I had always lived on the floor above my best friend. I lived on the 29th floor of our building, and she lived on the 28th. All I had to do was ride the elevator down one floor. But now it’s different. Now I have to cross an ocean to see my best friend. Abigail and I had been friends for as long as either of us could remember. You would never see me without her, or her without me. We would stick together, as if glue kept us that way. We were inseparable. We were sisters. We were best friends. It all started on a crisp spring afternoon. The leaves were green; the flowers were blooming; and the sky was blue. I could feel myself smiling as I skipped to the swing set in the yard of my building. I knew that Abigail would be waiting for me there, like she always would back then, three years ago, when we were eight and in the second grade. I started to sprint over, imagining the fun we would have in my mind. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. My stomach twisted into a knot. I saw Abigail’s tear-streaked face, and I ran towards her. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. That moment I knew, just like you know that it’s going to snow long before the first snowflake lands on your nose, that everything was about to change. I gazed up at the leafy trees and the ice blue sky. It was as if the sky didn’t care that everything was changing. Slowly, I walked over to Abigail. I crouched down next to her, careful not to step on her trembling hands. “What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing her back, which was heaving from her sobs. I looked into her large, brown, almond-shaped eyes. “Please don’t be mad,” she pleaded. “Why would I be?” “Because,” she started to sob, “this is going to change everything.” “Wha—,” I started, suddenly concerned. “I’m moving,” she blurted out, hiding her face in her jet black hair. “To Korea.” At that moment, I felt like crying. My head started to pound, and a faint dizziness came over me. I buried my face into my hands, vigorously shaking my head. No, this can’t be happening, I thought. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I just sat there, frozen in place. I blinked rapidly to stop the warm tears from escaping my eyelids. Moving? To Korea? I asked myself over and over again. “You can’t move! No, please don’t leave,” I pleaded between heavy sobs. “I need to go. My dad got a new job. Everything’s all planned out. I don’t have a say in this. And, uh, we’re leaving in two days!” She explained, with a hopeless look in her eyes, while she pulled her shiny hair into a ponytail. “Two days?You can’t just leave me! It’s not fair! Wait a second, why didn’t you tell me?!” I could feel my face growing hot and red. “I tried to! You’ve got to understand! Please understand. I don’t have any control over this!” she said, her voice breaking. “Well, I don’t understand,” I told her, my voice growing louder by the second, “Friends don’t leave each other.” “Sometimes they have to. Sometimes things need to change,” she spoke, placing her hand on my shoulder. I pushed it off and turned away, my face flushed with anger. “No, they don’t need to change,” I argued. Things are fine as they are. Why do we need to change it? How could she do this to me? Friends don’t abandon each other, I thought. “Why can’t you be happy for me?” she asked, standing up and crossing her arms over her chest. “Why should I be happy for you?” I snapped back. “How could I be happy for you when you’ve betrayed me like this? You’re abandoning me.” “Betrayed you? You’ve got to be kidding!” she shot back. But I didn’t hear her. I was too busy storming away from her. I hate her. I’m going to hate her forever. How does she think I feel? I thought. That evening passed in a blur. I don’t remember anything from that night. Just being too angry and shaken to speak, eat, or sleep. Thoughts swam around in my brain as I laid under my covers. How does she think I feel? I asked myself again. All of a sudden, I could hear someone creeping into the room. I buried myself underneath my blankets and laid still, as if I were asleep. “I know you’re awake,” I heard a voice whisper next to my bed. “There’s no use faking it.” I knew that it was my mother. I could recognize her gentle footsteps, sneaking closer. “Abigail’s mom told me about their move,” she spoke, frowning sadly, “You’re going to miss her so much! But change happens.” “Why does everyone keep saying that?” I burst out. “Because it’s true, Evelyn. I know how hard this is, and it’s only going to get harder. Whether you like it or not, things change. People change.” I groaned, and rolled my eyes, “It’s all her fault. She ruined a perfectly good friendship.” “What happened?” My mom asked, slowly. “None of your business,” I replied, yawning. “Listen, sweetie,” my mother said, attempting to give me a kiss, “you need to go to sleep. But tomorrow, you are telling me all about what happened between you and Abigail.” “No, I’m not,” I argued. “Just come to me if you need me,” she told me sweetly, blowing me a kiss. “I love you.” “Love you too,” I muttered, half asleep. The next morning, I stared at my shoes as I walked to school. When I arrived at the classroom, I greeted my teacher, Myra, with a plastic smile and clenched teeth. Usually I would be genuinely happy to see her, but I was still upset from the previous day’s events. I glanced around at
