You ever feel like nobody loves you?

Yeah, that's how I feel about now.

Wanna know a secret? You see, for the past few years or so, I've been feeling a sense of emptiness inside. I think I'm depressed.

Don't laugh. I know this is a shock to you, because you think I'm one of the happiest little doggies in the whole world. Well, sure I am, at least on the outside. At least in front of Garfield and Jon. They can never know. If they find out, I'll literally never hear the end of it.

It's already bad enough as it is, what with Garfield ignoring me most of the time except to beat me up and laugh at me. Jon is usually nice enough to me, but he doesn't really know what Garfield does to me when he's not looking.

Lyman's been on my mind a lot too recently. The problem is that lately, every time I think of him, I get all teary. He was my best owner ever and I miss him. I've only seen him once since he abandoned me to do his safari thing, and even then I couldn't go through with the idea of leaving Garfield and Jon. I absolutely hated watching Garfield run and cry into Jon's leg when Lyman told them I was staying back with him. Needless to say, I quickly regretted my decision and told Lyman I wanted to go home.

But that was back when they were nicer to me, and I could trust them more. Sure, Garfield still kicked me and stuff, but I felt like he actually loved me deep down. We were kinda like best buds and we agreed on a lot of things. Sometimes, we'd team up to play tricks on Jon. Heh.

But that was before.

Now Garfield never plays with me and never even really interacts with me much, except to make fun of me or kick me. And I've noticed the kicking's been, well, escalating.

Suppressing these feelings doesn't really help much. It used to, but now it doesn't. I'm still unhappy. Every time I try to distract myself with something fun, Garfield ruins it. For example:

A few days ago...

I was interrupted from my nap by the sound of the front door opening. It was Jon, and he had arrived home from the store with a box. "Look what I got you, Odie!" he said. So I ran over, and excitedly tore open the box. It was a little superhero outfit. It came with a red cape, a blue jumpsuit with a shield with the letter "O" on it, a red speedo, and some red booties. It. Was. Wicked. Cool.

"They had a version for every initial, but this was the last one they had in your size with an "O" on it. Do you like it, Odie?"

I barked my approval and thanked Jon with a big doggy kiss. I couldn't wait to try it on.

After I got dressed in my costume, I hooked up a little fan, you see, to keep my cape in the air. I was ready to begin my pretend career as Super Odie.

Humming a little fanfare to myself, I made up a little opening narration in my head as I marched around proudly:

Faster than a speeding basset hound! More powerful than an asthmatic chihuahua! Able to leap dingleballs in a single bound!

I hopped up on the table, pretending it was a tall building that I was posing on top of.

Up on the table! It's a bird dog! It's a plane! It's SUPER ODIE!

With my cape waving around, and giving a thumbs up, the fanfare I was humming crescendoed. But not in a good way. I think I heard the dining room window crack slightly. Perhaps I should enroll in singing lessons next year when I start taking classes at the community center. I wanted to do clogging, but Jon can only afford to let me take one class, and I don't want to crack any more windows.

Now, what should be Super Odie's first adventOOF!

Without any warning, I felt something make contact with the seat of my speedo and I went flying. Except this wasn't exactly the way I intended to fly.

Splat.

I slid down from the wall onto the floor, my head spinning and my body aching. Through my blurred vision, I was able to focus enough to make out Garfield standing over me and snickering.

"Up, up, and away!" he mocked before walking away with a cackle. I groaned sadly. Thus endeth the only installment of The Adventures of Super Odie.

See what I mean? Every time I try to have a little fun. Every time. I didn't even get a chance to find a sidekick, or rescue people trapped in a burning building, or stop the evil Dr. Pooky from pushing the big red button and nuking the town, or... *sniff* or...

Oh, God, herecomesGarfield, ACTHAPPY. Come on, suck it up, smile and drool, smile and drool.

"Oh, hey, Odie, what's up?" Garfield says, walking toward me. But something isn't right to him. "Uh, Odie?" I'm smiling and panting as best I can. I must still have tears in my eyes. No wonder Garfield's worried about me. "Is everything okay?"

I growl at him as if to say, "I don't want to talk about it right now. Go away, Garfield."

