It was three o’clock in the afternoon on a hot, late March day. The South Florida sun shined down on my back as I walked home from school with my twin sister, Jada. When the mile walk was over and we finally reached our house, there was a note on the door. This is not the first time I saw this note. It was an eviction notice. I immediately ripped it off the door and attempted to walk inside, but the door was locked. I looked through the glass window and saw my mother passed out on the couch with an empty bottle of vodka by her side. Jada and I pounded on the door attempting to wake her, but she didn’t even lift her head. After what felt like an hour of yelling and pounding, she finally stumbled to the door.

When she unlocked the door, I handed her the eviction notice. “This is very important and I think you need to see this,” I told my mom with tears running down my face.

She looked at me with red, glazed over eyes and said, “Put it in our mail pile, I will look at it later.” The mail pile was about a foot high filled with bills that were never opened or paid.

A few weeks later, spring break rolled around. Jada and I were excited to have a week off of school, and we decided to have our friend Rebekah over. We had an excellent time together riding horses, drawing pictures, staying up late and spending all day laying in the sun. I felt like I was having the time of my life and I had never been happier. Little did I know that my happiness would very quickly fade away.

The Friday night of spring break, I knew something was terribly wrong. My mom was sitting on the couch crying, but it was unusual because she was completely sober. I asked her what was wrong, but she was short with me and didn’t explain much. All she told me was if anyone came to our house the next day, to let them know she was in court. I was very concerned and confused, but I obeyed my mother’s orders and refrained from asking any more questions.

I awoke the next morning to the blaring noise of my alarm clock. When I got up, I discovered that my mom was gone. Jada, Rebekah and I made ourselves breakfast and enjoyed the beautiful day. The weather was perfect, the sun was shining and I told myself that nothing bad could happen today, despite what was going on last night. I was sitting down scrolling through social media on my laptop when I heard relentless pounding on our front door. Remembering what my mom had told me, I skeptically walked to the front door and picked up my cat to prevent her from darting outside. As soon I reached for the handle, there were several more pounds on the door. This caused my cat to panic, scratch my stomach through my shirt and draw blood. Now I was angry.

I opened the door to find two scary looking male police officers glaring down at me. The officers were as large as two professional football players. “Can I speak to the owner of this house?” the dark haired man on the left asked me. I proceeded to explain to him that my mother was not home, but that she would be back shortly. The two officers did not seem very pleased, and told us that we had fifteen minutes to gather our belongings and evacuate.
Alarmed and intimidated, we ran around the house quickly grabbing important items that we thought we needed and threw them into boxes. We grabbed our dog, cat, and the litter box. I remember looking in my room wondering if I would ever be let back in. I was so confused as to what was going on that it all felt like a terrible nightmare. I pinched myself as hard as I could on my right arm to try and wake myself up. The pain from the pinch was unbearable and I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Tears stung my eyes; this was reality. The officers kicked us to the curb and forced us out of our house, leaving three fourteen year old girls standing on the street with nowhere to go.

I will never forget the feeling of being locked out of my very own house.

My mom called us and told us that she was on her way home and would be with us as soon as possible. In the meantime, our next-door neighbor, Chris, quickly jumped in to help. She took the three of us, our dog and cat to her house and attempted to comfort us. She poured me a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and I sipped the pulpy, sweet tasting drink while looking down at the cardboard box full of my belongings. Inside was my schoolwork, baby blanket and phone charger. Somehow the orange juice and these items were supposed to make me feel safe, but I felt as lost as a young child without her mother in a grocery store.

Jada and I spent the next morning at the barn we rode at. All week long I looked forward to Sunday morning because it meant I could take a break from reality and do my most favorite thing in the world, ride. This particular Sunday was the most memorable.

We were sitting on the couch in the aisleway of the barn cleaning tack when Jada and I got a phone call from our mom. She gave us the news that we would be moving to Park Rapids, Minnesota to live with our grandparents. With teary eyes, I told all of my friends at the barn that I would be moving. This wasn’t going to be any usual move though, we had to pack up our whole house and be moved out in less than one week.
My grandpa flew down last minute from Minnesota to help us move out. My grandpa convinced my mom to move in with him and grandma. He knew that my mom was unable to take care of herself, yet alone her daughters. My grandpa was determined to get our family back on solid ground.
The rush to get out of the house was very stressful. We shoved everything into cardboard boxes without any organization. Some of our friends came over to help us move, and we were so unorganized that we even walked around door-to-door asking neighbors if they had any bubble wrap or styrofoam.
Once everything was packed into boxes, our two-bed and two-bath house with stark white walls appeared so plain and bare. As I looked around, it finally hit me that we were moving. I was leaving the place that I called home and there was absolutely nothing I could possibly do about it.
My last moment in that house was one I will never forget. Feeling helpless and betrayed, Jada and I, along with two of our friends, decided to rebel. We took tadpoles from the lake in our backyard and placed them in the two toilets we had in our house. We also took an old maroon colored bra that we no longer wore and strung it from the ceiling fan in our room. Lastly, we popped many bags of extra buttery popcorn and ate until we could no longer stand. When we were finished eating, we took our buttery hands and rubbed them up and down the walls in the kitchen. The next person to enter this house would experience a big surprise.

The next day it was time to say goodbye. In the morning we said farewell to our horses and took pictures with all of them. I still remember the feeling of emptiness inside when my last lesson was over. I ran my fingers through Beju’s rough and kinky mane while staring into his big, deep brown innocent eyes. Beju was just an animal and couldn’t understand that I would be leaving him. Park Rapids would not have horses that would impact me like the horses in Florida did.

That night Jada and I also had to say goodbye to our father. My dad decided to take us to a restaurant called Buca di Beppo. The smell of Italian food wafting through the air made my stomach growl, but by the time the food arrived I barely had an appetite. I attempted to eat my spaghetti and meatballs and carry on a conversation with my dad without breaking down and bawling. The nauseous feeling I had in my stomach caused the spaghetti to taste repulsive. My usual twice a month visits to see him would now change to only seeing him once or twice a year. The worst part of that evening was when the meal was over and my dad drove us back to the house. He dropped us off at the front of our neighborhood like usual. When I got out of his red Toyota to hug him goodbye, he was already tearing up. “Goodbye my girls” my dad sobbed, as he held us in his arms. Seeing him cry immediately caused me to burst into tears as well. That night was the first and only time I had ever witnessed my dad cry.

Even though at the time moving across the country seemed traumatic and unsettling, it was for the best. After getting in trouble a few times with the law, my mom went to rehab and is doing a lot better. Jada and I are both doing well in school, and have the support of family and friends here in Minnesota.

The following morning we pulled out of our neighborhood for the last time in my mom’s black Honda CRV while following our rented yellow moving truck that my grandpa was driving. I look behind me wondering when I will ever come back home. As the big, black steel gates closed behind us, so did my life in Florida.