Phases 2

Chapter 2



It was never a good sign when dad called a family meeting, not that there where all that many of us to gather together, or that infrequent that we where in the same room; we had dinner together every night, at the same table, at the same time; but family meeting requests where different, it meant that something big was happening, something potentially life changing. I went through all the options I could think of, any reason that dad would call for a meeting, one that was on a Saturday afternoon when he would normally be at work. My first thought was that he had lost his job, that seemed to be happening more and more frequently around St. Louis as different companies where leaving their St. Louis locations in favor of better markets. Then I thought, maybe mom’s having a baby, that would be something that would warrant dad coming home early from work, especially if mom had only just told him, but then why did dad call the meeting, why wasn’t mom in the kitchen when I got home? I couldn’t imagine dad being so grim about a baby though, so that threw that option right out the window. I racked my brain for more reasons, but came up short, instead I got out of the shower and headed downstairs, the best way to find out what was going on was to start the meeting.

Mom and dad where already in the living room when I came down the stairs, mom was sitting in the overstuffed high backed chair we had gotten from her parents house a few years ago when my grandfather died, and dad stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder; I suddenly got very nerves, this was the kind of pose that parents in movies took when they where about to tell their kid that they where getting a divorce or that they where adopted, or something equally horrible for a teenager to hear, it was very afternoon special, and something that if it wasn’t so suddenly terrifying would be very funny.

Mom smiled weakly at me, and gestured toward the chair across from her, it was a sit down talk, which made goose flesh rise on my arm all over again. I could feel sweat starting to drip down my back, despite the chill of the house, and my heart started to race. I didn’t know what they were going to say, but I already wanted to start crying. I could feel my eyes getting hot and my nose hurting from trying to hold back tears.

“Morgan, sweetie,” Dad started to talk and I was already shacking my head. “We have something we need to talk to you about.” He stepped forward, taking his hand off of moms arm and bent down so that he was looking me in the eye. Oh, god, one of them was dying, or having an affair, my eyes got very wide and I could feel the first prickles of tears in the corners of them. “I have been offered a job in Vermont.” It was worse, dad was going to move away, tears started to fall down my cheeks. “And you’re Mom and I have discussed it,” Dad took my face in his hands, whipping the tears away, he looked so sad. Why couldn’t he just tell me, why did he have to talk so slowly? “We’re going to be moving at the end of the month.” The bottom dropped out from under me, I suddenly couldn’t breath. Tears where coming so fast down my face I couldn’t even see.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” I chocked out, “School starts in six weeks, I can’t move.” I sobbed, and my mom was there, rubbing my back. “I have student council and volleyball and my friends. I can’t move.” I looked up at my mom, my eyes pleading, “Can’t I just stay here? Kids on TV do it all the time.” I knew it was a crazy question, but I had to find a way to stay, I couldn’t leave now, I was too close to the end, I didn’t want to do my last year of high school in some strange school with strange kids that I would have to get to know, and teachers that I would have to get used to.

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. This job is just too good to pass up, and your dad and I talked about it, I know it’s your senior year, but this is the way it is, and you’re not a TV kid, you’re our kid.” She gave my back a final pat, and both my parents left the room; waiting for me to collect myself and join them in the kitchen for dinner. Mom was pretty good at most mom things, but crying wasn’t one of them, no one in my family was particularly good with crying, it tended to freak us out; and under normal circumstances that was fine, but I was caught between wanting my mom to comfort me and hating my parents more then I can ever remember hating them.

Numbly I looked at my watch, seven twenty five, I had five minutes to gather myself, deal with the fact that I was going to be moving away from everything I knew two weeks before senior year, and starting at a new school halfway across the country. I sighed, wiped the tears from my face with the back to my hand, and went to go look at myself in the mirror. My face was red and splotchy, the white much too white for the time I spent outside that summer, and it probably would be for the remainder of my time in the city, my blonde hair stood out starkly against my blotchy skin, falling limply around my shoulders like it too had given up all hope; the whites of my eyes had turned a sickly red, making the blue look almost purple in comparison.