Moving-New-Home
Carrying Heart’s Roses
Nicole opened her eyes with the reluctance of one uneager to face the day. She hadn’t slept well that night, nor on any other night for the past few days. Her mind screamed the reason for her lack of sleep, and she remembered all too clearly the importance of that day. Stumbling out of bed, Nicole staggered toward her desk, hoping against hope it would be any other month than June, any number than the seventeenth. But when her gaze focused on the large calendar angled artistically over her desk, her eyes riveted to a square circled in unforgiving red; it was Saturday, June seventeenth, and it was the day she had been dreading for a long time. * * * San Francisco was teeming with people walking up and down its sidewalks, some holding bags of vegetables bought cheap from Chinatown, some walking their dogs or children. Nicole sat near the window with her chin propped up in her hand, staring vacantly at the light beige house across the street. As the morning grew into afternoon, so did the hollowness in her stomach. She didn’t stray from the chair all day, until the front door opened and her father was home. “Nicole, have you been there all day?” he asked concernedly, glancing down at his only daughter. He knew today was a solemn day for her. But he also knew that today was necessary, for in order for Nicole to move on, she had to see her one last time. Carrying Heart’s Roses “Nicole, have you been there all day?” he asked concernedly “Dad, why do we have to move?” Nicole asked quietly. He sighed wearily and sat down on the couch beside her. “Nicole, we’ve been over this a thousand and one times. I’ve been offered a very good job out in Boston. It pays well, and I’ve checked out the schools and the environment there. They’ve gotten incredible reviews. All in all, the move will be good for us.” Empty resignation tinted his voice when he added, “We have nothing here.” “I know,” Nicole said wearily. The pair was silent for a moment. “Ready to see her?” Nicole’s father finally asked. Nicole nodded. But I’m not ready, she thought silently. I’ll never be able to say good-bye. Soon they were cruising down Clement Street. Passing various flower shops, her father suddenly asked, “Do you want to bring her flowers?” “Good idea,” Nicole agreed. They parked illegally by the curb and entered the small, dim flower shop. There was an old lady sitting behind a desk, jotting down what appeared to be numbers on a small pad of paper. She glanced up at them with no particular interest, then resumed her task. Nicole looked at all the clear plastic boxes stored inside refrigerators. A flower, she wondered, or a bouquet. Instinctively, she reached out and grabbed a beautiful arrangement of red roses, then selected a single white rose to slide in the center of the bouquet. She handed it to her father, who paid for them without a word, though she was sure he noted the extremely expensive price. Then they were on their way again. Nicole switched on the radio to her favorite station. A loud rap song filled the car, sounding brutal and sharp, and she quickly switched to a soft rock station. Somehow, that too, sounded too loud. Sometimes you don’t know what you want, Nicole remembered her saying. “It’s been a long time since you’ve seen her,” her father remarked in a half-hearted attempt at conversation. Nicole nodded briefly, and silence once again filled the car. The rest of the drive was tense and endless. After what seemed like an eternity, they drove through the stylish black iron gate, finally stopping in the gravelly road. Nicole hesitantly opened her door, then closed it. The sound reverberated through the empty fields, on and on. To the end of the world, Nicole thought absently. Her father stayed in the car. He knew she needed to talk to her alone. Carrying the roses, Nicole stumbled across the dewy grass, toward the spot she’d memorized by heart. Three down, eight across. Kneeling down to face her, Nicole lay the bouquet at the head of her mother’s bed of lush green grass. Her fingers caressed the cold, wet marble, running over the engraved letters that marked her mother’s final resting place. “Hey, Mom,” she said softly, a single tear sliding out of the corner of her eyes. She watched the salty drop splash onto her mother’s headstone, then drip down the side into the grass. “Dad and I are moving to Massachusetts, so I won’t see you for a while. We’ll . . . miss you,” she struggled to get out the words, her throat tightening on the last word. Suddenly, a cool breeze rushed down from the heavens, despite the warm summer afternoon. It seemed to swirl around Nicole, chilling her body but warming her soul. Her hair blew around her, yet the leaves of nearby trees didn’t waver. The sorrow and emotion she had locked inside herself finally bubbled out in the form of tears, but Nicole kissed the tombstone and smiled. “I love you too.” Kirsten Moon, 13Honolulu, Hawaii Erica D. Pratt, 13Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Permanence
