Spirited Away: The Return Home

Chapter 2

"Chihiro, we're moving."

The words made their way to my one ear and left just as quickly through the other one, not stopping to be registered by what lay between them. Then again, at this moment, there was the possibility that the thing I used to call my brain was short-circuiting.

Sentences started to form in my mouth— long sentences— some of which contained words that my parents most likely didn't even know existed.

How could they do this?

Move where exactly?

I also didn't understand why they thought that this was the best solution to a problem that wasn't even really a problem according to me. I mean, it wasn't hard to recall what happened the last time my parents decided to up and go.

All these thoughts ran around in my head, but the only one that seemed to get past the iron defence that was my mouth was, "What?!"

It took me a few moments to realize that I had yelled it rather than just said it as I had planned to. It seemed that I underestimated myself in the state that can normally be classified as a shock or anything in that line.

"You want to do what?!" I tried again, standing up from the piano bench. It seemed to have gotten as hot as if my parents had made a fire underneath it.

"Calm down, Chihiro," my mother insisted, "this is going to be for the best, you might not see it now, but things will all work out."

All the anger that couldn't seem to have formed a few minutes ago started to bubble its way out from the deepest corners of my heart.

"What is going work out for the better, Mom? Don't tell me you guys think that moving away is going to turn us back into the picture perfect family we used to be?" I raked a hand through my hair, frustration taking over.

"You'll still be working all day long, and then barely pay attention to me when you're home. Have you ever thought that maybe if you guys where home more often, then maybe things would never even have turned out this way?" My voice was steadily rising once again.

They seemed to be shell-shocked by my sudden outburst. It took my father a few seconds to form a response, which was still a few years before my mother could even blink her eyes.

"Of course we realized that something was wrong, sweetheart, that's why we decided that moving was the best thing at this moment. Nothing else seems to be getting through to you," my father said. He was clearly trying to keep his cool.

"Listen, we'll leave you alone for the night and talk about this in the morning. Your mom seems to have stopped functioning." My dad took my mother by the arm and gently pulled her out of my room.

Once they were out I threw myself onto my bed and started to cry. Years of holding back seemed to have built a dam behind my eyes because when the tears started, they didn't stop until almost an hour later.

I wiped my face dry on the sleeve of my shirt and sat up. I hadn't wanted to do this- I simply wanted to keep crying. I knew that it would solve nothing. What I needed was to figure out how I was going to solve my newest dilemma.

At this moment, I needed to think of ways to convince my parents that they were about to make the biggest mistake of their lives. Taking me away from the one thing that kept me going each day was only going to make everything worse than they already were.

I needed to get away from there. 

I just needed some time away from my parents, so that I could focus my thoughts and figure out what my next move was going to be. Obviously, reasoning with my parents was a very bad idea since we weren't on the same level with this situation.