The landscape changes from forests to open fields as we cross the border from Kansas to Missouri. I sighed as we crossed over to the interstate, my mind drifting to my home back in Walnut. My friend Samantha. My parents. I missed my parents more than I've ever missed something. I wanted to see their smiling faces. Listen to them speak, hear their breath, their heartbeats. But I couldn't. Not anymore. Because one drunk driver took their van swirving. And they both died on impact.

I should have done something, told them not to go out there that night. I should have made up some excuse so they wouldn't have to leave and die. But there was nothing I could have done. And now, I was stuck living with a woman I knew nothing about and in the middle of nowhere. At least there is that, one feeling of home.

Let's just hope I can survive one more year and I can leave her and start a new. But what if I can't adjust to this change? What if I can't handle the preasure of living on my own? Who would I turn to? I don't have anyone else but the woman whom I am now going to live with. What am I going to do?

A million questions churned and swirled in my mind until I thought I was going to faint and then suddenly the car jolted to a stop. I was suddenly confused and my mind set on different questions than my original panic.

"We're here!" My now guardian, Aunt Amelie, I should say, chirped from the front seat.

I guess with my mind so occupied with questions I barely realized we had made it off the freeway and to her house. It took me a second to sink in what exactly it was that she said before I unbuckled and escaped the car. A new place, new life, and a new beginning. What could go wrong?

Sighing, I move to the back of her van and unhitch the door. Grabbing the first box I see, I make my way towards her house. Or should I also say, my house.