Shaking my head gently and with the slightest of a smile I turned to him and said,
" You know...it really doesn't matter to me anymore."
He was so taken aback that I didn't even have to interrupt him as planned...but I pretended like I had anyways. -
"BeCAUSEEE I'm my very own person. I'm not only happy, but I'm also comfortable in my own skin. My very own skin."

I paced around the room, picking up random knick-knacks and handling them delicately.
He shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot.
"I've realized lately that everyone wants to bring down the person they can't become. The person who's got it all figured out without trying...the person who's pieces of the 'puzzle' seem to just fall right into place. And you know why? Because they're all such a deep green shade of envy that they don't care about anyone but themselves anymore. All they want is to steal the happiness right out from under you. They think that maybe, just maybe, they could pull your happiness from you and glue it back into the hole where their's used to be. But it doesn't work like that."

He wasn't even looking at me.
I raised my voice.
"Happiness cannot be traded, or exchanged, or even stolen. You've gotta earn that s***! But the ones who are too weak and lazy and self-righteous to try and get their own happiness think they can just JACK MINE."

He looked at me with the blankest look I've ever seen on a living, breathing human being.
At least he was paying attention now, the smug little b******.
Sardonicly, I continued...
"Maybe it's my fault...maybe I haven't spent enough of my life trying to make other people happy, so God is punishing me. God is punishing me by forcing the cold and emptyhearted youth of the nation to steal my joy. That's gotta be it. Tell me, please, tell me - when do I get to just live my life for ME? When do I get to just breathe without feeling guilty for sucking in someone else's oxygen? Why can't I feel anything but angry?"

My emotions started to fight their way out of my brain and into my tearduct. I blinked them back, swallowing several times to banish the lump in my throat back to its biley grave.
He sighed a heavy sigh and landed on the couch in one fluid collapse.
There was still nothing in his eyes.

"I'll tell you why, darling. Because everyone's stolen my happiness, so anger is all that I've got left. I can't even be despondent seeing as how I've got no heart to be sick about. They can't even use it, seeing as how it isn't theirs, so my Stolen Happiness is probably just laying in some landfill in North Dakota somewhere, waiting for some lucky dog to come by and gobble it up. Happiness tastes like bacon, didn't you know? That's why dogs are always smiling."