Beth relates

You don't understand

I woke up and turned to my left. Emma was in her sleeping bag sleeping peacefully. Penny was sitting up in her bed playing with my Nintendo. Long story short it was another average sleepover. When I went into my mums car Andy was sitting in his car seat.

"I saw bunny!," said Andy sounding super excited.

"That's right Andy, last night you went to the toddler program and saw the bunnies from the shelter," said mum with a smile.

She was being so positive today. I wonder why. She even offered to take me and Andy to Target. I said yes of course since I really needed to replace the strings on my guitar. Andy of course just wanted some Legos. When we got back dad was on the couch with Dominic.

"Hey can you two come over for a second," he said giving mum the "it's time" look. I got really nervous. I've never seen dad have a talk like this sense they announced the arrival of Andy.

"So we have some news to announce, when you have all finished your school this year we will be moving to Southern England," said dad waiting for a response. No one spoke, everyone couldn't speak. They were too shocked. I wasn't, I saw this coming.

"Why dad?," I asked.

"A better job which means a better home, more vacations, and more money for educational reasons," he said hoping for the boys to say anything. Andy didn't care but me and Dominic sure did. 

"Dad, I'm really starting to fit in at my school, I don't want to start over," Dominic complained.

"Think about the family Nick," said dad trying to sway his opinion.

"Think about the kids!," yelled Dominic as he stormed upstairs.

I sat in silence not knowing what to say. I could smell apple cinnamon muffins coming out the oven. I saw my mum taking off her oven mitt. I looked back to my dad.

"Yea, I have to agree with Dominic, I really like it here," I said trying to be as polite as possible.

I could tell dad was trying to find the right words to say but it couldn't come to mind. Mum came out of the kitchen and sat right next to me.

"Please Beth, trust me, it's best for the family," said mum looking straight into my eyes. 

"But how mum?," I asked. "I'm starting to feel comfortable here, more comfortable than I've ever felt."

"I understand that," said mum hoping for my dad to have thought of something to say.

"Look sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the success of your family, know this move would be the move of a life time, our family would be living about an hour away from London, you've always wanted to go there haven't ya," my dad said with hope in his words.

"You don't understand what I'm loosing by this move," I said fighting back the nerve to shed a tear.

"What are you loosing?," asked mum with full concern.

"Penny, most of all Penny, and Sailor, James, even Emma, I'll miss the park and the school, I'll miss my home, I love my friends and there's no way they can just be replaced," I stated trying to get dad and mum to hesitate.

"They won't be replaced, you can become pen pals and we could always go visit during the summer," mum looked very proud of this as if she just gave me a solution with no arguing to it.

"Still mum, I'm not ready for big changes like that," I said trying to end the conversation.

"I understand, you can think about it," said mum.

I stood up and walked away trying to stop this sudden headache. I went upstairs with a glass of water. I got my pick from Elizabeth and began to strum. Strum until my headache got sick of it. Than I slept, slept until I would forget about any of this.