I turned on the water in the bathroom, and splashed cold water on my face. I don’t know why I did it, it never really made me feel any better, but it was what mom always told me to do after I had been crying; it was supposed to make the red and splotchy go away, but it never really did. I used one of mom’s fancy hand towels that she insisted on putting in every bathroom in the house, each one perfectly color coordinated to the room, I had been to lots of houses, and my friends bathrooms never had such perfectly color coordinated accents; sometimes it made me feel like I lived in a museum, but today it just felt like home, a home I was loosing.



I joined my parents at the table, but the smell of the food made me feel sick. I kept running through all the things that I would have to do in the next few weeks to get ready to move, I hadn’t even started to think about packing, but about telling my friends, my boyfriend, talking to the other members of student council, researching my new school, looking into their sports programs, finding out about this town we where moving to. It felt crazy, it was like my mind was working entirely on its own, and had left my body behind. I moved the food around my plate, mixing the peas into the mashed potatoes and squishing the meatloaf into mush, then adding it to the concoction of peas and potatoes. My mind was working so hard I didn’t even hear my father ask me if I wanted to fly to Vermont with him in the next week to find a house.

“Morgan?” Dad said my name loudly, like it was for the fourth or fifth time.

“Yeah, dad?” I felt like I was underwater answering him, how could I be sitting at the table talking to my parents when I had so much to think about, so much to do before we moved. My vice hurt and didn’t sound like me, I tried to look up at him, but my eyes wouldn’t leave the table top in front of him, plastered on his dinner plate.

“We can go check out the school while we’re there.” He looked concerned, had I done something wrong? He sounded so far away, like he was a TV personality that I was watching, but not really paying that much attention to.

“While we’re where?” What school, what was he talking about? The only school I needed to check out was the one I would be attending in the fall.

“In Vermont, honey; you and I are going up next week to check out houses, we just talked about this.” He crinkled his nose and furrowed his brow, it was something he did when he was worried, and it was a look he rarely turned toward me. When I was little, I used to think he looked like a chipmunk when he did this, but now he just looked old and concerned.

“I’m going to go to bed.” I put down my fork, which I had been using to stir the mashed potatoes into everything else on my plate; I made the mistake of looking down at it, it looked like vomit, and I wanted to throw up. “I’m not feeling too good.” I instantly regretted saying anything about how I was feeling, around my mom it was always a bad idea, and you would think I would have learned that by now, but for some reason, the words always slipped past my lips, despite the fact that I wanted to catch them as I felt them leaving my mouth.

“Are you sick,” Mom jumped into mom mode so fast I was surprised she didn’t knock something off the table, “Do you need to see the doctor?” She reached over to feel my forehead, but I shrugged her off. I had learned long ago not to say anything to mom about not feeling well, she tended to over react to illness or feeling under the weather, like we were all going to die of the black plague at any moment, and she had to stay vigilant, the second that she stopped watching us for signs of illness we would all crumble into dust.

“I’m not sick.” I got angry, angry felt good; it was better then the numb, under wateriness, I had been feeling since my parents told me about the move. “I just need to be alone, you just sprang the fact that we are moving on me, right before my senior year I might add, and you expect me to just bounce back like nothing happened, well I’m sorry, but I just don’t work that way. I’m not some little kid, who has nothing invested in her life, I’m settled and comfortable, I have a life here and a world that I have spent the last seventeen years setting up for myself. I can’t just be okay with moving, I’m not just going to smile and play nice and be a bubble pink little girl, I’m angry and hurt and I want you to just leave me alone.” I chucked my water glass at the wall of the kitchen and watched as it shattered with a satisfying blast of glass and water. I stalked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, slamming the door to my bedroom as hard as I could. I waited to hear my father come storming up the stairs to yell at me about my temper tantrum, but instead I could hear my mother bustling around to clean up the glass, and my father muttering something about teenage hormones, I wanted to scream; but I couldn’t get it to escape my throat. I held my breath to make the feeling stop, but it wouldn’t go away, like a mini explosion trapped in my chest that was making it hard to breathe or think or do anything. I threw myself on to the bed and cried as hard as I could, I felt helpless and out of control and I hated it, I hated that my parents could just rip me from my safe happy life and relocate me with out so much as asking. I hated feeling useless and out of control, I liked the order I had made for myself, the control that I had exerted over my life, and all of a sudden that was gone, and I was lost.

