“Hey mom I’m home,” I said as I walked through the door.

She slowly turned to me. Her usually perfect makeup was smeared.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“I got fired today; I don’t really want to talk about it though,” she said, carefully wiping her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, mom,” I really didn’t now what else to say.

“So, how long until you get another job?” I asked nervously.

“Well, honey, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You know the Petersons, right? The people who lived down the street from us?”

“Yea,” I said. “The people who moved to Wyoming?” I asked.

“That’s them,” my mom replied, before I could speak my mom continued talking.

“Well, I just got off the phone with Sheila Peterson and she said there is a job available as a sales clerk at Kohl’s in Fort Collins, Wyoming.”

“Oh.” I said, scared of what my mom was going to say next.

“So…um…” I hesitated, “what does that mean…?”

My chest started hurting and my eyes started getting all watery.

“I’m so sorry Abigail, but I need a job soon and you know why.”

My mom needed to find a job soon because she was a single mother. My father died when I was only five years old. It was already hard enough for my mom to pay for all the bills and everything. So, I’m glad she found a job, but I don’t want to leave my friends—especially my best friend Madison. After all my thoughts, tears started streaming down my face. Because for one thing, I started missing my dad, and two, I don’t want to leave everyone here. My mom saw that I was crying and gave me a hug.

“We will leave next Saturday, so you sill have a whole week to say goodbye to people,” my mom said, probably thinking it would make me better, but of course, it didn’t. I pulled away from her hug and quickly ran up stairs to my room to call Madison. I told her all about what happened. We both agreed that we needed to hang out a lot until then.

Moving day came faster than I had hoped it would. A couple of minutes after I woke up that morning Madison came over so we could say out last goodbyes.

“Call me everyday,” she said.

“Of course!” I said, my mom called me out to the car so I could help her with the rest of the luggage.

I gave Madison one last hug, then it was time for me to leave. She was standing in my yard waving at me with tears rolling down her cheeks, which made me cry harder. I mouthed “love ya like a sis,” and she mouthed “love ya.” All she looked like now was a speck as we got farther away. So, I turned back around in my seat to face the front of the car. It was a pretty quiet ride there. My mom had what she called her “soothing music” playing and since I was already tired from all the crying and getting up early I was falling asleep as we drove to our new home.
“Abigail,” I heard an echoing voice say.
“Abigail,” I heard again.
Then I realized my mom was shaking my arm trying to wake me up.
“Good morning sleepy head,” my mom said. “You slept for quite a while. We’re here.”
I gave her a slight smile.

Everything was kind of blurry when I first opened my eyes. Then I noticed where we were. We were parked in a driveway. I got out of the car and in front of me was a house. It was mostly a white house with white siding and a little brick on the front of it. It was kind of smaller than our other house, but not by much.

I looked in the car and my mom was on the phone. She was probably talking to the Peterson's, telling them we got here okay. I tapped on the window, my mom turned her head toward me and I pointed to the house to tell my mom I was going inside. My mom nodded her head and mouthed to me that she would be in there in a minute, then continued talking.

I walked in the house and stood right next to the door looking around. Whenever I first walked in, there was the living room. It had wood floors, but a big rug, probably to put the furniture on. Slightly to the right was a stair case. I slowly walked up the stairs. They led to a small hallway. To my left was a bathroom. It was kind of small but nice looking. I walked a little further and to my right was the master bedroom. Then farther down the hallway to the left I found two other bedrooms.I picked the one closest to me for my room because it looked slightly bigger. I walked down the stairs and through the living room and kept going straight until I came to the kitchen. It had the same wood floor as the living room. In the kitchen was a door. I opened the door and it led to a basement. I turned the light on which was on the top of the stairs and walked down. The basement was pretty big and it was carpeted. We could put a lot in it. I could get used to this house.

The night before school started, I was really nervous. I barely got any sleep. A lot of thoughts raced through my mind. Things like, “will people like me?” “How long will it take me to make new friends?”

Before I knew it, my alarm clock was going off and it was time for me to start my day. It took quite a while to find the perfect outfit and decide what to do with my hair.

I decided to wear my skinny jeans with my Ugg boots and my white lacy shirt. I decided to pull my curly strawberry blond hair into a half pony tail. And brown eye shadow to complement my blue eyes.

My mom dropped me off a school and told me “good luck.”

I nervously walked up to the school. In the hallways, I kept getting weird looks from a lot of people. During lunch, I sat by myself. I was almost done eating when this brown-haired guy, who looked to be just a little taller than me, came and sat across from me.

