After you left

w e l c o m i n g

N O V A                       V I O L E T

Swaying back and forth in a van that smelled like cheese and old bread, with two sixteen year old screaming about football, and the A/C blowing in December for four and a half hours isn't ideal. But that's what we're stuck with because my mother thought it would be fun to do a spontaneous move in the middle of our school year back to our home town of North Bridge. And it wasn't something that was planned, like at all. She just woke up with a ' feeling' that we had to go back and it would be good for us. Now I love my mom, I do but she can be a little.. wild sometimes. She'll go with her gut and not listen to actually logical things, like moving four and half hours away in the middle of a ice winter with a big ass van. It wasn't new for her to do this, to move around once she got bored, we've had moved a total of five times in the last three years, fun, I know. Now don't get me wrong, I'm use to moving around and stuff but I honestly loved Down Brooke, I had friends, top of my class, and I was happy, but my mother and her feeling.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of the van, listening to Sammy and Aaron fighting about some stupid football last night and the sound of the squeaking van. Sammy and Aaron were twins and can be the most annoying things on this planet. Most of the time they just annoy each other, but when they team up they drag me down.

Sammy is the drama queen of the group, he has to make a deal out of everything, whether it was about his sports or what he ate for dinner, everything was a debate when it came to him. Aaron was the 'gamer' one, he sat in his room all day playing video games and had the massive game set up in there, and couldn't give a wet monkey's ass about anything. And my mom was the psyche of us, she was very spiritual and down to earth type, she wasn't big on rules but she came down on us if we did something wrong, we didn't have curfew or anything like that and had full trust in us, which we never disobeyed, she was very chilled back and easy going, she never forced anything one us unless she had a feeling. And me, I wasn't anything special, except I had crazy deep red hair and my eyes were pure silver. People tend to stare at me in public, I don't know if it's my hair or what but I'll always have eyes on me, and I hate it. I always feel like I'm being watched, constantly. My family isn't the quiet family most of the time our family is the crazy one trying to kill each other in the restaurant, like Sammy and Aaron reaching for each other's throats with my mom trying to pull them apart and I'm eating, I don't care if they kill each other, but that's just how we were. we were loud, crazy, and very noisy.

" Novs" I'm snapped out of my thoughts when my mom called my name, I looked over at her and she had a goofy smile across her face, " did you hear me" she asks, her eyes darting between the road and I. " huh, sorry no" I mumbled, picking at the string sticking out of my sweatpants. " She was probably think about Dillon Ryann" Sammy snickered, while kicking the back of my seat. " Sammy, if you don't stop I swear to freaking god I'll reach back there and cut your balls off and chock you with it" I sneered, staring at him through the rear view mirror. He was shocked before he was looking at my mom with a wide eyes, " Ma! did you just hear what she said" he whined, leaning forward so he was in between my mom's and I's heads. " yes" she answered, trying to bite back her smile and chuckle, " Nova, say sorry" she asked, her smile leaking through her lips. She looked over at me with amusement pooling in her eyes. " No" I said, changing the radio to a Taylor Swift song, and silently giggling. " Sorry, Honey it's out of my control" she stated, looking at his bewildered face. " Whatever" he mumbled and went back to fighting with Aaron. " So..." my mom started, looking at me, " How is Dillon" she asked with giggles sneaking out. I stared at her with the most un-amused look on my face, slumping in the seat and resting my feet on the dash broad. " Drive, Woman" I muttered, looking out the window. I heard my mother chuckling and mumbling about moody teenagers.

Dillon Ryann was my best friend growing up, when we lived in North Bridge. Dillon and I were super close growing up, we were always with each other. It was amazing having someone that I was so close to, but everyone thought that we were in love with each other because we went to ONE dance together in the 7th grade. Dillon was somebody that I loved but only in a friendship way, but being so close we relied on each other, so when 8th grade rolled around we thought it would be a good idea to be each other's first kiss, so we were. And it was a 8th grade kiss nothing special or anything but after I told my mom, Sammy and Aaron over heard and went blabbing to the whole family that Dillon and I kissed. So now everyone in my family thinks I'm dating him, even though we haven't talked since we left North Bridge in freshmen year.

" Aye, Nov, come on we need to unpack" Aaron banged on the window of the van, already outside, holding a box labeled 'games'. I looked to my left to see that my mother and Sammy were already walking through out new house with boxes in hand. I got out of the van and stared at the house. 

It was a two-story white house, with dark blue shuddered and a red door, kind of cliché and basic, not gonna lie. But it was beautiful nonetheless, it had a huge yard with green grass, like I'm talking golf course green and flowers lining the bottom of the house. It was a two car garage and a front porch that looked right out of the movies. It had a white fence boarding the yard and the road, with a main box that read: 87 Key street. The house beautiful, but it looked like all the other houses on the street, but that was North Bridge. I grabbed a box labeled ' Nova's room' and started inside, walking through the door.