I cried so long and hard that my chest started to hurt, and it was hard to breath, I felt snot start to run down my face with my tears, and that only made me cry harder. I was alone, and I was going to be even more alone in this new town, and I didn’t know what to do about it. My head started to hurt, long jagged pains running through it, like ice picks. I had cried so hard that I was hiccupping, which hurt my chest, making it hard for me to pull myself together again, I tried to take deep breaths, but they came in shallow pants anyway, the snot from my nose was running down my throat making me feel sick, and that in combination with the fact that I had skipped dinner was making my whole body hurt.

I gathered myself up, and went into the bathroom; my face was swollen and red in the mirror, not like my face at all. I turned away, and blew my nose, trying to get rid of the pressure in my head. I would deal with this all tomorrow, now I would just get in a nice hot bath, read something trashy and stupid, one of the books my mom always made fun of me for reading, and just not be here.





Chapter 3



The next week was a blur, I told me friends about my move, and they all supported me, they would write every week, we would stay connected through e-mail and phone calls and instant messenger, though it wouldn’t be the same. They would have each other, they would be here and I would be there, alone. We spent every night watching movies and hanging out, trying to cram all of our senior year plans into one month, minus the four days I would be spending in Vermont with my dad, looking for a house and checking out the school.

My parents felt that having me help find the house made up for the fact that they where moving me right before my senior year. They where wrong, there wasn’t anything that could make up for them moving me, taking me away from my friends that I had spent a lifetime making, and a comfort zone that I likely wouldn’t be able to get back in my last year at school, but I was hoping that I could con them into getting a house with a nice big bathroom for me, so that I would at least have a good place to hide while I dealt with the hell that was my senior year.

Dad and I stepped off the plane at the Burlington Airport, which, according to MapQuest, was about a forty-five minute drive from the town that dad was moving us to. Dad was an architect of some kind, he designed things for companies that worked with large scale farms and agricultural industries, I could understand why he would be a big asset in Vermont, I just didn’t really think that we needed to move all the way out there for him to do his job. He had been working for companies all over the Midwest with out us having to leave the city, but neither mom or dad seemed to be able to explain it to me, so I had let it drop, figuring there was some other issue underlying the move other then just work. My parents thought that they where so clever with disguising problems, but in actuality, I usually knew about them long before mom or dad even admitted them to each other. They looked like they couldn’t be happier, that everything always turned out the way that it was supposed to, and I had always took comfort in the fact that my parents seemed like the picture of happiness, but if you looked at anything too long you could usually find the flaws in it, and there where definitely flaws in my parents marriage, though I wasn’t even sure if they saw them.



Dad rented a car at the airport, which really didn’t strike me as being an airport, the building only had ten gates, and only about five of them seemed to be active at any given time. I walked from the gate, we arrived at gate 6, to the baggage claim in under three minutes, and we where already set to get our car, which was about ten yards away from the baggage claim, of which there where two. I was less then impressed with the size of the airport, and wasn’t at all looking forward to going into, what the locals called the City of Burlington, which on the maps looked about the same size as the suburb that I lived in, outside of the City of St. Louis. I was so used to being able to go to anything if I just drove a few miles, but in looking at Vermont, most of the convinces that I had gotten used to would be miles out of reach, if not completely out of reach. We hadn’t even moved yet, and I was already mourning St. Louis Bread Company and Toasted Ravioli.

Vermont’s only saving grace for me was that it was unendingly beautiful. There where trees everywhere and the city looked like it had risen out of the forest naturally, none of the buildings looked like they where intruding, merely co-existing with the landscape around it, even the airport was surrounded by nature, I would have loved to live here later in life, maybe after high school, had it been my choice. Unfortunately, the cloud of my stripped away senior year, hazed everything that I saw and left me in a foul mood.

