Not Your Cinderella

Chapter 1- Leaving Town and Entering The Big City.

Tasha’s POV:

We sit at a family dinner, we don’t have as many anymore. There are so many of us nowadays. As we eat I glance down the table. My brother Benny flirts with his wife Leidy. Luke messes with my sister and she just smiles. Ed watches Janey vividly tell a story about something Jase did. Jase, Eddy and Emmy sit on the floor with Kelly. Kelly uses the little midgets as minions. My mom and Auntie Em are getting dessert. Sara looks at me and laughs. “Tasha!”

“Ooh what?” 

“We should leave soon after dessert.”

“Yeah we should.”

“Do you need a police escort out of town?” Benny asks. Mom rolls her eyes. “Mother. You do remember you are in my house now. So don’t disrespect me or you can leave!”

“I gave birth to you nothing else you could possibly say trumps that.” Mom yells at him. Leidy laughs. 

“Mom, as long as you are doing the cooking you can stay forever,” Leidy says with a grin and helps clean up. Aunt Em walks in with Benny’s twin babies. They are only a year and adorable little girlies. Sara chows down on her cake quickly.  

“Tasha, we should probably go soon,” she says with a small smile. 

“Ok. Are you ready?”

“I was born ready,” Sara says grabbing her phone off it’s charger. 

“I guess we will see you all next weekend for labor day.”

“My baby is heading away to college,” mom says as tears fill her eyes. We hug everyone and they follow us out to my car. My car is basically new. It’s a ford focus. It’s our whole life down to a few boxes. We hug our moms one more time before we climb in the car. I pull the car out of the driveway and honk. We get a block down the road and Sara starts crying. 

“I can’t do this Tasha. I can’t.” She blubbers. 

“Yes you can Sara. It’s everything you have worked for all through high school. You are coming whether you want to or not.”

“Damn Tashy. We are so grown up now I don’t know if I can deal,” she says with a small smile. I laugh. 

“Do you realize that the next stop, when this car goes into park at our apartment, we will be on a college campus with freedom, hot guys and some parties!”

“I know how much this means to you, but I’m not sure it’s that important to me.”

“Boo, you can’t leave me. If you don’t like it after a semester, I will personally drive you back home.”

“You don’t get it though!”

“What don’t I get?”

“I’m leaving Noah behind. I’m not sure I can do this. I’m leaving everything I know. Everything is different!”

“This is what you need though. Maybe you don’t realize it, but being in that town was hurting you. It brought you down. Maybe you need to have the distance with Noah and the memories. You know damn well Noah would want you happy and you weren’t happy there anymore!” She grows quiet. The whole Noah thing was a sore topic. In the middle of sophomore year Sara and Noah started dating. Noah was the cross country star, the boy who smiled at everyone and didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was so incredibly sweet. Noah was taken way too soon. He died in an accident shortly after New Year’s. Noah and Sara had just celebrated their two year anniversary. Noah with some help from me, planned this amazing winter picnic in this lighted gazebo on this pond at a park. He planned to go ice skating and do a few other cute things. On the way to the park, a drunk driver ran a red light hitting the driver’s side of Noah’s truck. Noah died on impact and Sara walked away from the accident with only a broken heart.