The Farmer's Daughter

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

                “Skylar, is everything packed?” Chase called up the stairs.

                “Yeah,” I answered back, looking around my room, checking to make sure that I had everything that will be needed until I come back on Thanksgiving break.

                Grabbing my purse and the Star Wars DVDs, I was out the door, heading down to the final goodbyes. When I reached the stairs, both my parents were crying, my mom actually balling her eyes out, while my dad just had tears flowing down his cheeks. At the sight of them crying, caused my own tears to begin to flow down, in which case I ran toward them, and we all embraced each other in a family hug.

                “My little girl is all grown up,” dad choked out. “I remember your first day of kindergarten, how you were so afraid to leave us, and now look at you. You’re going to a whole other state.”

                I laughed. It’s kind of funny how ironic life can be. When you’re little you don’t ever want to leave your parents side, but when you turn into a teenager, that’s all you want to do. But when you turn eighteen, and leaving for college, living on your own, life becomes a reality. And you’re stuck with nothing else but the outside world, not knowing what lies ahead of you. Now that’s, that’s when you cling to your parents, wishing you could take back the eighteen years you have with them, changing things that happened, and cherishing the time you do have together.

                Pulling away from the weeping parents, I look over to my big brother and see that although he isn’t crying, he isn’t smiling either, his jaw clenched. Shaking my head in amusement, I walk over, and that’s when he embraces me in a big tight bear hug.

                “Oof!” I mumbled out, trying hard to wrap my arms around him, even though he’s making it a tad bit difficult. “I. Can’t. Breathe.”

                “Promise me baby sis, that you be smart while in Cali,” Chase says instead, still not easing up on his grip on me. “They can be pretty brutal, and I swear, if I hear anything has happened to you, I will personally come down and take you home. Immediately,” he threatened, putting emphasis on the word immediately.

                “Chase!” I cried, seriously starting to lose oxygen in my lungs. “Oh right sorry,” he mumbled, releasing me from his death hug. “Chase, I’ll be fine. Besides I’ll have Heather and Beth, they may look sweet and innocent on the outside, but when needed, they can be extremely tough.” And just on cue, the sound of a car honking could be heard from the driveway, and that was my signal that it was time for me to go.

                Grabbing my overnight bag, purse, and movies, I was heading toward the door. Willing myself to not turn around until I got to the car, knowing that if I did, I’d convince myself to stay and go to the local community college here.

                Hopping in the car, I looked out the window, and waved a final goodbye to my family, all the down the driveway, until the trees covered the view, and they were out of my sight. That’s when the sniffling and silent tears began to reappear, at the thought of being so far away from them. I felt Heather’s hand grip mine, and squeeze it, trying to comfort me. I gave her a weak smile, as she just let me cry.

                After a few minutes I was finally able to calm myself down, that is until I watched Beth turn onto Daniel’s driveway. Now this is the part I dreaded the most, even more than saying goodbye to my family, having to see Daniel face to face. I’ve cleverly avoided him all week, telling myself that he’s the one that left that night, that if he wanted to work things out or talk about what had happened, then he’d have to be the first to make the move. But as we’re approaching his house, I think now that maybe that wasn’t such a great plan.