“Honey, guess what? We are moving to Heber!” My mother said this was not a punitive measure, but she had to relocate for fiscal reasons at her company. I did not contemplate that at all. I ran to my bedroom, plopped down on my bed and started crying my eyes out. It was pathetic that we had to move, but I realized we had no choice. I grew up in Phoenix all my life, all my friends were here. I shared the news with my friends, they were not too happy.
I tried to convince my mom to drive to Heber daily, but after looking it up on Google, I realized it was not feasible. Less than one week later, I had to say goodbye to all my friends and we packed all our belongings in the car to drive to our new home. We were driving for what seemed like days when we finally arrived. Our new home was a vile apartment that contained two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room smaller than the two bedrooms put together, and a kitchen the size of a closet. My mom and I were both hungry, so we called a pizza place that we had passed on the way. They said they would not deliver to us for some obscure reason. Therefore, my mom and I went to the gas station and bought some food. I hoped that this was not a precedent of how we would eat in Heber.

My mom enrolled me into school the next day; she said she did not want the move to interrupt my studies. Although, I tried to convince her to let me stay home to help unpack, I was unsuccessful. The school was about ten minutes from where we were staying. On my way to my first class, I realized that people were gaping at me. Their cloths were mundane with little color or flare. While mine were the opposite, I was bizarre to them. I concluded that I might need to update my repertoire of clothing to fit in.

The first day of school and those that followed were vindictive. No one talked to me except the teachers. Students would throw food at me when I was looking for a place to sit at lunch. They did this to remind me that I was in their habitat, and for some furtive reasons I was not welcome there. Their pretentious attitudes made a pragmatic reconcile impossible.

My mom was having similar situations at her work, but our deficient bank account dictated no shopping for at least a month. One of the few friends my mom had made ironically invited us to attend her church on Sunday. We were both happy because we attended church regularly back in Phoenix. Hopefully, they could depict us some of the local implicit “dos and don’ts”.

The church was a nurturing place that dwindled our newness feelings. I toned down my shoes and wore a white skirt to pacify the few friends I had made. Their avid church events lasted all day. It seemed a bit long for us, but we did not have much to do anyways.

Things seemed to be getting better. I had made some friends and so did my mom. The paradox to this situation was that this church was not conducive to our prior understandings of the Bible. We felt like we were faltering in our beliefs with the new church. The gist of their church scared us. We had a choice to render, we could either feign it, or stop attending.

Our ambivalent thoughts, and praying lead us to leave this church and find another one. Now work and school were terrible. We felt hampered at every turn we took and wondered if this was a viable solution. My esteem started to dwindle, and I begged my mom to leave.

Since I was unhappy, I went to see Ms.Hansen, the school counselor, who suggested that I go back to church and fake it, because all churches were fallible, and we would learn to live with it. She became aloof when I said no. This action evoked exhaustive hate with every step I took.

My fellow classmates that were once my friends turned into the animals I had seen the days prior to attending the new church. In fact, the few friends that had empathy for me when I first arrived disowned me, and were becoming animals as well. What they did to make fun of me was even worse than before. I would be walking down the hall minding my own business, when all of the sudden a group of wild animals would come storming down the hall and lock me in one of their lockers. It seemed to me that their consensus of me was detrimental. My mom would call and complain numerous times, but the secretary would always tell her that all she was doing was depleting her time.

After being tormented for two more weeks my mom finally transcended her “things will change” stance, and decided that it would be best if we moved back to Phoenix. However, she informed me that I could not waive in life when things got to overbearing.