Meet Me After Sundown

Moving Day

"Y/N, wake up! The movers are coming to your room next!" your mom shouted from downstairs.

You could've slept for another hour, but you knew angering your mom while she's already stressed is never a good idea. You could also hear the clanging and shifting of boxes through the floor of your room, so falling back to sleep wouldn't be an easy task.

After climbing out of bed, you put on a light blue tank top and athletic shorts you set out the night before.

Gazing around the room, you admired its emptiness. No more posters on the wall, your cabinets empty, your bookshelf bare, just your bed and a few heavy pieces of furniture left. In only a few hours, the room would be completely bare, ready for the next family to move in.

"I'm coming, Mom!" you shouted in response, making your way down the stairs. When you noticed the family standing out the front door, you snuck to the kitchen to grab a blueberry muffin that was sitting out. You took a big bite and headed for the door.

Your father was assisting some movers with lifting a couch into the back of a moving truck while your mother hollered directions and supportive phrases like a cheer captain. All you needed now was a bag of popcorn.

When the couch was finally pushed to the back of the moving truck, your mother announced your arrival.

"We're about to get the furniture out of your room, if you'd like to help," she offered, allowing no room for another option.

"Sure I'd love to." It was your furniture, after all. You'd hate to find a new scratch on your wood dresser after you arrived in Illinois.

As you assisted the movers, you let your mind wander to your new home. It wasn't a house, but rather an apartment. Your family was moving into one side of the top floor in a six-story apartment building. You and your brother would still get separate rooms, just tighter living space.

Your dad received a job offer in Chicago, and on almost short notice, your family was moving about five hundred miles from southwest Missouri.

It would take some getting used to, simple suburban to big city life, especially for a sixteen-year-old. Junior year wouldn't be easy; harder classes, new friends, all that moving stuff. If other girls could survive the same situations in those teen movies, who says you couldn't survive it in real life?

~~~

It took a few hours, but finally, all the furniture was moved out of your room. You laid on your back in the middle of the carpeted floor, staring at the ceiling, and taking in the final moments before saying goodbye. With one small tear shed, you whispered your farewells to the room and headed down the stairs.

"Ready to go, Y/N?" your mother asked.

You thought your room looked bare, but it was nothing compared to the rest of the house. The living room lacked a couch, a tv, bookshelves, but most importantly, the people congregating there. There was no more food in the kitchen, no more people chatting over a late night meal, no picture frame of the family that once lived here.

You were going to miss this house.

But not all houses were meant to be permanent. A new family would move in. A sweet couple, perhaps with a few kids of their own; the beginning of a new family.

"I guess," you sighed, joining your mother at the front door. You watched her lock it for the last time before hopping in the car, beginning the long journey ahead to Chicago.