It was 4 days before Andrew's birthday, he was finally turning  17! Most of his friends, however, were already  18. They often excluded him from their parties which consisted of drugs, alcohol, sex and loud music. He had always wanted to be like his friends, they were popular, funny, strong, handsome and the most appealing; they were Happy. To Andrew, it had seemed as if his friends had everything figured out. They lived in big houses and everyone liked them, they were cool. On the other hand, Andrew grew up in a modest house, it was small and a lot of hard work to preserve.  Andrew was sick of hard work, he wanted to relax and live life care-free, just like the kids at school. He saw no harm in it. So he reached out to them by trying to prove that he was cool. Subconsciously, he began by forgetting about his family when he started to focus on fitting in. Everything he did to get noticed never worked. Once he even risked stealing shoes from a Nike store. He became obsessed with obtaining this object of his imagination. Some days he would get some attention, but it would never be enough for him, he was always wanting more. He grew distasteful  with himself and he was never happy because he was consumed by his obsession to be like everyone else. Everyone seemed happy except for him. He failed to see peoples hearts before their skin.

The day had finally come when he was 17! He knew this meant his friends would stop seeing him as "just a kid" he was so tired of being a nobody. He had big plans with his friends tonight. But it seemed fate had different plans for Andrew... The night started off with his friends stopping by his house to come pick him up, they congratulated Andrew on being a "Man" and got the booze from the back of their car. However, Andrews Mom was disgusted with these so called friends and demanded that they leave before she called the cops. She then sent Andrew to his room. Infuriated, Andrew yelled at his mom: You don't know anything about me! All you ever want to do is take away my freedom, how could you do this to me on my birthday? You don't trust me and never let me do anything, I Hate You!" Andrew's mom dropped to her knees, she could not bare to see her boy so lost In pain and confusion. Andrew wasn't going to let anything stop him from being, what he believed, "happy."  He climbed out his window and rushed to his friends car as they were leaving and he left with them. His friends applauded him for making his decision, and Andrew could already feel a sense of achievement for pleasing his friends. They celebrated by drinking the whole bottle of booze together. Everything was going great, Andrew didn't have a care in the world and he was cool. For these few moments Andrew convinced himself he was happy.
A few moments later, the driver blacked out from Intoxication and the car swerved off into the median and straight into oncoming traffic, they missed one car filled with a new family inside of it, only to hit 2 more cars, a big truck and a smaller vehicle like theirs. The masses of metal slammed together like a high-speed train violently crashing into another. Andrew opened his eyes and saw the disaster of his decisions. Five lives were taken, 2 of them from his own car, 1 older man from the small car and a couple from the truck. He couldn't feel anything and he was abandoned. He heard one of his friends grunting his name, he crawled around the wreckage to find the driver of their car. He was fatally injured with metal and glass impaled through his body he had no chance of making it.  Andrew crawled to his side and heard him talk about the mistakes he made in his life. They made the same mistakes and looked for treasure where none could be found. He realized that even though some people appear happy, they too are going through trials not too different from our own. Happiness was not found in one thing alone but it was constantly sought out for, the happy ones were the ones who decided to be. He passed away and Andrew blacked out. He woke up to see his mother over his bed.