Secrets and Lies

Chapter 1

"Mina, can you come out here please?" My mom's urgent knock sounded on my bedroom door. I could hear the strain in her voice from the other side like she was trying to keep herself together.

"Yeah, I'll be right out," I yelled back to her. I quickly shut my laptop, knowing this must be pretty important. My mom was home earlier than usual today and she would normally leave me to do my homework while she started dinner. I made my way to the living room where I figured my mother had probably disappeared to.

When I rounded the corner, I found her pacing back and forth. I couldn't recall a time I have ever seen my mom pace before.

"Mom, what's up?"

"Sit down, sweetheart," she said softly. She stopped pacing and stood in front of me, wringing her hands. My mom was a calm person by nature, and very carefree. She always kept it together, never letting stress or worry get to her. Seeing my mother behave this way was starting to make me nervous.

"Mom?" I asked nervously, afraid to hear her response. "What's going on?"

"We're moving," she blurted out.

"What? Why?" I asked, completely dumbfounded. We have lived in this apartment my entire life. I couldn't imagine what had made my mom decide to want to move all of a sudden.

"I lost my job a couple of months ago," she admitted, sinking into the couch beside me.

"How many?" I asked skeptical, shocked that she had kept this from me. We told each other everything, why didn't she tell me about this?

"Two months ago," she said sheepishly, avoiding eye contact with me.

"Two months?" I yelled in disbelief.

"Yes. I've been applying to other jobs and was hoping to find something new so we wouldn't have to move. But, I haven't had any luck and money is starting to get tight."

"They can't just fire you like that. I mean, you have been with that company for over eleven years!"

My mom has been working for the same company since I was six. When she first moved out here, she was desperate for a job. She found a position as a waitress at a local seafood restaurant and worked her way up to becoming the manager. However, due to financial reasons, the restaurant closed down and she was forced to look for a new job. She was able to find another job right away as a secretary, her current job, and worked her way up the ranks again. I just couldn't believe that they would just fire her after all the years she worked for them.

"Well, they can, and they did. They're merging with a bigger company that has more money, and that meant some of us were laid off," she said simply.

"Look, the real reason I'm telling you this now is because I talked to your uncle this morning. He offered to let us come and stay with him and your aunt."

"You mean go and live with them? As in leave Virginia Beach?" I could not believe this was actually happening. This was where I was raised, where all my memories were formed, and where my best friend lived. I didn't want to leave. The whole thing was just so unfair.

My uncle Ben, my mother's brother, lived with his wife and daughter, Emma, who is a year older than me, in a small town next to Lake Erie, which would be the closest I was going to get to an ocean if I moved there. 

I was going to miss the ocean. Our apartment was only a five minute drive away from it, and so I went just about every day after school or on the weekends. I never got tired of the feeling of the soft sand between my toes and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shoreline.