The Innocence Game Ch 01 The Roots

This is the first of a dark, yet uplifiting trilogy dealing with themes of abuse, friendship, love, and primarily innocence. This chapter is the prologue, explaining the events leading up to the present. This is not an erotic story, so please read it only if you are interested in a romantic and entertaining tale. And there you have it, Enjoy!

-----------------------------------------------

Emily and I were friends since we were five years old. I still remember how our parents used to take us to the playground and let us roam around. She had dark blonde hair and her two front teeth missing and she was always smiling, even when I kicked sand in her face. Sometimes my other friend, Jericho, would come along too. One day, he pointed to her and said

"Ew, you have cooties!"

Then me and Jericho teamed up against her and she chased us around trying to give us her cooties. But when it was just me and her, we would play around in the sand and have fun. Boy that was a hell of a long time ago.

Then we grew up to be ten and since she was two months older than me, she was having her eleventh birthday party at our local pizza place. She only invited a couple friends, me, her friend Christi, another girl named Hailey, and a guy named Brent. Brent tried to write "Happy Eleventh B-Day" on her cake but I started talking to him about our school field trip to the zoo and he accidentally wrote "Happy Elephant B-Day". Considering we couldn't but her another cake, we decided we had to keep it that way. She laughed hysterically and after we ate the cake, Christi said

"Hey, I've always wanted to ride an elephant! Wouldn't that be an awesome birthday present?"

Christi's mother told her not to be selfish and that we should do something she wanted to do. But little Emily got wide eyed and said

"I want to ride an elephant! The zoo we went to last week had an elephant riding exhibit!"

After a few minutes of persuasion, we ended up driving to the zoo and watched her ride an elephant. We all got a turn to ride the elephant too.

Fast forward another three years, to our junior high dance. It was the winter wonderland dance and there were cardboard cut outs of snowflakes everywhere. It wasn't like nowadays in college where everybody's grinding each other, drunk off their ass, dancing to explicit hip hop music. It was everyone improvising unusual dances and having a good time. Then the DJ played a slow song. I was looking for a partner when I saw Emily, in a white strapless dress, looking cute but not absolutely gorgeous. Even so, I decided that I would be a good friend and I asked her to dance. She walked over to the center of the dance floor with me and we danced. The song playing was Bryan Adams' "Heaven", and I remember just smiling, staring at her, and listening to the music.

But life is never all good, and in some cases, things take a terrible turn for the worst. When Emily was seventeen, she had a boyfriend named Derrick, who was, in my opinion, a complete jerk. I never knew what Emily saw in him, considering at this point she was so beautiful and so innocent, whereas he was this ugly and cruel guy. Then that one terrible night in November came. I never saw it happen but I remember my mom's face after she had a conversation with Emily's mom the next morning. She looked at me in borderline tears and said,

"Emily's been raped. She's been beaten to a pulp and she's in the hospital."

Those words paralyzed me; chills ran up and down my spine. As soon as she could see visitors I went to the hospital to see her. She had a bruise on the left side of her forehead and scratch marks up her left arm, from the monster that had attacked her. The worst part though, was that she was no longer smiling, she was crying in pain.

It went on that way for a full year. Her physical wounds had healed but her emotional wounds had not. Derrick was serving a lifetime prison sentence but in her mind he was still alive and that was all that mattered, so she rarely left the house. She gave up her dreams of going to college and her parents allowed her to live with them for a period of time but they implied that eventually she would have to leave home. And she never seemed to smile. A radiant flower in a terribly polluted field. After a year of knowing my childhood friend was in this state of agony, I made a decision. Something had to be done. So I went to the drawing board.

It took me a month to create my elaborate plan, making many phone calls and spending a great deal of money (much of it from my generous parents) on webcams and other unusual trinkets. Finally, I was ready. If all went well, my plan, or rather my game would be one of the greatest good deeds I had ever accomplished.

I went to my phone and dialed Emily's house. Her mom picked up the phone and exclaimed

"Oh hi Jason! How have you been lately?"

"I've been great" I responded "How about you and Emily?" I heard a predictable pause and then

"Well, not great. I'm sure you know, it's, well, not so great around here anymore."

"Well" I began "What if I could change that?"

-----------------------------------------------

Part Two is on the way and will be titled "The Trials".