Dad tried so hard to make the trip as pleasant as possible, but I was determined to be unhappy, which was again added to by the fact that I had to endure his driving for the entirety of the trip, because in Vermont you couldn’t get a rental car unless you where twenty five, and you couldn’t drive one even under parents supervision before then either. Dad was a horrible driver, ever since I had gotten my license my parents had relinquished the driving duties to me, I think that they where tired of the horrified look I always had on my face when they where behind the wheel, which was usually because I saw something looming in the distance that they had yet to spot, and most of the time it was heading toward the car at an alarming speed, or with dad, it was the fact that he couldn’t choose between one lane or the other; this wasn’t as much of a problem in Vermont, there was only one lane to choose from most of the time, it was the scenery that worried me, since dad tended to get a little distracted by anything that happened to catch his eye on the side of the road.

Dad spouted off facts about local culture, and the Champlain Valley, where Burlington was located, that I only remotely listened to; his voice trickled into my consciousness like an out of tune radio, snippets coming though along with the hum of static, he talked about the lake, telling me that in the winter it froze so solid that you could drive on it, and I couldn’t help but think that I didn’t want to deal with temperatures that low, anymore then I wanted to deal with the heat in the summer in St. Louis.

I concentrated on the map in front of me, only saying anything when dad would tap my shoulder, and I’d read off the next direction automatically. I tried to enjoy the scenery, but after about ten minutes it all started to blur together, I couldn’t understand how dad could find the next direction, each mile looked like the next and the last, and I had yet to see a discernible road sign since we had left the main highway. Two lane tree lined road after two lane tree lined road. Each turn off would jump out at us, almost after we where ready to pass it, it was like Vermont was trying to hide its towns, purposely trying to keep outsiders out.

I couldn’t stand to think anymore, I had been thinking non-stop since my parents had told me about the move, so I turned to the trees outside, trying to find the next direction on the map before dad did, his voice had dropped entirely from my consciousness, and the trees whizzed by at such alarming speeds that they became just a green and brown blur. I couldn’t find the next direction for anything, though I was looking so intently that my eyes hurt; dad came up on it a little too fast and took the corner with a speed that I had never seen him attempt, the blur of trees loomed much to close for my liking and my stomach lurched up into my throat, I tried to swallow it back down, but it formed a lump that was hard to breath around and I had to have dad pull the car over so that I could be sick. I had never gotten car sick before in my life, the fact that I had long since gotten mesmerized by the blur of the trees whipping by probably hadn’t helped to keep my stomach in check. Dad patted my back and whispered soothing words to me, while I emptied the lunch I had had to force down my throat to begin with, into the grass next to the car. In the back of my mind I could hear myself think about what a waste it was that I couldn’t keep it down, it was the first real thing I had eaten since my parents told me about the move; I could feel my jeans loosening by the day, but I still couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. This morning, finally, I wanted something or at least managed to force it down, and now it was in the grass. I closed the door, and dad handed me a bottle of water from the back seat, to wash my mouth out with, then pulled the car back onto the road.



We arrived in what I could only assume was town about twenty minutes later. I was quietly impressed that dad hadn’t gotten lost, since he was the kind of dad that got lost taking the family out to dinner at a restaurant that we had been to a million times, let alone driving almost an hour through unknown country, and the directions where so bad that even I would have had a hard time with them, I had had to ask several map sites before I could find one that would actually tell me where I wanted to go, instead of ask me if I was sure I had typed the address correctly, or possibly I meant another state.

Dad pulled into a parking lot of what appeared at first to be a gas station, after I looked harder, I realized that it wasn’t only a gas station, but also a store, and after looking around a bit at the rest of the street, it looked like it was one of the only businesses in the area, across the street there was what looked like a cross between a auto shop and video store, and next to it was a clothing store that seemed to cater to every demographic, including selling bolts of fabric. I almost felt like I had stepped through time, all the buildings where made of wooden slats, not siding, but slats of wood, they looked hand made, the kind you would think to see on a TV show like Little House on the Prairie, but not in real life.

