Moving to Arizona
Jerry was seventeen when his family decided to move out their apartment in the city of Riverdale. They had lived there for nearly ten years. In those ten years, Jerry had made dozens of friends from around the city. He didn’t understand why they had to move. Jerry wished he could stay behind while his family left to Arizona. He knew things weren’t ever going to be the same if he left Riverdale, California.
“Why do we have to move?” Jerry would ask, sounding depressed. His parents had answered that question countless times already. Despite knowing the answer, Jerry was reluctant to believe it, so he kept asking. “Why do we have to move?” Jerry asked time after time. The simple truth was that Jerry and his family just could not afford to live in Riverdale any longer. It was hard for Jerry to accept that truth.
On the day before the move, Jerry walked around the familiar places in Riverdale. He walked passing the oak tree where he first kissed a girl. He walked past the corner mini-market where he would bring back milk every Sunday. He passed by his high school where he had learned and discovered his love of math and science.
Jerry knocked on the doors of friends’ houses to say one final goodbye. “Good bye, Tom,” Jerry told his best friend. “Goodbye Jane,” Jerry told his girlfriend. The night fell when Jerry finally finished bidding his farewells to everybody he knew. “Goodbye, Riverdale,” Jerry said, looking out his bedroom window as he went to sleep. That night, Jerry dreamed of moving to Arizona and making friends on the first day there. Everything in Arizona seemed great in his dream. The following morning when he awoke, Jerry no longer felt so bad about moving. “Everything is going to be all right,” Jerry said to himself as he stepped into the moving van on his way to Arizona.
