A Love Like War

Alright, that’s enough about grade seven. Let’s go to the middle of grade eight.

“Kristin, I have to talk to you about something,” my mom called from the living room.

I stood from my seat at the kitchen table and shut my laptop, bringing the large bag of crisps with me. I sat down on the couch next to my mom.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“So, I talked to your father,” she began.

“Oh, God. What happened?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.

“It’s not bad, at least not completely. Well, he finally agreed to give me the rest of the child support now. He doesn’t want to deal with the court drama anymore and figured it would just be easier to give me the money now,” she said, a smile crossing her face.

“So what’s the rest of the news?” I asked, knowing there was something bad about what she was about to say.

“So, Isobel and I agreed--since we’ve been planning this since high school--we’re moving.” She tightened her expression, and I knew she was expecting an outburst from me.

“We’re moving? Where?” I asked.

She hesitated, contemplating whether or not she should tell me.

“America.”

I looked at her for a minute, waiting for the “just kidding,” but it didn’t come.

“Are you serious?” I asked her. “America?!”

“Kristin, calm down. Both families are moving there, so you’ll know Alex. It’s not like you have to start at a school where you don’t know anybody. Come on, it’ll be a great experience! We decided on Maryland. It’s got great high schools that you can go to, it’s right near New York, which has great tourist sites, and gosh, it’s going to be fun! Please, just trust me on this.”

I sighed. I knew I wasn’t going to talk my mom out of anything, so I gave up.

“When are we leaving?”

“Well Isobel and I have found a house that’s like, two houses that are attached to each other, and might’ve already bought it . . . We’re moving in two weeks.”

I closed my eyes. I was going to leave my friends, move to America, live in the same building as Alex, go to a new school where the only person I knew was Alex, and probably have to deal with Alex ten times more than I already do. In my opinion, that’s way too much Alex in my future. Not okay.

---

Moving day already? I thought to myself as I sat up on my mattress that now sat on the floor of my otherwise empty bedroom. We’d packed up mostly everything the night before so we could make it to our flight on time without having to get up at the crack of dawn.

I quickly changed into my softest pair of grey sweats and pulled on a deep purple tank top, zipping up a grey sweater that matched my sweat pants. After pulling on Ugg boots, I stomped into the bathroom. I yanked a brush through my chocolate brown hair, which now came down past my elbows. I made a mental note to myself to trim it once we got to Maryland; I had exceedingly dead ends.

I washed my face to wake me up, going with the idea of no makeup. My blue eyes had never needed much makeup to make them pop. They were the one thing I really liked about my appearance.

I trudged down the stairs and greeted my mom with a grunt as I made my way to the fridge angrily. I pulled out a container of raspberries and began snacking on them.

“Honey, is all of your stuff packed?” My mom asked me.

“Mhm,” I replied.

“And you have a bag for the plane?”

My mind flashed to the backpack that I’d stuffed my notepad, sketchpad, iPod, and cell phone, and a book into. “Yep,” I told her after swallowing a berry.

“Good. We’re going to head over to Isobel’s in about an hour, so make sure you’re ready.”

“Kay,” I said.

I walked back up to my room and decided to put a bit more effort into my appearance. I took a quick shower, hoping to calm myself down--because no matter how bored I managed to act, I was ridiculously nervous about moving to America.

As I stood under the warm water, my brain kicked into cliché “what ifs” for the millionth time in the past two weeks. What if I didn’t make any friends? What if I was forced to follow Alex around at school when we got there? Or what if I had to follow him around, but then he made friends faster than me and ditched me? He’d always been better at making friends than I was, and though I probably had way more depth to my personality than he, Alex was always the popular one of the two of us. Then I wondered--What if rumors popped up about Alex and I? Would people think we were related? Gah, I couldn’t even fathom how much I would hate life if I had to be considered related to him. What if people thought we had some kind of romance going on? If we both showed up to America at the same time and both started blabbing to people in the same accent, people would surely suspect something.

In the end, I decided I would just have to find out when I got there. After all, if I thought about this much longer, I’d make us late to the flight.

Well, it was either that or the fact that the shower water was cold. Either way, I turned off the tap and got out of the shower. I re-dressed and blow-dried my hair before finally making my way back downstairs, only to find my mother waiting by the door, carryon back in hand.

“We’ve got everything packed and the truck’s on its way to the airport to be shipped. Now all we have to do is grab the Gaskarths and get on the plane,” my mom said, a small chuckle at the end. I’ll never understand why she thought she was so funny.

“Let’s go then,” I replied monotonously, and we walked out and got in the car. As we pulled out of the driveway I looked up at the house I’d lived in for thirteen years. I smiled a bit as every memory from the house flashed through my mind, and I sniffed back a couple of tears.

Alex answered the door. I was amused to see that he was wearing something similar to what I was--sweat pants and a large sweatshirt--and his facial expression didn’t differ much from how I felt.

“Hey,” he said, then moved out of the way to let us in his house. Or, well, his old house.

“Hello, Alex,” my mom said to him in the sugary sweet voice that she only used when talking to “kids.”

“My mom’s upstairs getting ready. I’ve got to go finish packing some stuff that I’m taking on the plane,” he said, and started turning to walk upstairs to his room.

“Oh, all right. Kristin, why don’t you go help Alex finish packing so we can speed this all up a bit?” I sighed at my mother’s obliviousness, but then silently followed Alex upstairs.

