All Chapters of 808 Miles Away From Home: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The moment Bria's graduation party was over, the entire household shifted into full wartime mode.Every dinner conversation revolved around the same three things: Graymont, the move, and meal prep. On Saturday morning, Dad's voice rang out from the living room."Honey, what do you think about this place? Two bedrooms, fully furnished, and right across from Graymont. It’s a ten-minute walk. Bria can come home for a nap during lunch break, and we'll be right there for whatever she needs."Mom leaned over to look at the tablet screen and nodded eagerly."This one's nice. It has great natural light. But we'll need to swap out the bed in Bria's room for a solid wood frame. Her neck's been giving her trouble, so she can't sleep on anything too soft."Oh, and how big is the kitchen? The next three years are make-or-break. I need to be cooking for her every single day, and I can't do that in a cramped little kitchen."The two of them sat on the couch, planning with the intensity of a pow

The bus station was packed. The air in the waiting area was thick and stale with a mix of fast food, sweat, and cheap perfume.I had bought a coach seat. The ride was going to take twenty long hours, but I did not mind at all.I settled into a window seat and watched the city skyline begin its slow retreat, giving way to farmland, then hills. My heartbeat finally started to level out, and in its place settled a feeling of freedom I had never known before.I took out my phone and opened the family group chat, the one pinned to the top of my chats and named ‘The Happy Sumners’.Mom had just posted a photo from the airport lounge. In the picture, three people were smiling so wide it looked like an ad. Mom had captioned it.Mom: [Taking our baby girl on a beach vacation! A new chapter, a new school, and we're cheering her on every step of the way!]Below it, a stream of relatives had already liked and commented.Aunt Miriam: [Bria's gorgeous! You two are so lucky!]Aunt Lori: [Have

All three of them took the first flight out the next morning.When the car pulled up to the building, Mom was practically running as she climbed the three flights of stairs.She jammed the key into the lock and pushed the door open.The apartment was spotless. The floors had been mopped, and a single key sat in the middle of the coffee table with nothing else around it.Mom went straight for my room.The bed was perfectly made, the comforter folded into a neat square. She opened the closet and found nothing inside except a few old pieces that Bria had outgrown and passed on to me. The textbooks and study guides were still lined up on the shelf, but every drawer was empty. There were no personal belongings left anywhere. My ID, my bank card, and every small thing I had ever owned were gone.Mom stood in the middle of the bare room and looked around.There was not a single certificate on the walls, no photographs, and not even a sticker. The room looked as though no one had ever

Coming home did not make things easier just because the truth was finally out in the open. If anything, it made everything harder. Now that they knew, the details they had never noticed before started surfacing one by one.Mom would be sitting in the living room, staring at nothing, when a memory would hit her out of nowhere.For example, my 18th birthday."When is Paige's birthday?"Dad looked up and thought about it for a long time. "Sometime in the fall? September? October?""I can't remember either." Mom's voice was barely above a whisper."I've never once forgotten Bria's. I start planning a month ahead every year. But Paige? When was the last time I even did anything for her birthday?"The two of them looked at each other, and neither one had an answer.Bria was sitting nearby doing homework. Her pen stopped for a moment."It's July 12th," she said without looking up. "She told me back in third grade. She said Mom could never remember, so she asked me to keep track of it

It was the spring semester of my freshman year.In March, the university held its annual writing competition. I entered an essay called ‘Low-Maintenance’.It was about a child in a family who was never remembered. I did not use real names or describe specific events, but every word had been scraped out from somewhere deep inside me.It won first place.The campus paper reprinted it, and a local online publication picked it up as well. They ran it under the headline, ‘When 'Low-Maintenance' Becomes a Wound’.The readership was not enormous, but the comments section was busy. A lot of people said it felt like I had written their story.I had not gone out of my way to spread it, but the internet had a long memory.One day in May, I got a phone call. It was from Bria.I hesitated for a few seconds before picking up."Hey, Paige."Her voice sounded different from the way I remembered it. The bratty sweetness was gone, replaced by something careful and tentative."Hey.""I read y