"Odie, you're not yourself." Well, DUH. Of course I'm not myself. I've never been myself. I wish you knew how it felt. THAT'S IT! I have to give Garfield a taste of his own medicine. I have to show him! Maybe then he'll finally understand!

I run up behind him and pull my leg back... WAIT. This doesn't feel right! Not only that, it's totally out of character for me! I love Garfield. I could never hurt him by kicking off the table. And I bet deep, deep, down, Garfield still loves me too. I give him a hug to apologize.

"What are you DOING?" Oops, he... looks angry now. "Will you please STOP IT?!" With that, he grabs me, and tosses me off the edge. He didn't even do it as a prank or anything. He just did it. Now I know he doesn't care about me.

I land with a small thud. A sharp pain twinges in my leg, and as I look down to examine it, I realize he's actually gone and twisted my ankle this time. Ouch! It's already starting to swell a bit. Why, that horrible little... er, little...

...wwwwwwWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Garfield runs up and starts petting me and is all like, "Odie! There, there, Odie, shh, shh, calm down, shh!" I'm not sure if he's truly concerned about me or if he's just trying to silence me before Jon hears, but because of the franticness in his voice, I have a hunch it's probably the latter. "It's going to be okay!"

Those are the words that push me over the edge. It's not going to be okay, you just twisted my ankle, you twit! In fact, I never want to see your face again because I CAN'T TAKE IT. Yelping and howling, I run, despite the pain in my ankle, and hide under the tablecloth. I feel like everything is falling apart. I almost feel ill.

"What's going on in here!?" I hear Jon shout, as his footsteps get louder and louder. I peek out to watch Garfield run and hide in the broom closet. Although I'm still very much traumatized, a small part of my mind hopes that this incident will expose Garfield for the evil monster he is.

Jon walks in and sees the tablecloth shivering. He pulls me out and holds me up. "Odie? What's wrong, buddy?"

I manage to quickly pantomime what happened before I fall to pieces again. Jon picks me up and cradles me a little bit, before I bury my face into his shoulder and just weep for the longest time. Not really because of my ankle, which is really only a minor part of it. It's because I can't take the abuse anymore, I can't take Garfield anymore, and I can't take my life anymore.

Eventually Jon sets me down on a chair and puts my ankle on ice, and yells, "GARFIIIIIEEEEELD! You come here right now, mister!" The fury in his voice makes me shudder. That's how mad he is, and he's right to be mad.

Nothing happens.

"I SAID GET IN HERE, OR YOU'RE NOT GETTING DINNER TONIGHT!"

That makes Garfield listen. He enters slowly on all fours, and sits down trying to look innocent, although you can kinda tell he's guilty.

"Garfield, Odie's twisted his ankle really badly," yells Jon sternly.

Pretending that he had no knowledge of this beforehand, Garfield does one of those big, exaggerated, melodramatic gasps that's so stupid sounding, it makes me roll my eyes a little. I'm quite impressed by his lung capacity, though. That gasp of his lasted for almost eight seconds. He then goes up to me, and, feigning cornern, says, "Oh, my gosh! That's terrible! Who could have done such a thing to poor widdle Odie?" He pinches my cheek like he's my grandma. I just glare at him slightly.

Jon continues. "The reason I called you in here, Garfield, is because Odie says that you had something to do with it. If you're the one who twisted Odie's ankle like this, there'll be no lasagna for a month!"

I look over and see that Garfield's starting to break into a cold sweat at this point. That cat really loves lasagna. Sometimes he'll go as far as to jump in and smear it all over himself, just so other people won't be able to eat it.

"Well, Garfield?" Jon growls intimidatingly. "Did you hurt Odie?" Garfield's lip quivers. Actually, his whole body quivers. "ANSWER ME, GARFIELD!" Jon almost roars.

Garfield stops quivering, and shakes his head "no" quickly but sincerely. "No, uh, sir, I-I didn't."

I let out a small chuckle. Ha! That's such an obvious lie, there's no way Jon'll buy it!

Jon turns to me and frowns. He's silent for a very, very long time. His cold eyes pierce my soul. Finally, he speaks. "Odie... tsk-tsk-tsk. Why?"

