Seeds of Hope

Not everyone gets to grow up...

            Our whole lives they ask us what we want to be when we grow up. We respond a doctor,  a famous actress, a sports star, or, even, a superhero. They tell us we can be anything and do anything we want. What they don't tell us is that some of us never grow up.      

            My name is Zoe Penn. Four years ago I lost my best friend. Tracy Moore (she preferred to be called Trey) and I met in kindergarten and became inseparable. We swore we'd be best friends forever. They don't tell you forever doesn't always last that long.

            It was Trey's younger brother Tanner's eight birthday, and Trey and I had escaped the kid party (where there was a very unfunny clown) and were playing catch with a baseball on her front lawn. I threw the ball too hard and it landed in the middle of the street. Trey ran after it, not looking, and as she was bending down to pick it up a bright red convertible came speeding down the road. I yelled Trey's name, and she glanced over at me as the car slammed into her.

            Everything that happened after that is a blur. I guess I wouldn't stop screaming, and eventually they had to sedate me.

            I didn't return to school for two weeks after the accident. My parents went to my school to collect my homework. I laid in my bed, reluctant to move. I stayed in my pajamas and hardly ate despite my parent's coaxing. I was barely sleeping, because every time I did I dreamt of Trey being hit by that car. They never caught the driver. I didn't even get the chance to read his plates. He never stopped, not even after he'd hit Trey.

            My parents brought a grief counselor to the house to talk to me, but I refused to answer anything I was asked. I think I overheard the counselor tell my parents I was in a catatonic state.

            I killed my best friend. That was all I could think; that thought that kept running through my head. I threw the ball too hard and sent it sailing into the street, and I yelled at her, which only served to distract her. Maybe she would have been safely back on the sidewalk by the time the red car came zooming by if I had kept my big fat mouth shut.

            I didn't go to Trey's funeral. I couldn't. My parents didn't make me. They insisted no one blamed me but me, and I shouldn't because it wasn't my fault. It was an accident. I wish I could believe them. Even if I did, what difference would it make? It wouldn't bring Trey back.

            I lost my best friend. We were supposed to graduate high school together, go to the same college, and get married together. We were supposed to have kids together, and our kids were supposed to be best friends. But while I can still graduate and go to college and get married and have kids, Trey can't do any of those things.

            So what was the point of her short life? That was the question that I asked myself. No twelve year old should be asking themselves existential questions.

            Trey's death wasn't the first time I'd known someone who'd died. My grandfather passed away when I was nine. But my grandfather had been ninety. He'd had a good, long life with a fulfilling career, a happy marriage, and two beautiful children to show for it. His death wasn't sudden, either. His death made sense. I cannot make any sense out of Trey's.

            After two weeks my parents force me to return to school, and the first day goes horribly. Everything reminds me of Trey, and everyone keeps apologizing, and I can't handle it. I have a breakdown and start screeching in the middle of class. My teacher has to carry me out of the classroom and into the nurse's office. The nurse calls my parents and tells them I cannot come back to school. My behavior was deeply disturbing and disruptive to both my fellow classmates and my teacher.

            The next morning my parents come into my room with an announcement.

            "We're moving." My mother begins.

            "To a farm." My father continues.

            I stare at them, uncomprehending.

            "Why?" I finally manage to croak out. My voice is hoarse from all of the screaming.

            My parents look at each other with wary expressions.

            "Sweetie," My mother says gently. She speaks to me softly, as though I am a wounded animal, and I suppose that's what I am to her now; that's how she sees me.

            "We think a change of scenery would be good for you. The counselor suggested it..." She realizes as soon as the words slip past her lips that they were the wrong ones to say.

            "I hate the counselor!" I cry, bursting into tears. "I don't want to leave my house! I won't want to leave my school! I don't want to leave my friends! I don't want to live on a farm!"

            I can't believe they are doing this to me. Haven't I lost enough already?

            "It's for your own good." My father backs my mother up. "You'll like the farm. We'll get chickens and goats, and you can name all of them and help care for them. It will be fun and educational."

            "What about your jobs?" I ask my parents, my voice desperate.
            "We quit." My father says. "We're going to become farmers."

            My parents both grew up in the city. Neither one has ever been to a farm. They know nothing about tending to livestock or growing crops. How are we going to have enough money for food and clothing? How will they afford the new house? These are more questions a twelve year old shouldn't have to ask. Finances shouldn't be my concern. Everything about what has happened beginning with Trey's death is supremely messed up.