The U-Haul pulls out of the driveway. Raindrops fall on the windows, pelting the glass in a steady rhythm. Dad is driving. He’s wearing his old red flannel shirt and worn blue jeans, which I haven’t seen since we came here, to Miami. My stepmother Lisa is in the passenger seat, humming along to the Beatles (an old music group) on the radio. Dad starts singing with her; he’s smiling, happy to be leaving Miami. I’m not singing or smiling. I don’t want to leave another place that felt like home. * * * Ever since my mother died, my father has been constantly moving, dragging me along with him like a sack of dirty laundry. I spent the first seven years of my life in Crisfield, Maryland, on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. My parents had bought the little beach house when I was born, and I loved every part of it. I remember the hours I spent playing in the dusty barn (which was somewhat larger than the actual house), or swimming in the bay. We had a private beach with a small dock, and a canoe that my father took me fishing in. It’s hard to remember my mother. Almost every memory of her is a blur. I do have a photograph of her, though. She was pretty, with long chestnut-brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. In the snapshot my mother is sprawled on the dock, red autumn leaves caught in her hair and falling in a thin carpet around her. It is either sunrise or sunset, because reflections of pink and orange sky are in the rippling water. My mother is laughing at something; her smile lights up the world around her. In the background there are ducks swimming around the dock. I often take it out and stare at the place that was once mine, and the woman who used to be my mother It’s a nice picture. I used to spend most of my time looking at it idly. Even now (usually when I’m supposed to be doing something else) I often take it out and stare at the place that was once mine, and the woman who used to be my mother. She died when I was six. I can just barely remember the time spent at the hospital. I remember nurses hurrying in and out of her room, my family coming and going in and out of the hospital. And the doctors. I remember I was scared of the doctors. My relatives were all crying, but I didn’t understand. Nobody had ever explained death to me, and so I didn’t know what it was to die. My mother lay still, very still. Her chest moved slowly up and down, her breathing was raspy and loud. I watched her chest more than her face as she breathed in and out. I kept watching because I was afraid that if I turned away the breathing would stop. The funeral went by in a blur. I remember standing and ‘hugging everybody. People kept crying into my shoulder, which was strange to me because Momma had always said that adults ought to comfort me, not the other way around. The people were saying things about my mother: “Poor child, your poor mother!” Or, “Look at her, the brave little girl isn’t shedding a tear over her momma!” And, “Oh yes, it was a disaster . . . drunk driver rammed right into Cathy . . . poor girl doesn’t understand about it.” Cathy was my mother’s name. I was the poor girl everyone was talking about, and I did not understand anything except that my mother was gone. * * * And so my father left Maryland and took me along with him. By then I was seven and knew about death and drunk drivers killing my mother. Dad sold the house; he sold the barn and the beach, even the canoe. “Why?” I asked, tears running down my cheeks over my beloved home. My father answered that we were moving because everything here reminded him of my mother. From place to place we moved, all along the eastern seaboard, but then inland and further west because the ocean reminded Dad of Momma, too. He married Lisa while we were in Vancouver, more because they were friends than because they loved each other. “It’s a way that we can be best friends and so that the social workers won’t think you have a broken family,” Dad explained. “So that they won’t try to put you in a foster home.” I didn’t mind because Lisa was nice, like a substitute mother, and Dad needed a friend. We never stayed anywhere for too long; each place was like a stop along the line, on a train that always kept on going. I grew used to moving, accustomed to never making friends. If I made friends I knew it wouldn’t be for long, because as soon as Dad decided to go somewhere else to live the friend would just be one more person missing in my life. But then we stopped in Miami. I was twelve. This time, my father told me, it would be different. “This time it’s for real,” he said. “Miami will be permanence. We’ll settle down and stay for a while, a few years at the very least. You can make some friends, Cassie, go to a good school. We’ll have a house, a real life, a permanent one. I promise.” Permanence. That’s all I ever wanted. I hated moving, hated going to the awful schools where I never allowed myself to make friends. Lisa saw how happy I was and came over to hug me. I was a bit confused about why Miami would be so different, but Lisa explained that my father thought he had run from my mother’s memory long enough. Miami was her hometown and Dad believed he could find peace on the Florida shores. We got a small
