Moving On Out

“Hey Terry,” I said cheerily.

 “Hey Annie, could you hold on for a second?” he sounded confused.

“Sure.” As I waited, I looked outside, towards the darkening, dull, not promising, and cloudy sky.

I heard yelling in the background.  Straining my ears, I heard what they were saying.

“What are you doing? Telling me I’m moving to Toronto, Canada in two days? You guys just told me that we were just leaving to another neighborhood, not one in Canada! Why did you lie to me, and you guys said we were going to move in a year, and now it’s moved down to two days? No wonder you guys were in such a rush to pack.” That was the first time I heard a yelling Terry in all the years of our friendship, and let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty, it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever witnessed. Usually he was really self-contained, and he never broke out in anger. In fact, I’m the one who’s not very self-contained.  My heart stopped. I slammed the phone down- it rattled.

            My mom said something about managing my temper as I stomped up the stairs. My best friend is moving, how is it possible? You don’t understand, Terry and Tiffany had been my best friend since 1st grade. It might not seem like a long time, but to me, it is. I haven’t had a lot of stable relationships. But then again, why am I overreacting? I could just go to his house and help him pack... Or I can sulk here until he leaves. Deciding to get out of the house, I ran out the door, yelled that I would be going to Terry’s house, and headed out. For some reason, the clouds had cleared, revealing a bright blue sky as bright as the most vibrant blue bird. When I arrived, Terry began to question me.

“Why’d you hang up on me? Wait- did you hear what was going on?”

“Sadly,” I replied.

“Yeah, I haven’t told Tiffany yet, but do you want to help me pack? We’re leaving in two days, so we’ve got a lot of packing left to do.”

“Sure, but I feel really bad, I’m going to call her and tell her.”

“No!”

I sent him a look that said ‘When are you going to, anyways’

He gave in, “Fine.”

By the time I had told her, she was freaking out.

“Two days? We like need to throw a farewell party, I mean, He’s our best friend, omigod, we don’t have any more time to spend together.”

“Well, get your butt over here, let’s pack!”

“On my way!”

I ended the call.

“Did she take it well?” Terry asked warily.

“Eh, it depends what you mean by that.”

“Oh god,” I heard him mutter under his breath.

“Now, now, don’t use his name in vain,” we chuckled.

We heard a pitter-patter of footsteps, and you guessed it, it was Tiffany. She ran over and engulfed us in a group hug. “Don’t kill us, he’s not moving yet!” I gasped.

She flushed, and let us go.  The perfect sky now had white clouds adorning the sky, just screaming for us to be outside and have fun like only the awesome threesome could. We linked arms and began to run into his house, through it, his back yard and into the forest, which was behind his backyard. Behind the forest was this huge plain, full of soft, green grass, the kind you see in pictures. Barely able to walk, we were laughing so hard, we finally collapse in a heap of howls. Gradually, our laughter stopped, we glanced at each other and had a relapse. An innocent bystander might think we were high. In fact, we were high; high on laughter. Our arms were outstretched, all hands almost touching; we really were a perfect trio. Usually a group of three doesn’t work, because most of the time, someone will feel left out. We were lying on the ground, each one of us thinking about different things. Terry obviously thinking how they were going to finish packing in time, Tiffany about the farewell party, and me about what I were to do without these two, I’d probably not make it. Just as everything fell into place, he just had to move.  It almost seems as if we all had the same thought at that moment- to get back to work. We jumped up and headed towards the garage, and went back to packing. The mood was different now, not as giddy, happy, and instead more thoughtful.

“Hey, pass that blanket over here,” Tiffany called, making me jump. I glanced around me, looking 360°. Finally, I found the blanket; it wasn’t folded, just furled into a ball. Pulling my arm back, I attempted to throw it to Tiffany. It ended up hitting and landing on Terry’s head. I covered my mouth and shrieked with laughter.