to try to get me, he would have to open another case. We walked outside and I ran to the car, shoving the reporters out of the way but I’d pulled my hood up because mom had set out legging with a nice blouse and I had grabbed my old sweater on the way into court and slipped it on on the way out. Mom got in the car and screamed I thought foggily that’s weird. I don’t remember that. I slowly came to conscious and slowly saw mom over me talking quickly on the phone. I woke up some time later in the hospital. I woke up to a throbbing head. I grinned as I looked up at momma and as daddy walked in, I grinned at them. I grinned and I said “Hey guys, the tricycle parts are all back together in the same room.” They both grinned sadly and hugged me. Mom was about to say something when a guy nurse whose tag said that his name was  Daniel Bartrolli. He handed me my lunch, introduced himself and checked everything and made sure that I was comfortable and then told my parents that they only had 2 more visiting hours. So my parents talked to each other like in the past, and to me, and teased each other and me. We were all laughing. When my mom told me that I had rolled out of my bed and knocked my imported vase off of my bedside cabinet, and then followed it to the floor. Then when visiting hours were over, I went to sleep. I was woken up shortly after by that nurse or intern Daniel Bartrolli. He looked at me with a grim look and told me that my dad had been driving home from his girl-friend’s house and had gotten into a nasty car crash and he had now deceased. My eyes filled with tears at the thought. Then they emptied because I thought that that couldn’t be so because my parents had been putting back the tri-cycle today. Daddy couldn’t be dead. After I got out of the hospital, I went to my father’s funeral. I couldn’t believe still that he was gone. Hailey was on mommy’s other side and Daniel Bartrolli wrapped his arms around my shoulders and my mom grabbed my hands and we smiled at each other through our tears and I knew that everything was going to be okay. My mom was my only family and we were becoming closer, Hailey was still my best friend and understood and helped and Daniel was an amazing boyfriend.