Worthwhile

Ever since that fateful night, nothing has gone right. Friends are ditching me left and right. A+ grades are turning into Cs and Ds. My parents have no idea what I'm going through. I'm beginning to believe there is no help or hope for me.
Wednesday evening, my neighbors call, begging me to watch their little brat for a couple of hours. Seeing my parents snuggle together every night in front of the television was making me nauseous, so I say yes without another thought. I leave my parents a note saying where I am, grab my keys, and run out the door. I don't bother to grab my phone. It's not like anyone would text me.
It's 11:30, and the parents still haven't come back. I consider calling them, except I don't know their number. I reach for my cell, but of course I left it at home. Stuck until God knows when, I try to make the best of this situation and make a plan to veg out on the television until the young couple returned to their homestead. I guess I had the TV on too loud, because the little girl comes crawling downstairs rubbing her eyes with her grubby little blanket.
        "Hey Lizzie?"
"What?" Trying not to be irritable towards a four-year-old was not high up on my bucket list.
"Why are you so sad?"
I'm not sad, my eyes are just broken. I knew my sarcasm would be lost on the midget Muhammad, so I resorted to telling her the truth. The whole truth, from the day I lost my boyfriend to the current date. She sat there, listening with remarkable intensity. She nodded at all the appropriate areas, and for a moment I forgot she was only a toddler. Then reality smacked me in the face and reminded me that my ranting was probably all for naught, so I stopped speaking and stared at my feet. The little girl tapped me on the shoulder.
"So what happened next?"
I was shocked she was actually listening; forget comprehending what I was saying.
"Why do you care what happened?" I immediately felt bad for snapping at the one person who gave a shit about me, but it was too late to correct the past. Or so I thought.
"I want to make sure the sun came out."
I gave her my best confused look.
She proceeded to explain that after a long day, her parents always say that the sun would come out tomorrow. Confused, she told her parents that the sun came out every day, no matter what kind of day they had. Her father smiled and told her that the sun was a metaphor for something good. After every bad thing, a good thing happened. She was waiting for me to tell her the happy ending to my tale. I was speechless.
She interpreted my blank look for one of comprehension, so she asked me again what my happy ending was.
"I won't go to bed until you tell me the happy ending!"
"Sorry kiddo, but there is no happy ending. Guess you'll have to stay up all night."
She wouldn't have any of that. She stood up, and said the six words that changed my life forever.
"Then let's make a happy ending!"
Over the course of the next hour, we played twelve rounds of Hide and Seek, colored three Disney princesses, attacked the dog with a wooden spoon and watched a rerun of Dora the Explorer. I was surprised to see myself smiling after the childish agenda, but overjoyed to see that even the most trivial events were bringing a smile to my lips. Maybe there was a happily ever after for me.
Familiar headlights came down my neighbor's driveway, and I ushered my neighbor up the stairs into her room. She fell asleep the second her head hit her pillow, and I raced downstairs and dove onto the couch in time to see my neighbors enter the house. Thanking me for the short-notice job, and paying me double my normal rate, I went home feeling better than I have in a long long time.
It's the little things, like the innocence of a little girl, and the wisdom of a few simple words, that can make life truly worthwhile.