NOTE: This is a new version of the original chapter I posted. It's very similar, but I've rearranged some things and sort of rethought the way some of it was presented. It's still a lot of background, but I think that a slow start and a getting a sense of her past is really crucial to understand the story, and I really needed to have a drastic change from what she knew at home to what she'll experience at school. If you read the first one, please let me know what you think in comparison - I still may play around with this chapter some more. If you didn't read it, let me know what you think as a fresh reader :) Hope you like it!
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This was it. This was last time she was going to walk through her house before… college. Higher Education. What was that even? An excuse for adults to send their young, naïve kids off to study something, far before they were actually ready to be off on their own?
Of course, she had thought she was ready. Until about twenty four hours ago. Suddenly she was the middle schooler at the sleepover who wanted to go back home in the middle of the night, but was too embarrassed to admit it. The kindergartner who wouldn’t let go of their mom’s leg on the first day of school.
Her whole life. Kristen Murphy had lived in Big Bay, Michigan her entire life. Their little cabin-like house sat on the outskirts of town along the Ottawa National Forest, in driving distance of Lake Superior. The Huron Mountains set a glorious backdrop, the culmination of so many riveting forms of nature.
Walking out of her bedroom, Kristen felt a slight pang in her chest as she shut the door. It wouldn’t be until November that she slept in her own bed again.
The floorboards creaked under her feet as she walked through the halls. Her whole life seemed to be laid out in this house, everything she’d ever known. The walls were lined with Kristen’s drawings and her mother’s paintings. The mantelpiece in the family room housed many pieces of pottery as well as her father’s wood carvings. One of these was a whistle in the shape of a bird that Stephen had carved his wife when he first began courting her during their sophomore year of high school.
Kristen had inherited her parents’ love of the arts, but had hardly committed herself to one medium. She’d spent her childhood dabbling in painting, pottery, and woodcarving with careful instruction from her parents. She loved to draw most of all, and she’d adopted the clearing that was the site of her parents wedding as a place to do so.
Even in the winter when Big Bay was piled over with several feet of snow, Kristen would tuck her sketchbook into her bag and clear a path into the woods. She’d climb up into one of the tall trees, and sit on a wide branch, leaning against the trunk. Her fingers would freeze without gloves, but she didn’t mind. It made her more aware of what her they were doing. She’d stay out for hours, only coming in when her face was so frozen she couldn’t move it, or because it had started to snow again and she didn’t want the flakes melting on her paper.
She would trudge back through the woods, tucking her hands inside the opposite sleeve of her puffy winter coat, and would come in the back door of their warm house, the snow falling off of her and melting in large puddles on the wood floor. Her mother would come help her remove her bulky winter clothing and a cup of scalding hot chocolate would be waiting for her on the stove. She would drink it before it had cooled, letting it nearly burn the skin off the roof of her mouth – her tongue would feel fuzzy for days afterward, but it was all part of the experience – and would sit at the kitchen table, pink in the cheeks, showing her mother what she’d drawn.
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It wasn’t until just before eighth grade that Kristen had ever questioned her lifestyle. Up until then, all their family trips had been similar. Just the three Murphy’s, packed into a car with a duffle bag each. They would drive somewhere – a different spot on Lake Superior, the Soo Locks, Tahquamenon Falls or Niagra Falls, and once they’d even gone to Mackinac Island – and stay in a cheap motel, spending the entire day out hiking, or visiting museums and sightseeing. For her 13th birthday however, in June of the year before she began eighth grade, her parents let her choose where she wanted to spend their summer vacation.
