“Sixteen days… that’s all that’s left.”

It was the first thing he said to me as I finally sat down in front of him, the smoke from his cigarette swirling around us. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by six days, but I had a pretty good guess; and it turns out I was right. SHE would be leaving in sixteen days, taking with her two very beautiful curly, red head babies, his babies. Though we are just kids, the boy leaning against the shed in front of me had two beautiful baby girls. They are his pride and joy, not that he ever got to see them. The devil, as I call her, says he’s nothing but a deadbeat dad that won’t make something of himself and will never be able to raise their kids, let alone deserves to see them at all. Between drags, he voices his concern that maybe she was right and he doesn’t deserve any better in life than working fast food and living with buddies. In my heart I know he’s going to make it big someday. I have great hopes for my dear friend and read him like a book most days. One look at his eyes and you can tell he depressed at the thought of never being able to see his girls again after these sixteen days. I try my hardest to comfort him and reassure him that life isn’t set it stone. I tell him the same thing I tell myself every morning; maybe today will be different. No matter how hard I try, he still isn’t comforted by the fact life will go on and someday she will have to bring them back to him. He flicks the butt of his cigarette away, sending a blur of red past me. He still isn’t convinced he will get to see them again. Together we get up, heading back inside for me to get ready for work. I mentally wasn’t ready for work; my mind was preoccupied with him and his never changing life. It wasn’t there, standing at the sink to wash my hands, that I got the idea in my head. This may seem far fetched, but I decided that in sixteen years, when his oldest girl turns eighteen, that I would personally go track them down, track him down and let them meet again for the first time that sixteen years. I am determined to let him see those girls again. Even longer after he had left and I started work, I was thinking about him. I wanted to find a way to change his future and make it a better thing. I didn’t know a better way than to make him famous with me. He doesn’t have much hope that I can make hi famous, but I’m so overly determined to change his life and bring home his babies that I will make it through life putting him as my goal in life. There is post-it notes stuck to my wall of goals for my life. So far I only have two goals, after ripping the rest up upon the saddening news that I simple will never make something of myself. Those goals were make him famous, and let him see his babies. I don’t know how and I don’t know when I’ll finally accomplish my list of goals, but I do know a promise is a promise and that’s something I’ll never forget.