The Palisadian-Post has partnered with Paul Revere Charter Middle School to highlight a series of pieces from its 2021 Literary Anthology. The following piece, penned by Sophia Hibbert, originally appeared in the Narratives: Prose section of the anthology, released in spring, and has been reprinted here with permission.
I’ve lived for thirteen years, eleven of them have been in the exact same place. The Kenter house. The house with the green door, jelly bean shaped pool, and bunk-bed with its tattered Hello Kitty stickers. The smell of burning candles, and the white Hummer that never left the driveway. It was my home. Until, at ten years old, my parents decided their relationship was only a chore and nothing more.
“Guys, we need to tell you something important,” my dad utters from his lips that look like mine. His voice sounds seriously terrifying. We were in the living room, my little sister, her beaming, bright blue eyes next to me giving me that look of fear that sends shivers down my spine. I can hear my own breath slip from my mouth during the moment of dead silence. “Your mother and I are getting a divorce.” I run and run to find myself in a closet huddled in a ball. A great tremor overtakes me and I cry out. My perfect life with the perfect parents, and the perfect family, all down the drain. I scrunch my black sparkle pants, feeling the coarse polyester bunch up in my hand. The only thing left is a trembling shiver, cold as a Canadian winter.
The Kenter house isn’t my home. The new apartment isn’t either. My home is my sister, my dad, my mom. Those places I live are just wood and bricks and cold, hard concrete.
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