What no one bothered to tell me about moving is that living in a brand new house is not the hard part. Not knowing anybody all summer isn’t the hard part either. The most painful part of moving away from your hometown is knowing that once you’re gone, everyone else is just going to move on with their life. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter, I’ll move on with my life too. But it does matter because everyone you’ve known since you were young is no longer in your life. So you lay in your bed and mope and maybe even pretend you’re still back home. At least for a little while.

School that day had actually been fun, but it was the last day of school. We sang karaoke in choir and took selfies in every other class. It was my last chance to say goodbye and somehow, I was the only person not crying. Minutes before I walked out the school doors, Amanda wrapped her arms around me with shiny blue-green eyes staring up at me.

“I’ll miss you, Kaylee!” She cried, and I snorted back a laugh at the child-like tone in her voice. “You have to message me everyday and you can’t ever forget about me.” I hugged her back, still feeling surprised at the dryness of my eyes.

“I’ll message you everyday, I promise!” I collected several other hugs and returned many “I’ll miss you”’s before walking out the building without a single glance back at the school I was leaving behind.

In the car, my dad smiled at me slightly and tucked his curly black hair into his ball-cap before asking “Are you ready?” I could hear my little brother, Wyatt, sniffling in the back seat, but my dad still looked excited. Which made sense because after a two and a half hour car ride, we’d be living with my mom again.

“I’m ready.” Which was followed by a small sigh to escape my lips. After my mom accepted a new job in Harrison, she had lived in a hotel in Clare until we picked out our house on Houghton Lake. During that time, my dad, Wyatt, and I were living with my grandma just until the end of the school year since our home had already sold. It was a beautiful home, at least in my opinion, with winding trails behind the house and a big pool sitting in the backyard. And I was leaving that all behind to face one of my biggest fears. Change.