Missed Me, Missed Me, Now You Gotta Kiss Me

Howdy, Partner

TEN ½ YEARS LATER-

    I had heard the news over the weekend. Technically, I had heard it for a few months now, but I officially heard it the weekend. I was strangely compliant with my parents when they told me we would have to move. That was before they happened to mention we wouldn't be moving into another house in Arizona , but out of state entirely.

  "But, Daddy!" I had protested. "Why can't we just buy a least expensive house here?"

  Dad had just shook his balding head. "We already have another house we're moving into."

  This had been news to me. I guess I shouldn't have been very surprised to learn Daddy couldn't part with the old farm house. We'd had enough money to support it and our house in Arizona , after all. But now we only had enough money for the farm house we were moving back into after ten and a half years.

  Saying goodbye to my friends wasn't easy; I mean, I had a lot of them. We promised to keep in touch, though.

  Out of all my friends, though, David and Sooki were the hardest to say goodbye to. David was my friend and boyfriend and the parting was rough for both of us. We promised to try a long distance relationship, though the tears I shed the day before the move were because I knew it would never work out.

  Sooki was harder. I mean, I really liked David and all, but Sooki was my best friend. We made plans for her to come down for the summer and we pinky swore we would never, ever lose touch. We had said our goodbyes several times. It still didn't seem enough, though, as we pulled out of our driveway with the moving truck and the Suburban.

  It wouldn't be right-and it wouldn't be myself-to be mad at my parents. Daddy couldn't help "being let go", after all. I guess I was just mad he hadn't sold that dumb house. Maybe then this trip would have been less than twenty miles.

  I had reformed myself. After the first move, I had been mean, rebellious, and stubborn. After I'd moved on, though, I practically became a new person. I had a great relationship with my parents, I had extra curricular activities, I was a straight A student and excelling in my duel enrollment college classes.....But they were taking me away from all that and I could feel my ugly rebellion returning with a fiery vengeance.

 

☼♥☼♥☼♥☼

    It took us three and a half days to reach Lewisburg. It was basically just how I remembered it, only a little more car dealerships, one more bank-like it really needed one-a Steak 'N' Shake, a Walgreens, and a Super Wal-Mart. Lewisburg was a town where small, family restaurants started and were out of business by the end of the month. There exactly six fast food joints-McDonalds, Burger King, Sonic (which was a lot like In and Out), Taco Belle, Arby's, and Wendy's-four to five banks, a Shoney's, a Law Lers-a barbeque fast food, I guess you could call it-two Mexican restaurants, two Chinese restaurants, and a bunch of other small businesses. It was small with a bunch of food places and small clothing stores, but everything was kind of clumped together. 

  There was the square, which basically had a bunch of failing businesses, the Dixie Theater-plays, not movies; we had a only a drive-in for that-and a bunch of churches. There was only one video store in town, and you could only rent the movies for one night.

  It wasn't your typical run down small town. It was fairly decent, not scary or anything like that. They understood new technology. But it wasn't Phoenix .

  As we drove down Spring Place Rd, I had a flashback of the old days. The road was thin and snaky, they had just repaved it. On every side of you there were spaced out houses and fields; horses every where you turned. Near our house, there had been a big, flat, empty field. Now rows of houses randomly sat there, ruining the scenery of the countryside. We passed the big brick house where Don Traveston lived. Rumors went around he poisoned dogs. He was a bird man and kept his chickens and turkeys run free for local dogs to pick at. Still, he'd never cage them up. Our old mutt Shiloh was always blamed for it and we had to get rid of him.