“This is where the realtor said she would meet us,” Dad checked his watch. “We’re a few minutes early. Do you need to use the bathroom?” That question seemed harder to comprehend then it should have been, I thought about it, trying to get his words into penetrate my brain, and shook my head, I didn’t need to go to the bathroom, or at least I was pretty sure I didn’t need to.

“Well, I do, do you mind watching the car, Honey?” I shook my head again and watched him get out of the car and make his way toward the store. As soon as he disappeared through the doorway, I felt the ever present loneliness that had taken up residence in the back of my mind, encroaching on the forefront, like a black cloud it started to choke me. As angry as I was with my father, I didn’t want to be away from him, I didn’t want to be alone in this new place. The town itself didn’t seem in the least bit threatening, especially since I had grown up in the city, but every horror movie I had ever watched suddenly made every storefront evil and every passer-by a potential homicidal, backwoods, ax wielding, crazed farmer ready to kill me. Tears leaked out of my eyes, running down my cheeks, making them feel chapped and raw; I had been crying so much lately that I was starting to look like I had a sunburn on my face from the salty tears constantly being rubbed into my skin.

Dad got back into the car quietly, and gathered me into his arms. “Baby, I’m so sorry this is so hard on you, but this is something that your mom and I need to do, it’s for the whole family.” His eyes begged me to understand, wanted so badly for me to tell him that it was okay, and that I would be fine. Dad had used the term ‘whole family’ a lot lately, which lead me to believe that there was more going on then just a new job.

“I know, daddy.” It hurt to say it, it hurt to tell him what he wanted to hear, but I did, and it made me feel a little bit better as soon as the words left my mouth, as if saying it made it a little bit true. He wiped away the tears from my cheeks, and smiled at me, a smile that didn’t quite make it to his eyes, and handed me a tissue to blow my nose like I was still a little girl and I felt like a little girl, I wanted my daddy to rub my back and tell me everything was going to be alright, I wanted to be told that this move was just like all those monsters under my bed, they weren’t real and couldn’t hurt me, but it was real, and it was breaking my heart.

“That’s my trooper.” He patted my hair, just as the realtor knocked on the car window. She was tall and blonde and just about everything you look for in a supermodel, but nothing you would look for in someone who was going to sell you a house, or know anything about selling someone a house. She looked vacant in the head, and that bothered me more then the fake smile that she gave both my dad and I. I instantly didn’t like her, or the way she stood too close to my father when she introduced herself.

“Hi, I’m Bree, and you must be Mr. Fischer.” She held out her hand for my father to shake, which he did, she held his hand for longer then I thought was appropriate, and then she turned to me. “And you must be Morgan.”

“I must be,” I snarled at her, my dad gave me a look that told me I needed to be more pleasant, so I plastered on one of my most charming, I hate you, but I have to be nice to you, smiles. She offered me her hand, which I dutifully took; her hand shake was weak and without feeling, and it made me like her even less; it was like shaking a limp fish. For someone who was supposed to sell people real-estate for a living, and make them fell warm and welcomed, she sucked at it, I hoped she had a back up plan, because this job wasn’t going to take her far.

Bree, no last name, which I felt was wholly unprofessional, launched into a schpeel about the houses that we where going to be looking at that day; I wasn’t interested in listening, only in looking at the houses, and the faster we got to them, the sooner Bree would go away. We had three houses that we where looking at, which it turned out was entirely for my benefit, mom and dad had looked at them online, and narrowed it down to those three, all of which where in the same county and school district, and the same town; they wanted the final decision to be a family one, though I knew, in the end if they didn’t like the one I liked, I would be out voted. All of them where nice, spacious, and they all had nice big bathrooms with big bathtubs for me, which for me was the biggest selling point, since I spent a good deal of time soaking in the tub reading. I could have taken or left any of them, really I wanted to stay at my house, the one I had lived in my whole life, but that wasn’t an option.

