I Showed My Rich Friend The One Thing Money Can’t Buy

hi friends my name is riley and this is gianna we went to the same high school we were good friends and saw each other all the time we would go over to each other's house after school our families were both well off we'd go shopping on the weekends and buy gifts for each other and we went on vacations together gianna's family is still very rich but unfortunately my dad went bankrupt he had to sell off everything we owned to pay off his debt we had a beautiful house we had to sell it and move to a small apartment instead gianna came to visit a week later as i was showing her the apartment she was looking around quietly finally she said you said the apartment was small but this is tiny i think my room is bigger than this whole place she said i noticed the condescending look on her face but i thought no way i must be imagining it then she said did you rent this place furnished everything looks so old and nothing matches that's when i knew i wasn't wrong she was looking down on me i never expected this from her true we weren't rich anymore but i was still the same person what difference did it make for her whether i was rich or poor in my room i offered her to sit on the bed let me get us something to drink i said gianna stared at the bed she brushed off the spot where she was going to sit as if it were dirty she seemed disgusted are you sure you'll be able to live in a place like this i'd be so mad at my dad if i were you she said why would i be mad at my dad he's made sure i've had a great life until now it would be unfair to blame him for things that weren't his fault this could happen to anyone even you i said gianna said i don't understand why you protect your father don't get me wrong but my dad is not a loser like yours i don't think he'd ever put me in such a situation this was too much i said gianna you better watch what you say you can't talk about my father like that he's a really good person gianna left soon after this the next day i was surprised when she came up to me at school she said riley i'm sorry you're my best friend i said those things yesterday only because i care about you i forgave her because i thought she understood her mistake but i would soon discover that i was wrong and once again gianna would disappoint me that evening my mom and i were making dinner in the kitchen my dad came home he kissed my mom and me those days he was working two jobs he would leave his day job and come home he would eat dinner with us then he would go to his second job both of his jobs were far from home but really close to each other i said dad are you coming all the way home just to eat dinner why don't you grab something by your work he said i'm not coming all the way home just to eat dinner i'm coming all the way home to eat with you with my family mom said darling you get so tired we can get by even if you work just one job and dad said looking at me i want riley to go to a good college so i'm working one job for the whole family and the other one just for my daughter when we heard him say that both my mother and i were so moved the following day there was a math exam gianna came up to me her eyes were so puffy because she'd pulled an all-nighter i felt sorry when i saw her like that your grades are already so good why are you pushing yourself so hard i asked gianna smiled i decided to become the valedictorian she said girl i can't believe how driven you are if that happens you'll have to write a speech and all that do you want to do all that gianna was excited that's exactly why i want to be the valedictorian imagine i'm making an inspiring speech and thanking my dad and he is unable to hold back his tears and starts crying wouldn't that be amazing she said i could see why gianna would want to do that her parents got divorced when she was a baby unfortunately her mom left gianna and disappeared no one knows where she is now she hated her mom for leaving her her dad was her everything she wanted to make her father proud by graduating as valedictorian and dedicating her speech to him since i knew she was capable of doing anything she wanted to i was sure she would do it after the exam gianna said this week was really intense let's have a slumber party at my place i'll invite some friends from my old school too that would be so cool we can have some fun i replied when i went to gianas on saturday i saw that she'd invited two other friends i'd never met them before like we did at every slumber party we were chatting over milk and cookies before we went to bed giana looked at me and said riley i know this might upset you but i want to ask jasmine and melissa about this for your sake i wasn't sure what gianna was talking about she turned to the other girls imagine you wake up tomorrow morning and your dad says we've lost all our money we're moving to a tiny apartment with used furniture would you tell your dad dear daddy that's awesome news let's move or would you confront your dad about it i was baffled why had gianna brought this up and why would i talk about my private life with people whom i just met before the girls could say anything i said gianna you're out of line why does this bother you so much she said because you need to accept that i'm right it makes me sad to see you living poor your dad's responsible for it but you can't see it and you're still protecting him i jumped up gianna can you call me a cab i want to go home i said condescendingly gianna said sure i'll call you a cab but do you have the money to pay for it so i got up and left our friendship with gianna ended that night even though i was so sad there was nothing i could do she was the one who pushed it this far after that we stopped talking there was a ton of stuff to do for school anyway we were both studying a lot as i'd expected gianna graduated as valedictorian we weren't friends anymore but i was still happy for her and i was curious about her graduation speech as well finally graduation day had arrived the ceremony was held in the soccer field at school we the students were on one side in our caps and gowns the families were sitting separately there was a stage in the podium first our principal spoke and then some teachers then it was time for the valedictorian address gianna's name was announced she was very distracted as she was receiving her prize she was looking around all the time and she did not look happy at all gianna went up to the podium to give her a dress she was reading the speech she prepared just as i had guessed she started out by mentioning her dad in the first sentence she said she loved him so much and that she owed all of her success to him but for some reason she wasn't passionate at all it seemed like she just wanted to finish the speech and get off the podium suddenly she stopped talking and tears came pouring out of her eyes when she started talking again she wasn't reading from her cards anymore i wrote the speech months ago but i don't want to go on because my father to whom i dedicated this address is not here right now do you know why he has an important meeting at work i told him that today was really important and that he should come no matter what and he said i'll come to your college graduation high school is not that important when i insisted he said you don't know it but this is how money is made i have to attend this meeting don't make a big deal out of this i will get you an expensive graduation present but the only graduation present i want is my dad and he doesn't realize that in fact he never has my dad always thought the presents he got me were enough gianna stormed off the podium after she said this we were all shocked i couldn't just sit there so i went after her i found her sitting under a tree and crying i sat down next to her she looked up when she saw me she gave me a hug and began sobbing even harder riley i was so jealous of your relationship with your father that's why i wanted you to blame your father because i was so jealous of how much he loved you and cared for his family i'm a bad person i tried to destroy your relationship with your dad hearing this from her shocked me but i still understood her gianna was someone who never got any love from either of her parents that's why it was normal that she was jealous of me maybe if i were in her shoes i would feel the same way i hugged her yes she had tried to hurt me but she didn't succeed because she couldn't grasp how strong the bond between my father and i is and no one can destroy this relationship you

Channel: That's My Story

Views: 557,953

Rating: 4.8685927 out of 5

Keywords: personal stories, story, experience, animation, short film, stories, animated stories, real life, family, rich, wealth, money

Id: pZWztiOKy_w

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020