            Sensing my distress, my mother comes to sit down on my bed beside me and wraps one of her arms around my waist and draws me close. "It's all going to be alright, Sweetie." She murmurs to me, stroking my brunette curls. "Everything will turn out alright, you'll see."

            I sigh. "I want to stay." I whimper, though I know I can't go back to my school. Not for the memories or for the embarrassment.

            "I know, baby." My father says. He sits down on my other side and takes my hand into his. "This is a scary change for all of us, but we're doing it together, as a family."

            I gnaw on my lower lip. It's a nervous habit that I picked up from Trey. She bit her nails down to stubs, too. I could never do that, though; I love painting them too much. I used to paint Trey's toenails during our sleepovers, and then she'd do mine. We will never do that again, and the realization makes my gut clench.

            My parents proceed to help me pack away my belongings into my two bright pink suitcases. My furniture will have to be loaded onto a moving truck, which is coming this afternoon. As soon as we finish packing we're going to eat one last breakfast in the house and then we'll leave. I know then that this is something they've been planning, and not a sudden decision as I'd at first assumed.

            I almost don't take my framed picture of Trey and I smiling at our fifth grade graduation. We were so excited to attend middle school together. I will go to another school now, but Trey won't. We spent our whole lives just waiting to be fifteen and go to high school; to go to our first school dances, have our first boyfriends and our first kisses. I will still have those things, but Trey can't.

            My mother sees me holding the photograph and places a hand on my shoulder.

            "Take it." She urges me. "You'll regret it if you don't."

            I wonder if that me from such a short time ago had known what would happen to the brown eyed, gap toothed smiling girl beside her in the picture, would she still look as happy as she does captured in that moment? Will she ever be happy again? Can she be?

            My mother wraps the frame in tissue paper and places it in the smaller of my two suitcases. I don't think I can hang it on the wall of my new room as I have this one. I don't think I can ever bear to look at it again.

            Breakfast, which is soggy cereal swimming in milk, is eaten in silence. My little brother, Arthur, who is eight, glares at me while I move my spoon around my bowl in circles but don't eat. He blames me for having to leave his school and his friends behind, and it's no use telling him that it's mom and dad's fault, not mine; that I didn't want this, either. It's not like he'd believe me.

            As my father pulls out of our driveway I don't look back. I can't. I close my eyes until it's been long enough that I'm sure we're not in my neighborhood anymore and then I open them. I stare out at the passing scenery as it gradually changes from houses closely packed together to ones spread farther and farther apart. The closer we get to our new house, the less and less signs of civilization I see, and the more and more silos and corn fields, with the occasional herd of cattle or horses grazing.

            I don't see any malls or movie theaters, and not even the new school I will be attending. I wonder what kids who live out here do for fun. They probably work so hard on their family's farms that they don't have time for fun, I think miserably.

            Our new house is one story and has a circular gravel driveway. It's butter yellow in color. My father parks the car and we all clamber out to unload it. Peeking over the roof of the house I see the top of a white barn. The yard is enormous.

            The front door opens into a decent sized living space, though I imagine once it's crowded with all of our furniture that has yet to arrive it won't look so large. The room behind it is the kitchen, and to the right of the kitchen are two doors, one which leads to the tiny, cramped laundry room, and the other which leads to a short hallway with another three doors. The first door on the right is a long and narrow bathroom. There is only one for the four of us. Our last house had three. The second door on the right is my parent's bedroom, and the door at the end of the hall leads to the room I will be sharing with Arthur.

            I have never had to share a room with my brother before.

            "First you make me move away from all my friends because of her." Arthur whines, pointing an accusing finger in my direction. "And now I don't even get my own room?"

            I wince. It's not as though I like it, either.

            "There's a tree house in the backyard." My father tells Arthur. "Why don't you go play there for a while until all of our things arrive?" He suggests.

            Arthur begrudgingly complies, trudging out the back door and letting it slam shut behind him. I watch him go.

            My father turns to me. "He'll get over it, he just needs time to adjust. We all do."

             I know I will never get used to living here, so how can I expect my little brother to?

            "I want to go home." I tell my father.

            He smiles at me. "This is home now." He replies.

            I shake my head. That's not what I meant. I didn't mean I wanted to return to my old house, even though I do, because it is familiar and warm, and this place is cold, and strange, and empty. I meant that I wanted Trey. But just like she can't grow up, I can't have her.