Less Money, More Memories Anonymous

It was as though Medusa had looked me straight in the eye. I saw my mother’s lips moving, but all I could hear was the turbulent rhythm of my heavy heart. I clutched my fork tighter in my fist and disappeared, desperately figuring out how to turn back the hands of time.

My father uttered my name and brought me back down to Earth, “It just makes sense Abia.”

Hours before, my mother had received a call— a job offer to work in a hospital. It seemed perfect. However, there was a catch, as always: we would have to move to Long Island, away from my school, my friends, and my childhood. Although I was starting to prepare for my junior year and getting more involved in the school community, I would’ve hated to break my mother’s heart. “We’ll visit often dear,” my parents reassured me, “and plus you won’t have to share a room with your sister anymore." I obliged happily, considering my parent’s risks in this decision, yet I still had hope that maybe, just maybe we wouldn’t have to leave.

After months of denial, I stood in front of my family’s new castle, grand yet spiritless. I reminisced about the cacophonous streets of New York. I couldn’t hear the piercing police sirens, the blaring horns, the boisterous crowds. This was not my...