He bought it. He actually bought it.

I swallow hard.

"Garfield, uh, you can go back to whatever you were doing." Behind him, I see Garfield click his heels and pump his fist. And although Jon doesn't hear it because he's not an animal like me, Garfield yells out "YYYYYES!" before he skips out of the room.

Jon is so upset with me that he's not even angry. He actually looks kind of sad. He snatches the ice pack off my ankle, which makes it start stinging again.

"I'm surprised at you, Odie," Jon says quietly. "I don't understand why you would fake getting hurt to try and get Garfield in trouble."

Uh, Jon, I am hurt. Can't you see I'm starting to swell up again because you took away my ice pack?

"Lying is bad, Odie. Garfield almost got in trouble for something he didn't do. I'm afraid you're gonna have to go outside for a few hours until you're ready to tell him you're sorry."

Go outside? GO OUTSIDE?! Why me?! Why is this happening? This isn't fair! Ignoring the pain in my leg, I stand up in the recliner, and give Jon a good piece of my mind.

"Odie, stop pitching a fit like you're doing and come on. The mature thing to do is just accept your punishment."

So, I follow Jon to the back door. He opens it for me, but I'm not sure if I want to go out. Do I really deserve this?

Jon checks his watch. "Odie, come on, I haven't gotten all day. I have to get ready for my date."

I cross my arms and say, "Uh-uh!" rather firmly. Uh-oh. Jon's really ticked now. He literally throws me out the door into the yard, so hard I roll about twenty feet after I land. I watch helplessly as he slams the door.

I don't understand why I'm out here. I didn't do anything wrong. It was Garfield. He's the liar, not me. I don't get why Jon will believe Garfield more than he will me, even though Garfield lies a lot more than I do.

A butterfly flutters by and I stay very still in order to get it to land on me. But instead, the butterfly just flies right past me. It's strange. Usually butterflies are very attracted to me— this one time, several of them landed on me at once and it was pretty awesome. But I guess this time, the butterfly somehow sensed that I've been "bad" and ignored me.

Through the haze of tears, I see Garfield inside the dining room window eating his dinner of lasagna. I whimper and paw on the window to get his attention, but when he gets up from the table to look, he just makes a silly face at me, and tells me, "Get lost, doofus! Ha!" Then he lowers the blinds and draws the curtains.

Why is Garfield so mean towards me? I've never understood it. Is it because he thinks I'm dumb? I can't help if I'm dumb.

I haven't gone even one day in years without being bullied in one way or another by Garfield. I can't take it anymore. All these years, I've tried to be a friend to him, in the hopes that maybe he would be a friend to me back. *sniff sniff* But he never was! *sob!* He hasn't been friendly to me in ages! He's not my friend! I don't have any friends! *sob!* I'm all alone in the vast expanse of the universe, completely friendless! I just want to have friends who actually love me! Is that too much to ask?!

I curl up into a tiny ball and snivel. AROOOOOOOOOO!

I cry all the next day, and I'm not in the mood to eat anything. I'm unable to get over the fact that Garfield doesn't really love me. After he twisted my ankle like he did, I wonder why I even trust him in the first place. He doesn't deserve to be trusted. I've endured his abuse long enough. I can't handle it. My nerves can't handle it. I'm sick of pretending that I'm content with my life. I'm not content with my life. I can't do it anymore! I have to take action— I'm going to run away forever. But where exactly?

It's at this point I start thinking about Lyman. I miss Lyman so badly. I feel like he would understand me. Because whoever these guys are, they sure don't.

Hey... why am I moping around like this? It's not like Lyman's dead or anything. Maybe I can convince him to quit his job being the, uh, I'm pretty sure it had a "Z" in it... it's been so long... oh, well, it doesn't matter right now. I'm moving out and going to live with Lyman!

(A/N) So, guys, I'm really enjoying fleshing out Odie's character and personality. I love how this story's going so far, and I hope you do too. The next chapter will be here soon. And before you ask, no I didn't forget what the Zabadu was called. It's just that Odie isn't the brightest.

Why am I writing so many Garfield fics lately? This isn't like me...