The last one we looked at was set far back from the road, so far back you couldn’t even see it if you where looking from the gravel road that it was set back from. We drove down a long driveway that was lined with tall trees, the kind that looked like they had been there since the beginning of time, and there it was, and I knew this was the one we were moving into, even without having to say anything. It was a three story brick house, kind of plain to look at, with a balcony on the top floor that was set into the roof. The iron of the railing disappeared into the slate tiles of the roof on either side of the small flat area. The house was big, but not so big that I would feel lost, as some of the others that we had looked at made me feel.

Bree opened the front door with her keys then let us pass her; she took a seat in the living room and let us be, which was another reason that she bothered me, she just seemed to make herself at home, in the movies, relaters showed you around the house, they would tell you about the selling points and the pervious owners, Bree did none of these things, she sat down in one of the chair in the house, and waited until we where done. I almost said something to dad about her, but then I decided to leave it alone, the more time she spent away from us the better.

Dad wandered into the kitchen and around the first floor, then went back to discuss price and other adult things with Bree, while I climbed the two winding staircases to the top floor. The hallways where long and had wood paneling going up half way, then they where white, almost too white against the dark stained wood. There where several rooms off the hallway on the second floor, but I wanted to look out off that balcony at the top of the house.

There was a door at the top of the stairs, but once in that door it was an open floor plan, like they had just decided to forgo walls in this part of the house. The bathroom was sectioned off with curtains that where sheer and white, and the bathtub was huge, looking out a big window into the forest behind the house. There where curtains drawn back from the window and didn’t seem to be able to be drawn together, but we were so far into the woods, that I couldn’t imagine needing them. The room circled the stair case, which was in the center, covering the entirety of the third floor, big enough for me to have my own space, which was all I really wanted, from the rest of the world. There was room for my books and space to leave open for working out, it was bigger then I really knew what to do with, but I knew that given the space, I could fill it with something.

Dad came up the stairs and shut the door quietly. “What do you think, Sweetie? Is this it?” I only nodded my head, as I opened the French doors to the balcony that I had seen on the drive up. I felt like a princess in a tower, for the first time since my parents told me about the move, it didn’t seem so bad, if I could look out at this view everyday. The balcony overlooked the driveway, which disappeared into the forest, making the house feel like it was alone in the world and from this view, even alone didn’t feel to scary.

Dad went back down stairs to call mom, and to finish things up with Bree, while I continued to explore the house. The property was extensive and all woods, while the house was pleasant and full of life, all hard wood floors, which mom would like since she loved rugs, she said that carpets are too permanent, and she likes to change the look of the house as the years change and her mood changes; the hallways had deep cheery wainscoting and white walls, which mom would paint, she hated white, it was too plane to boring, she said it showed no personality, and everything deserved personality. It was really beautiful, and a consolation for having to move away from everything I knew, not a total consolation, because there really was only so much time that I could spend in the house, but it felt nice.



The high school, on the other hand was not nice or homey; we visited it the next day, and it was the antithesis of the house, all concrete and hard surfaces. The woman who showed us around told us that it was newly built, and that it was the most state of the art school in the state, like that somehow made up for its clinical and harsh nature, it felt like a hospital and I had to hold my tongue to keep from telling her this. It was the first thing in the entire state that seemed to be at odds with everything around it. I thought back to my school in St. Louis, which was a large brick building that looked like it had been there forever, with its old smelling classrooms and its heater that rumbled and cough in the winter, and made that horrible burning smell for the first few days after it had been turned on, the air conditioning that only worked about fifty percent of the time and the old elevator that no one ever used because half the teachers where scared of it and the other half where so used to it not working that they had found ways around it. I couldn’t imagine anything like that at this school; it was too new, too clean, and too modern to have any kind of character. It was a building only for learning, and not for remembering, and I hated it before I even had my first class.

