Chasing the New Girl - (Complete)

Chapter 1 - Moving Sucks

"Mom! It's not too late to change your mind and stay in New York. We really don't HAVE to move you know?" Jolie pleaded, hoping by some miracle her Mom would come to her senses and realize how ridiculous this was.

Her Mom laughed.  "Nice try sweetheart, but we're NOT cancelling the move. This will be a nice change of pace for us; fresh air, green grass, and spending time with family. Getting out of New York for a while will do both of us some good. You'll see," her Mom told her with a smile, sliding her sunglasses on as she backed their White Range Rover out of the driveway. "Might as well settle in and try to enjoy the thirteen hour drive back home."

"It's not my home," Jolie grumbled under her breath, slumping down in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest as she looked at their house one last time. She let out an exhale, looking longingly at the beautiful mansion she had grown up in and called home since she was five years old. She was really going to miss it.

Then she watched as the houses of her two best friends, Kerrigan and Molly, passed by her window and they came running outside waving. She rolled the window down and stuck her head out, waving back as she bit back her tears. She had already spent most of her morning with them, hugging and crying as they helped her pack. This move had come up without warning so they didn't even have time to throw her a going away party or anything.

The three of them had been inseparable since Kindergarten so being forced to live thirteen hours away from them was going to be like torture. Just the thought of trying to make new friends in Illinois made her feel sad because she didn't want new friends. She wanted to keep her old ones, but she knew things would inevitably change and they would gradually drift apart since they would never see each other anymore. She watched as they disappeared off in the distance and a tear rolled down her cheek  as she sniffled, wondering when she would see them again.

Everything was happening so fast that Jolie hadn't had time to mentally prepare herself for all of the changes that had suddenly been thrown at her. The reason they had to pick up and move without warning was because her Mom just found out her Dad had been having a secret affair for the past two years with his hot, young secretary that was half his age.

Her Mom was shocked and heartbroken and decided to take Jolie and move back to her hometown where her family lived, so she'd have them close by for emotional support. Jolie was actually going to be going to her Mom's old high school, Riverview High. She'd be living right down the street from her Grandma and all her aunts, uncles and cousins, when she normally only got to see them once a year when they visited Illinois every summer.

Being around family was going to be nice, but Jolie didn't share her Mom's excitement about the move at all. She wasn't looking forward to starting her Senior year without her two best friends, at a tiny little high school half way across the country full of strangers. Just the thought of it made her feel like she was going to be sick.

She was bored so she decided to Google her new school and she found out there were only a hundred and fifty people in her grade level and five hundred in the entire high school. Her old school in New York City had a thousand students just in her grade, so it was going to be a big adjustment to say the least.

She also Googled her new town and saw that the population of Riverview, Illinois was only eight thousand and judging by the search results, there was literally NOTHING to do there. Unless you counted the Facebook posts about yard sales, church pitch-in dinners and the Annual Country Club fundraiser, which didn't sound interesting at all. She couldn't even imagine living in a place so boring. She had a strong feeling she was gonna hate it there, but at this point the chances of changing her Mom's mind about the move didn't look very good.

Jolie stuck her ear buds back in and closed her eyes, listening to music and visualizing that she was back in New York with her two best friends, Kerrigan and Molly and that this whole move to Illinois was just a really, really bad dream.