Even when it only contained two large suitcases and a backpack, Alex’s room was messy. The clothes he was planning to pack were strewn across the floor, and the backpack was open, its contents spilled out in the far corner of the room under a large window.

“So . . .” I began, not sure why I was even up here with him.

He didn’t reply for a minute; just knelt down and threw half of the clothes into one suitcase. Then he said, “So . . . How do you feel about this whole moving thing?”

I sighed. “Not thrilled. You?”

“I fucking hate our moms for it, sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, so do I,” I admitted. “Hey, at least you can make friends. I lack skill in that area just a bit.”
 Alex laughed dryly. “You realize we’re both going to make friends in America, right? Americans are so stupid. They follow around anyone with an accent, like moths to a flame.”

“I suppose. But I’m not really into the idea of attention just because I have an English accent,” I replied. I was a bit confused as to why Alex was being so nice to me, but I figured it was because he knew I was going to be his only acquaintance going into school.

“Eh, it might be kinda cool. Any kind of attention is better than being ignored completely.”

And that was when I understood why Alex was so obnoxious. He must’ve had it in his head that as long as people were talking about you, then you’re set. No wonder he and I never got along; we had completely different opinions on everything.

“So do you actually need help with this, or am I just making you feel awkward?” I asked.

“Nah, I don’t need help. But since you’re here, you might as well take a suitcase so we only have to make on trip,” he laughed, then handed me one of the now fully packed suitcases. I grasped the handle and attempted to roll it down the hallway.

“You have a lot of clothes, oh my God,” I laughed.

“I know. I probably should’ve gone through them and gotten rid of a few before moving, but whatever,” Alex said.

Two hours later, we were on the plane. I was pretty sure it was supposed to be around a six hour flight, so I made myself comfortable in the first class plane seat. Of course, our mothers had forced Alex and I to sit together so they could sit together two rows back. I was becoming convinced that they’d stop at nothing until Alex and I were best mates.

Alex continued his nice streak throughout the flight. We talked about a lot of things once we got through the first half hour of awkward small talk; Americans, what school would be like, what we’d miss the most about England, and then somehow we got on the topic of music.

“I just don’t understand how you can actually enjoy Blink-182,” I laughed, waiting for him to defend his favorite band again.

“I don’t understand how you can’t!” He exclaimed, half amused and half frustrated by my aversion to his the music he listened to.

“They’re just . . . I don’t know, dumb,” I said. “I mean do they even have one serious or emotional song?”

“Yes! I’ve already told you this, “Adam’s Song” is both serious and emotional and it’s one of their most popular songs. And that’s not the only one,” he said, not taking notice of the fact that he was ranting. “Anyway, though, that’s not the point of the band. They’re a funny band, they’re fun to dance to and their songs cheer you up. There are other bands that I like that are more ‘serious and emotional.’” He put air quotes around the last part.

I laughed. “Whatever. I’ll always love Green Day the most.”

“Wait, you like Green Day? There’s one good band! I’m proud of you,” he said, smirking as he ran a hand through his shaggy hair.

“Oh, stop acting like you have superior taste in music. Everyone likes different kinds of music. If they didn’t, then tell me what the point would be of having genres,” I said. Secretly hoping he was as dumb as most of the popular boys I knew, I was starting to whip out my vocabulary to try and confuse him.

“Alright, touché. But you can’t honestly say techno has ever been a good genre,” I chuckled.

I paused, trying to put together any sort of a rebuttal, but coming up short. “Good point.”

“Exactly. Hey, do you have any paper? I wanna play Tic-Tac-Toe.” The fourteen year old grinned like a child half his age in a toy store.

I laughed and rolled my eyes, but still pulled out my sketchpad and a couple of pens.

We played Tic-Tac-Toe and a variation of other games you play on a road trip or on an airplane for about an hour, until the sun outside of the plane started to dim. Alex decided he was going to sleep, then put his headphones in on full blast. I’d done the same, but I couldn’t sleep at all. I sat there thinking about how my new life would be, and that’s when it finally set in for me.

I was leaving my friends and everybody else that I’d known my whole life. I didn’t know what to expect in America, because I knew it wouldn’t be anything like movies. I tried to think of the positives; I could totally start over in school . . . I could visit some cool tourist attractions . . . I didn’t have to deal with the annoying cheerleaders I used to go to school with . . . There was just one problem; it wouldn’t be home.

It didn’t take long for us to be in the Baltimore airport. Then I blinked and we were on the shuttle which took us to our cars that had been shipped overseas along with us. I’d been zoning out for the past half hour, my headphones still stuck in my ears, damaging my eardrums. Then my mom and I were in our car, driving around town. I looked out my window, the scene being painted on the other side of the glass imprinting itself into my brain.

This is home, I thought. This is home now. Get used to it.

The house was a large, sky blue duplex. My mom and I would occupy the one on the right, Alex and Isobel and Peter on the left. Inside, the walls were the color of coffee with a lot of creme and sugar added. My room was the same color, and I’d be allowed to paint it after my mom sent the next check in to the real estate agent.

We moved the beds in first; we’d move everything else in the next day. Once we had the beds moved in, we all went out to dinner at a burger joint set in the 50s--Johnny Rockets, that’s what it was called.

The food was greasier than the food at fast-food places in England. I sighed. Get used to it, I told myself again, but I knew I wouldn’t get used to it any time soon.

I knew I’d have to eventually, though, because after all, this was home now.