Chapter 1
I didn't know what to expect moving to a small town in Michigan. I didn't want to go, to be quite honest. I was leaving my life in London, packing everything up and moving to the states. And it's not like we're going somewhere interesting, like California, or New York. Nope, my mum moves us to a tiny town in Michigan that nobody has ever even heard of. Dansville. Population of 559 people. Coming from a population of over 5 thousand in Holmes Chapel, this town seems practically nonexistent. To say I didn't want to live here would be an understatement.
I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or cry when I saw the sign that read 'Welcome to Dansville'. I wanted to laugh at the town that stood behind the sign: a small block of shops, and side streets made of dirt roads. This is also the reason of my wanting to cry.
My mum followed the voice of her GPS, leading us to our new house. I still haven't seen the pictures of it, as I hadn't wanted to do this move in the first place. And I had thought that if I ignored my mum when she brought the subject up, maybe she would forget about the move, and we'd just stay in Holmes Chapel. Unfortunately for me, it didn't work out like that.
I was unpleasantly surprised when we pulled up to the house though. I had thought that if we were making such a big move, there had to be a great reason for it. Maybe there was a fantastic job offering, or our dream house waiting for us when we arrived. Instead, we have a small house that barely looks big enough for my mum and I. There's a shit ton of yard though, for what purpose I didn't know. We don't own any pets to occupy the space, and we don't have any children that would be running around.
"Here we are," My mum stated, smiling happily at me. I smiled back at her even though that was the last thing I wanted to do. I truly felt bad for her, and how I've been treating her the past few weeks. She hasn't had it easy recently, with her recent split with my dad. She was left with nothing- no house, no money, no cats, zilch. The only thing she was able to keep was the car I paid for myself last year, since dad insisted on taking hers. He's a big time lawyer, and even though marriage assets are supposed to be split equally, he fought hard to ensure that she could keep none of it. And he won. It's unfair, but that's life.
And so with this, my mum decided it'd be a good time to move to another fucking country, in a town that's in the middle of nowhere.
As I stepped out of the car, all I could smell was- honest to God- shit. It was a very unpleasant smell, and looking around, I found the culprit: We lived across the street from a fucking cow farm. With actual, live cows just milling about the yard. What in the actual hell?
"Harry, could you grab these bags for me? They're a lot heavier than what your old mum can handle."
I looked over at my mum, noticing her tired eyes, the whites of them red, complete with bags underneath. I grabbed them from her willingly, going one step further by grabbing a third bag. She picked up two smaller ones before running in front of me with keys in her hand to unlock the door.
The inside of the house wasn't much better than the out. It was small and stuffy, and there was only a small doorway separating the kitchen and the living room. There was a hallway that branched out into two bedrooms, and another door that was closed, which I was assuming was the bathroom. It was... quaint.
After helping my mum carry all of the boxes from the car inside, I sat on the floor of the living room. We also have no furniture, unless my small desk lamp were to count. I don't think it does.
Once I got bored from just sitting in the same spot, I helped my mum unpack all of the things we were able to take from our old house. We were left with the old dishes, but nothing too fancy, of course. I snuck a few though, while my dad wasn't watching. I also may or may not have stolen his watch from the counter. I plan on selling it to some pawn shop, if I can find one in this tiny town.
