Furry Humans

❝Adventure must start with running away from home.❞

ABIGAIL

I could only stand in front of my parents with a bewildered expression, the shock of their words rendering me speechless as I attempt to process what they said. Meeting their gazes, I hope my eyes speak what my lips couldn’t, they only sympathetically look at me from their positions on the sofa.

“Can you repeat that?” I finally speak, swallowing thickly.

Dad’s eyes soften as he moves to sit on the edge of the sofa. “We’re moving.”

“We can’t move,” I immediately protest, brows scrunched together in a frown of confusion.

Sighing deeply and taking a step back, I search their eyes for more answers than what they provide me, when I come up with nothing, I shut my eyes and bring my hand to my face.

I press my fingers into my eyes until I see stars, speaking with a dry tongue, “This is our home.”

“I know, pumpkin, but this for the best and we have no choice no other choice. The company wanted to switch locations, and being in the position that I’m in, we have to go along with it.”

Mom nodded her head in agreement, patting Dad’s arm as she gives a small sad smile, a smidge of something else lying there. I paid no mind to it.

“On the bright side, you can make friends,” she added on, an attempt to ease the confusion that runs through me.

It didn’t work. If anything, it only causes a sense of anxiety to zip through the arteries to my heart, my skin breaking out into a cold sweat, small tremors running down my spine. Things weren’t adding up with their words, just yesterday things were going fine and all of a sudden we were leaving; we’ve called this place home for so many years with countless fond memories we’ve created and we’re just up and leaving. . . like that.

“I don’t want friends,” I insist. “I’m perfectly fine with how things are now, for all we know, he might come back home,” I end off with a little hopefulness in my voice.

The second the last of my words slip out my mouth and into the air, both their bodies go rigid. Gone was the soft exterior that Dad presented and replaced was a cold demeanor, Mom seemed to notice the shift as well, her eyes flickering back and forth from him and me.

She clears her throat looking anywhere but at me as she unloops her arm from Dad’s and press her fingertips together. “Honey. . .” she trails off, straightening her spine to sit taller, licking her lips. “This is a great opportunity for your Dad and we can’t focus on other things—”

The short fuse of anger inside me burns a raging fire so quickly that it catches me by surprise, yet I let it consume the words that spew from my mouth. “I’m not leaving! This is all ridiculous, you both are acting like cowards that—”

“That’s enough Abigail!” Dad suddenly bellows, eyes flashing with his own fire of anger, in the process of cutting off the rest of my sentence. My eyes widen. “We didn’t raise a child to be disrespectful nor speak to us any kind of way! We’re leaving whether you like it or not, even if I have to drag you out by your feet.”

I stagger back as if his words physically touched me and knocked me off balance. Shock and hurt take over my features, my mouth opens then closes, the ability to process any words stolen from me.

At my silence, he rose to his full height from the sofa, his expression hard and stand-offish, one I’ve never seen on him before.

“You will go to your room and stay there until morning; that’s when we leave,” he tells me, his eyes holding me in place. “Understood?”

I swallow the lump that accumulated in my throat just as my vision blurred with the following sensation of burning behind my eyes, his figure nothing but a watery image.

“Yes, sir,” it was low, but I’m sure he heard me.

I glance over at Mom through watery eyes, she seemed as if she wanted to say something, the look in her eyes more sympathetic than the one she gave me earlier but before she could say anything, I turn and rush away up to my room, slamming the door shut once I was safely inside. I pressed my back against the surface of the door, tilting my head up and gaze aimlessly at the ceiling.

I could hear their muffled voices through the door, arguing with each other. Shaking my head, I release a shaky breath before moving my eyes away from the ceiling. Something catches my attention from the corner of my eye and my feet move on their own accord as I find myself walking toward my dresser.

My hand reaches out and grabs the wooden picture frame that was settled on top. I glide my thumb across the glassed picture, looking down at the snapped memory.

A boy, the age of twelve, had his arm slung over the girl who seemed younger than him. He was looking down at her with a loving expression and a smile painting his lips, they both had brown hair; the girl’s a darker shade. She grinned widely ahead holding up a peace sign, her face resembling the look of pure happiness.

I was snapped out of my daze when something splattered against the picture. I watched as the drop of water trickled a slow path on the surface. Glancing up, I search the ceiling for any leakage but found none, my hand instinctively reaches up to my face, feeling the wetness upon my cheek that soon coated my fingertips, I then realized I was crying— a foreign feeling, almost.

I chuckle humorlessly, wiping my eyes as I place the frame back where it was. Fed up with emotions for one night, I stride over to my bed. Not bothering to change clothes, I slip underneath the covers, time slowing and eventually, I fell into a dreamless slumber.

“I think we’re set!”

Dad grunts as he lifted the last of the luggage into the trunk of the SUV while I was facing the house, trying to imprint the good times I had left into memory. My eyes scan the exterior, trying to memorize every detail and creak of it for when I close my eyes and think of home this image will pop up in my head.

“Bumble Bee!”

I felt a hand on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze; I didn’t have to look to know it was Dad. His large hand squeezes my shoulder once more as he sighs, his other hand on his hip while we both stared up at the house from the end of the driveway.

“Masey, I love you!”

“I’m going to miss this place, don’t you agree?” he asks, looking down at me, his expression soft.

“Don’t leave me, big brother. .”

I shrug his hand off and turn away from him and the house, stuffing my hands in my back pockets.

“You have no idea,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

I start walking towards the car, spotting Mom standing by the passenger door, her hands locked in front of her. She shifted her gaze behind me and nodded towards my form, most likely urging Dad to do something.

I hear a shuffle of movement, “Abigail look I—”

“Can we just go?” I sigh, shrugging off the remaining sentence of his. “We have a new home to get to, don’t we?”

With his shoulders tense and jaw locked, he stays silent and nods his head as I slide into the car and slam the door shut. I hear both driver and passenger side doors open and close. With the pressing feeling of tension inside the car, I pull out my phone and quickly put in my headphones to stop any invite of a conversation and face the window.

The car starts with a rumble and lurches forward, my eyes refuse to shift away from the screen of my phone as we drive away, yet, I still find myself glancing back; watching as the house gets smaller and smaller in the distance until it was gone from my sight.

I heave out a deep sigh for the last time of the day, the glass fogging with my breath: my mind slowly clouding with thoughts.

“I miss you. . . Mason.”

Maryland, here we come, seventeen hours from now; and we’ll be at our new ‘home’.