A Rose as Black as your Heart

(2) Goodbye, Canada. Hello, Soggy country.

Chapter 2

Savannah and I clattered around my room, which was stacked with boxes. Heaving a sigh, I dumped a load of books in a large cardboard box. Well, when I say a load, I mean about three. Those are all the books I own. I’m not really that much of a bookie person.

Speaking of bookie people, my best friend Savannah was sprawled on my black fur rug, leafing through a book on palmistry, her latest fortune-telling technique. She was supposed to be helping me pack, but she was too absorbed in her book. She was fascinated by the subject of divination, and pictured herself as kind of psychic. I didn’t really believe in all that future-telling stuff, but Savannah seemed pretty convinced by it, and since it didn’t bother me, I humoured her.

“So apparently,” She called out to me. “I’m going to live for 45 years, and be married for ...52... No wait, that can’t be right...”

“Maybe the wedding vows got muddled up.” I told her, my sarcasm slightly ruined by my breathlessness; I had been lugging boxes around for hours.

“Hahaha.” Savannah rolled her eyes. “You seriously need to find some way of speaking without always using sarcasm. The people in England are gonna think you’re mad.”

“They won’t be wrong.” I muttered. I did use sarcasm quite a bit- okay, a lot- but it was just one of my many talents I liked to show off.

There I go again. I wondered briefly if people ever used sarcasm in England. I guessed they did, otherwise it wouldn’t be a word in the Oxford English dictionary.

“I can’t believe your Mom is going to make you go to that soggy country. You know it rains almost every day there?” Savannah added, staring at me, her big green eyes laced with pity.

“I know. Matt told me. He’s one of the reasons I’m going to the stupid country in the first place.”

I had lived in Belleville, Canada all my life, and loved everything about it. The sun in summer. The snow in winter. The people. The river. The sea. All of it was familiar and comforting, even if I was the only person in the whole town who didn’t really like the new mall, and I was mostly considered an outsider. But to Mom, staying in the house was like being in a baseball game; three strikes and you were out. I’d had all mine. Strike one: Dad moved out to England. Strike two: Matt moved out to join him on his gap year, leaving me and Mom on our own. Strike three: Dad had died. I was out. Don’t ask me how any of those things were my fault. I think Mom was just looking for a reason to throw me out. We weren’t exactly close.

It had been a week since Dad’s funeral, and already she was moving me out. I looked around my familiar white and black room with a pang of sadness as I twisted the rose bracelet I had found at Dad’s funeral around my wrist. I was going to really miss this place.

“Aha!” Savannah’s triumphant cry pulled me out of my thoughts, but with difficulty, like she was tugging me out of deep, heavy waters. “I’ve figured it out! Tell me I’m not a genius.”

“You’re not a genius.” I told her obediently. She shot me a frustrated look, then continued to study her palm.