Everything was perfect in Aimeric’s world. He was almost 16 years old, had great family – including both parents and two other brothers – he had a wonderful girlfriend, a great job, was doing well in school, and had a nice house in Grenoble. In August, his family was going down to Toulon for a few weeks before his father was supposed to start his new job Seyssinet-Pariset, only a few minutes away. On February 26th, Aimeric’s father came home. “Aimeric, Marie, Jean, Luc, come down here. I have something important to say.” He was seated at the head of the dining room table, a grave expression on his face. “Do you remember your aunt, Stephanie?” Of course everyone did, they all saw her less than a year ago when she visited from New York where she lived, she was also responsible for securing his father’s new job. “She was hit by a car this morning. The funeral will be in two weeks. I already booked tickets for us all to attend.” There was a deafening silence following his news.

Two weeks later, all five of them were in America for the first time. All Aimeric could think about was how much he hated it. The smells, the noise, the people, everything. All he wanted was to be alone for a while, but he was in a place that never seemed to relax, never let him sit in silence and think.

When the family arrived back in Grenoble, everything seemed different. Everyone was on edge. Aimeric’s entire family seemed to be whispering about things, but when he asked what they were saying, nobody said anything. In mid-April, Aimeric’s father came home again, saying the exact same thing he had back in February. “Aimeric, Marie, Jean, Luc, come down here. I have something important to say.” When they all came down, he was sitting at the head of the dining room table, just like before, with a similar expression on his face. “My job in Seyssinet-Pariset fell through”, he said. Because he got his job through his sister Stephanie, when she was gone, it made perfect sense that he might not still have it after she died, but Aimeric never considered that. “Fortunately I found a higher paying job, and a better one for my career, but we have to move to New York. I’ve talked to your brothers, and they are willing to make this move and your mother and I already found a house in New Providence.” All he could do was run to his room and lock the door. Why didn’t they tell him earlier? Why did both Luc and Jean know, but he didn’t? Why did they have to do this? Why didn’t they consider his input?

They said their goodbyes and left in late July, right before they were supposed to leave for Toulon. His father’s company had provided all the furniture for their house as well as a company car, a big boxy automatic Lexus that got 18 miles per gallon. Aimeric hated every bit of it. While his father was at work, his mother went out of her way taking him to different sites. They went into Manhattan and saw the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, they went down the shore, they went to the Bronx Zoo, and they went down to Philadelphia to see the liberty bell. She even enrolled him in a camp in Medford. That camp was what made Aimeric decide that he was going to have nothing to do with America. He had started learning English in school in fifth grade, but he never really got the hang of it. Everyone spoke so fast, and they all had American accents, which made it even harder for him to understand. He chose his bunk as far away from everyone as he could.
When he started school at New Providence high school, he was instantly popular, but he hated every bit of it. All the other kids thought it was so cool that he was from France. From day one, Aimeric decided that he wasn’t going to speak any English. Eventually the other kids stopped paying attention to him, because after a few weeks of trying to communicate, they gave up. In the first week of school, a group of guys invited him to their house down the shore, but even though he knew every word they said, he didn’t respond. Eventually he started getting left out of events. The other guys went into town every day after school and hung out at di Maio, they went down the shore, and into the city on weekends, but he never came along. Parent-Teacher conferences came, and all the teachers said the same thing “Aimeric is a great kid, but he won’t speak English, and he doesn’t have any friends”. From that day on, his parents only spoke English at home, which infuriated him. His own parents wouldn’t even speak their language.

A year passed, and Aimeric started speaking English. He tried to hang out with the guys that invited him out before, but they’d moved on without him. He was a loner, albeit and English speaking loner, but a loner none the less. When he was trudging down the corridor on his way to Spanish class, he saw a sign, saying “NPHS Spring Musical, Auditions Wednesday & Thursday”. He walked by, but turned around and stared more intently at it. “This might be it!” he thought. Come Wednesday, he auditioned, and was cast as the Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

From that point forward, he started making friends. After rehearsal, he hung out with the other “theatre people”. He went into the city with some of the other guys to see Broadway. Things really started turning around for him. The guy that invited him down the shore the first year had just been suspended for possession of crack, making Aimeric realize that he really was hanging out with the right crowd.

His senior year was amazing, it felt like it lasted only a month. After being accepted into Pomona, Colgate, Carleton, NYU, and many other universities, Aimeric really started feeling at home in the United States.

When he left for college the next year in California, however, he was new again, and he had to start all over again. This time, though, he felt as if he knew what to do.