Summary: As Bianca prepares to move to Cedar Cove, she reflects on the past.
Author’s note: This was written for Round 32 of #ChoicesCreates: MC’s Backstory
Bianca gathered up more of her things and began to put them into a box. Tomorrow the movers would come, and she and her father would go to their new home in Cedar Cove.
She looked up at the mobile hanging from her ceiling, made of brightly colored seashells. Could she reach it if she stood on her desk chair? No, probably not.
She called out to her father. “Dad, can you bring me the ladder?”
“Sure, Bianca-bear,” he replied. Soon he appeared in her doorway, carrying the ladder.
“Thanks, Dad. I need to get the mobile down.”
“I’ll do it.” He climbed up the ladder and removed the mobile from the hook, then climbed back down and handed it to Bianca. “I’d better get back to packing. There’s still a lot to do.”
She carefully wrapped up the mobile and placed it in a small box, which she then placed in the bigger box. It was fragile and she didn’t want it to break. Her parents had bought it for her when she was eight years old, when the family went on vacation in the Florida Keys. She remembered that trip fondly. She had gone swimming in the ocean and built sand castles on the beach. It was the last time that the three of them had gone away together. Six months later, she noticed that her parents were arguing more frequently. Then one day they sat down with her and told her that they were getting a divorce. Her mother moved in with another man, and her parents shared custody of her. She went back and forth between the two households for about a year. When her mother’s boyfriend was transferred out of state by his employer, her mother moved away with him. Their relationship ended two years later, but her mother stayed in the same area.
She wondered what her new school would be like, and whether she would fit in. After all, she didn’t know anyone there. Would she make new friends easily? She was really going to miss Megan. They had been friends since fifth grade. Megan had been the new girl then. Her parents had also recently divorced, and she and Bianca bonded quickly. Each of them understood what the other was going through. Last week they had gone to the mall and bought each other friendship bracelets, and promised that they would always stay friends. It was going to be hard to not see her any more, but at least they could keep in touch through phone calls, texting, and FaceSpace. And maybe they could visit each other occasionally.
There was one good thing about moving: she wouldn’t have to see Paige and Kevin any more. When she started high school, she and Paige had become friends. Megan said that Paige wasn’t very nice, but Bianca figured that they just didn’t get along. She hadn’t seen that side of Paige, until the day that Paige was tagged in a FaceSpace photo by one of her friends, and Bianca saw the necklace that Paige was wearing. It was the one that Bianca’s father bought her for her eighth grade graduation, that she thought she had misplaced. Bianca’s father took her over to Paige’s house, and Bianca demanded that Paige return the necklace. Paige claimed that she had found it at her house and thought it was hers, and that it must have fallen off Bianca while she was there. But Bianca knew that she was lying, and their friendship ended.
Not long afterward, Bianca started dating Kevin. She had had a crush on him since the beginning of the school year, and he finally asked her out. They dated for several months, and she thought things were going well. She was caught completely off guard when he ended their relationship. Within the week, he was dating Paige. Although he never admitted it, she thought that he may have been cheating on her, and she was sure that Paige had deliberately come between them. Megan told her that she deserved better, and she knew that was true, but it was still hard for her to see Kevin and Paige together.
After taping the last box shut, she got ready for bed. The movers were coming early, and she had a big day ahead of her. It was strange to think that this would be the last night she would spend in her bedroom. Everything was about to change. Hopefully at least some of the changes would be good ones.