“Are you new here?” he asked. Obviously. I thought

“Yea, I am,” I replied, kind of shyly.

“So what’s your name?” he hesitated.

“Abigail. What about you?” I asked.

“Henry,” he said kind of embarrassed. “I hate my name.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” I replied, smiling.

Over the past couple of weeks, I met a super cute guy named Tyler and made two new friends named Miranda and Sarah. Of course, Henry and I became good friends also. After getting to know Tyler better, we started going out. A few weeks after we had been going out I went over to his house to meet his family. His house was definitely bigger than mine. He had a younger sister name Kate, and his parents were nice. That night after I left his house, I realized I had left my phone in his room. I immediately felt stupid. How could I forget my phone? I thought well I guess he knows why I can’t call him now.

The next day, he met me at my locker before class and gave my phone back to me. Whenever I got home from school, I realized that I told my friends here about Tyler but I forgot to tell my best friend. How can I forget to tell my best friend? I guess I just got caught up in all of my homework, and trying to worry about unpacking everything. After school that day I quickly ran upstairs and called Madison. After I told her about Tyler, she told me that the same guy has been texting her and he told her that I told him my number.

“No….,” I replied really confused. Then it hit me. He looked through my phone and got Madison’s number out of it.

“What a stupid jerk,” she said and I agreed.

“Good thing there is nothing I do better than revenge,” I said in an angry voice.

Okay, so I didn’t do much to get him back, but the next day at school he came up to me and asked, “do you want to go to the dance with me?”

“Sure,” I said “but Madison can’t go I hope you aren’t sad about that.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked in a stupid voice.

“I called Madison last night and she told me you were flirting with her and that you asked her for a picture!” I said, trying not to punch him.

“You wanted both of us, but now you can’t have either of us. It’s over,” I said as I slammed my locker.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, but I ignored him and walked away. Three weeks after Tyler and I broke up me and Henry started talking more, and I started liking him more, and kind of wanted to be more than friends, I really started hoping that he felt the same way I was pretty sure he did so that made me happy. I kept Madison updated with everything that was going on and so did she. She ended up going out with this guy named Andrew, and finally Henry asked me out! Everything was going awesome! I was in my room talking to Henry when I saw I was getting another call, I looked who it was from and it was from Madison. I told Henry I had to go and answered Madison’s call “hey” I said “what’s up” I could barley understand that voice on the other side. I figured out she was crying “calm down, just tell me what’s wrong” I said hoping it wasn’t something to bad, because it wasn’t like her to cry that hard. “Did Andrew break up with you?” I asked”

“No” she said with a very shaky voice “I figured out today that my father had cancer” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“What happened?” was all I could get out of my mouth
“well” she began “for the past couple of weeks he has been complaining about how he has felt really weak, and how his muscles have felt really numb and tingly” I could tell she was trying to hold back all of the tears “then it started getting worse and he kept losing his balance, and so my mom took him to the doctor and we had to rush him to the hospital” before I could speak she kept talking “they took a bunch of tests and found out it was leukemia” I could hear her start crying and I could feel tears forming in my eyes.
“Oh my gosh Madison” I said I could feel tears running down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry” I said “I will try to make it down there this weekend” I could feel myself crying harder, her dad was like a second dad to me. After my dad died I would go over to her house a lot and Madison’s dad wouldn’t just act like her dad, but he was like a father to me too.
“I would really appreciate it if you could make it” she said
“don’t worry” I added “ I will be there no matter what” that night I couldn’t fall asleep ever since the bad news there was just to much on my mind. Even at school the rest of the week I couldn’t think strait. That weekend I went down to my home town to go visit my second father in the hospital. I met Madison at her house and we went down there together. My mom and I stayed at there house for a few days, then we had to say our goodbyes and head back to Wyoming. Right whenever I got back I got a call on my cell phone, and it was from Madison I braced myself and answered, “he isn’t going to make it” she said, “the doctor said its getting worse.” I cried the rest of the way home, the past couple of weeks at school I had been really distracted and I could tell I had bags under my eyes because I haven't been getting very much sleep. About five weeks later I heard the news, that I was hoping I would never hear, her father had passed away. Her and her mom came to live with us, to help them get there mind of it, I’m glad because I had really missed her. They found a house close to ours and moved in next to us. I got to show her around and she got to meet Henry, and I introduced her to all of the other friends I made at my new school. I’m just really glad she moved next to me. Now she lives closer to me than she did before we moved, so we practically live in each others houses now. We also still talk about our fathers a lot and what they did for us. Whenever I wasn’t with her it felt like there was another part of me missing. But now I feel whole again.