Midnight rider

Part 4

I burst in the door, enraged. "He's staying with us?!" I practically scream at my parents.

"Yes, well, we just waited to tell you, because-" my mom tries to get out. 

"What other surprises are you guys gonna spring on me, huh?" I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "First, you tell me I'm moving two days before it happens, and now, all of a sudden, I have to stay with him?" 

"Paige-" my dad beings in a reprimanding tone. 

Finally, all my pent up anger and frustration explodes. "Why did you guys have to do this? Take me away from everything I love! I liked it in New York. I was happy there. Did you ever even think of that when you decided to ruin my life?"

I glance at Donne, who's standing there uncomfortably. This is probably really awkward for him, but I'm so angry I don't even care. 

"Where we live is not your choice," says my Dad slowly, emphasizing every word. "We are the parents. We make the decisions. Not you." I've never seen my father this angry before. He's not a loud kind of angry, he's more the quiet, deliberate kind that makes you fear for your life a little bit. 

I try to regain my composure. "You didn't even ask me!" 

"We don't have to ask you, Paige. Now go to your room!" I don't even know where my room is, but all I really want right now is to get away from my parents. So I storm off upstairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Donne leaving out the front door. I fell a bit guilty for being so angry that he's staying with us, but this is just one more thing my parents didn't care to tell me about. One more thing that's ruining my life that they just forgot to mention to me. 

I head into a random room, one that I'm pretty sure will be mine. It has some boxes in it labeled Paige. I'm looking through the box closest to me when I find the card all my friends gave me on the last day of school. I don't even ant to look at it. I don't want to reminded again of everything I'm losing. But I still haven't read it, and eventually my curiosity gets the better of me. 

There's tons of signatures in there, from kids throughout our grade. I don't know how my friends even got this many people to sign it. Then I move on to the more personal notes written by people I know really well. They're all super sweet and funny, and I find myself chuckling a little bit as I read the one from Noel. 

I take out my phone and decide to text him. Maybe, just maybe he can cheer me up. Hey, I write. Just got here and there's already been some y'alls. No Mormons yet, though. How're things in NYC?

He doesn't respond right away, like he usually does, so I decide to go explore a little bit to try and take my mind off things. And, of course, avoid my parents. I might have been rude to them, but I meant what I said. They may be the parents, but my feelings are important too. I don't want to go out through the front door and risk a confrontation, so I look around to see if i can get out the window. 

There's a long rope sitting in the hallway for some reason, ad, trying to keep my mind from darker thoughts, I bring it into my room. I put a heavy box on top of one end of the rope and toss the other end out the window. I tie a quick knot in the rope and then try to get outside. I'll admit it, this is kind of overkill, but I really do want to avoid my parents. And also, it makes me feel like a superspy, which can't be a bad thing.  I softly land on the ground, unnecessarily proud of myself for succeeding at my escape. 

Then I walk over around the back of myself. In the distance I can see what looks like a stable. That's probably where they keep the horses. I'm not the biggest fan of horses at the moment, but this is a ranch. There's not really anything else to do. So I walk over the stable.