We saw the counselor and got all of my transfer papers ready for school, she was a perfectly nice woman, though she smiled a little too hard, which I was glad for, since I would be spending plenty of time in her office getting ready for college this year; but she was about as memorable as the rest of the school. I had always been perfectly happy to spend time at school, its where my friends where, where I socialized, where I played sports; I got the feeling that I would spend everyday at this school waiting for the last bell to ring so that I could get the hell out of the building and get home.

The counselor informed me that there was not a girls volleyball team at the school, which was called Madison County High School, a name that seemed to fit the blandness of the school building, but I could feel free to try out for cheerleading or cross country, as they was the only girls fall sports, and with track in the spring they where the only girls sport at all, since there where only a hundred and eighty students; there was also drama club if I was interested, the fall play was to be MacBeth. She smiled pretty, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes, no one in the town had a smile that reached past there lips, and I was beginning to wonder if it was just us or if there was another reason that everyone seemed to have to fake happiness, and while I had only known her for half and hour, I struggled to remember her name. She handed my schedule over to my dad, and I practically dragged him out of the office. They only had half of the classes that I had planned on taking for the year, since it was a much smaller school then I was used to, and I was again taking English Literature, which seemed like a waste of my time, though it did have an advanced placement option, which I jumped at. There was nothing I wanted more then to get to our hotel, or inn or whatever, and turn in for the night. I was ready to go home, and I really didn’t want to spend anymore time in this town, which seemed to be very inhospitable. People stared at us on the street, and I could almost feel them talking about us while we walked by.

That was another thing about the town, there was no real hotel, there was an inn, which had four bedrooms and you shared the bathroom with the room next door, which wasn’t so bad for me, since dad was next door, but the idea kind of freaked me out. We had only been in the country for two days, and already I couldn’t wait to get back to the pollution and bad smells of the city, yeah it was cool that I could see all the stars, but who wants to see pretty stars when there’s no one to share them with.

I thought ahead to when I got back home, I still needed to pack and talk to Mark, my boyfriend, about the fact that it was really going to be impossible for us to stay together when I lived halfway across the country; we had talked when I first found out, and he had been all for a long distance relationship, but thinking about it now, actually being in Vermont and feeling the distance, I knew it was impossible, as much as I would have liked to think otherwise. We had been together since freshman year, through everything, through him not making the football team, me leaving for volleyball camp every summer, and through his parents divorce last year; it seemed so epic that we couldn’t end it here, just a little distance, but the reality of it was that the little distance was really too great for us to survive. We where planning on going to different colleges, which we had already discussed, and we knew that at the end of senior year our relationship would probably end anyway, but now, with the end so close, I could feel this pain in my chest, like I was missing something. Mark had been a rock for me, while all my friends went through bad boyfriends, and hard break ups, there was always the shinning example of Mark and I. Last year we where voted cutes couple for the Homecoming dance, where we both made court, and when I wasn’t with my friends or at volleyball, I could usually be found either with him or talking to him. He felt like a part of me, and now, before it was really even over, I felt the emptiness of missing him.

There seemed like there where far too many things that I still needed to do before I left St. Louis. I couldn’t even imagine trying to pack up my room, which was filled with everything that I had collected since childhood; it was a large space and everything that had ever meant anything to me had been kept and stored in boxes and on shelves around the room, all of a sudden those things where going to be looked through and stuff was going to have to be discarded. I couldn’t take everything with me, and the one thing that I really wanted to take with me, my home, was most definitely going to be left behind.

Thoughts of what would be left behind chased me into my dreams, and visions of crying teddy bears, sad rooms and dog-eared books followed me into the car back to the Burlington airport. We left Burlington for Detroit, because there where no direct flights from Vermont to St. Louis, which bothered me even more then the forty five minute drive to the town that I would be moving to; it just separated my new home even more from my old one, as if the universe was say ‘See how far your going, it’s going to be that much harder to come back.’

I wanted to cry on the plane, but felt that I had cried so much in the past few days that it was enough, it was really time for me to step up and deal with the move, at least until we actually got to unpacking in the new house; I reserved every right to cry when I was putting up my stuff in a new place.