Stay Gold

seventeen

chapter one hundred and seven ~ the one with a goodbye party
Heather's POV

Joey and I won the bid for the house and were promised to be moved in by the end of the year, something that we were both very excited about. Even though moving hadn't been something we had been preparing for, it made sense to have a bigger place for the new baby because our apartment was barely enough room for us right now. Mozzarella needed a house with a backyard because it wasn't fair on him to be squashed into such a small place and Matteo needed his own room because I didn't want his sleep schedule to be ruined when a new baby was brought into the picture. Neither of us were really looking forward to the moving process as we knew it would be tough, especially since we had seen Monica and Chandler packing for their moving day. We had decided to pack some of the things we would need at the new house but weren't taking things as seriously as our friends. Plus, we were having remodelling for the downstairs of the house as Monica had previously pointed out that the place was a hole and we wanted to make it less of a hole before we moved in.

As exciting as the move was going to be, we had other things to focus on right now because Rachel was taking a job in Paris and would be moving tomorrow. Everyone had pulled together for a special Goodbye party but no one was looking forward to it; the truth was, no one wanted her to leave but this was her big career opportunity and we couldn't stand in the way of something so big. She had been devastated when losing her job at Ralph Lauren and not securing a place in Gucci; so, this was her big chance to make a name for herself and we had to be supportive, even if we didn't want her to move to a different continent. The person that I felt sorry for the most was Ross; we all knew that he still had feelings for her and would not only miss Rachel but would also miss out on quality time with Emma. She would be back and forth between her parents but that didn't sound healthy and she couldn't do that for another seventeen years.

Everyone was waiting for the party to start as Joey and I popped over to the apartment; we had just talked to Rachel, checking up on her because she hadn't arrived for the party yet. She was putting Emma to sleep and then she would be coming over but she had already gotten emotional several times today and we knew that this party was just going to make it worse. Matteo somehow understood that something was happening and was like Joey, he didn't like change and was being more restless than usual; fussing in Joey's arms so much that my husband ended up putting him on the ground. Matteo didn't even greet the other guests of the party and ran straight over to the coffee table where some of his toys had been abandoned, wanting to distract himself from whatever we were getting on with. Ross noticed that we had come back without Rachel, who was supposed to be the star of the show. "Hey, where's Rach?"

"She's putting Emma down." I explained, smiling at him and knowing that he was freaking out about the big move. "She'll be here soon."

"Listen, it just hit her that she's leaving and she's kind of emotional, so no one say anything to set her off, okay?" Joey said, hoping that everyone would pull together and stop Rachel from getting emotional about her leaving. Just when that warning ended, the door opened and Rachel came in. thinking that we could stop her from getting upset, everyone welcomed her into the apartment but even that didn't seem like the greatest option. "There she is." Ross cheered, as everyone else greeted her as well because this was her party and we were supposed to be celebrating her big job opportunity; not getting her upset. However, it didn't work when she covered her mouth and started crying. "Hi, you guys."