SUNSHINE POV

"Glad to see you've stopped crying." Clara said from the drivers seat, "Your wails were getting annoying."

"Well I'm sorry my misery is pissing you off." I snapped at her. She had spoken so much as four words since we started the drive, which were Shut up you idiot.

We had finally passed the Florida state border and felt sick to my stomach as we drove deeper and deeper into this stupid state.

Clara had stopped several times for coffee and once to sleep in a motel, surprisingly enough she wasn't complaining in the slightest about having to drive all the way there.

"Why Florida?" I asked, she ignored me. "Clara I have a right to at least know why you moved me thousands of fucking miles away instead of an hour."

"If you want to know something then I suggest you change your approach to receiving them."

That pissed me of, I slammed my feet on the floor and leaned forward from my spot in the back resting my arm on her seat. "Why are you trying to mother me still? Change your approach, watch your language, you don't give a shit about me and I don't care about you. The sooner you realize that the only form of communication we are going to have is either none at all, or arguing the sooner we can just get on with our lives and stop pretending that we're not miserable around each other. Answer my damn question." I saw her grip tighten on the steering wheel knowing she was as angry as I was.

"Fine. I have some family that live there, and that school you applied to is in Florida."

"I never accepted."

"Your father did for you, if you get a job you might be able to afford the tuition before the year starts."

"I'm not going to school."

"It's your choice." She sighed. "But if you're not in school or working then you are not living under my roof."

"Then why the fuck didn't you leave me in the valley!" I screamed at her.

Clara turned to look at me briefly, the look of anger was written all over her face.

"Its a figure of speech. I thought you'd want to, get you out of the house more." I slumped back in my seat again crossing my arms. We didn't say anything else to one another the whole ride.

When we pulled into the driveway of a small white house I thought that we were in the wrong place. There were two men and a woman sitting on the porch.

Clara turned off the car and jumped from her seat in excitement, running to the porch.

I myself slowly emerged from the car and watched her hug each person in pure bliss.

"This must be Toni!" The woman cried, she looked older but definitely kept herself together really well. She rushed down the porch steps and I had to fight the urge to run the other way. "I'm your grandma!" She exclaimed crushing me in a hug.

"My what?"

"And that's your grandpa, and your uncle James." She pointed to the two men standing on the porch smiling at me.

"Well don't just stand there." My grandpa said. "Come give me a hug.' But I didn't move, I didn't know that Clara actually had family I thought she had just been placed on this earth by satan.

"Oh look at that she's shy."

My step-grandpa had bright white hair and a clean shaven face, he wore a buttoned up bus plaid shirt and brown pants hiked too far up his belly. Where as my step- grandma's hair was a box coloured blond with a few greys and a nice red and pink floral dress, she had a lot of wrinkles that showed she liked to smile and laugh a lot.

My uncle however didn't look anything like Clara, his hair was dark, he was tall and lean wearing a T shirt and jeans, he looked a lot younger than Clara as well, maybe in his late twenties, he stuck out standing next to them, like he didn't belong.

"Toni just has some manner issues." Clara told them.

"Well come on in and see the house, the movers should be here soon, would you like to see your room? We painted it already for you?" My Grandma asked, I only shrugged and followed her into the house.

It was a small house, but I looked bigger with nothing inside it, upstairs was my room a room about the same size as the one in the Valley and thankfully it was painted a soft blue colour. My grandparents had already taken the liberty of putting up a couple family photos, none of which I was in.

"Do you like it?"

"It's fine." I told her, she muttered something about the kitchen and took off down the stairs. I walked around the room looking at the different pictures, I found one of my dad and Clara on their wedding day, I took the liberty of taking that one down.

"I take it your not too happy about moving here?" My uncle James said from the doorway.

"No." He nodded.

"I also take it that you're not too thrilled about moving here with Clara?" I looked at him. "She mentioned you were difficult to parent." He explained, again I said nothing. "You know I don't really get along with her either, never did, ever since we were kids all we did was fight and argue."

"I heard that's what siblings do." I said, it was certainly what Timmy and Tommy did.

"Oh." He said looking out into the hall then back at me. "We're not siblings, no I was a, I was a foster kid, Elena and George were my foster parents since I was six. I never got adopted." I felt kinda bad about that.

"Sorry to hear that."

He shrugged. "Not so bad, they treated me like a son." there was a moment of silence before he continued. "So, Clara mentioned that you went through a baseball phase."

"Wasn't a phase." I said quickly.

"Really? You any good?" This time I shrugged. "Look I understand why you're angry, but Elena and George and actually pretty good people if you give them a chance."

I didn't want to give them a chance, I wanted to be back in the valley playing baseball with my friends and kissing Benny goodnight and eating in the diner and going swimming. I didn't want grandparents, and an uncle and to be in a state I knew no one. I hated the situation and I was not going to make the best of it, I was not going to be happy until I was back in the Valley with Benny.

James seemed to sense my unhappiness so he started to leave the room but I did have one question for him.

"Hey." I called out. "Are there any ball diamonds around here?"

BENNY POV

My parents had been going crazy since they found out that Toni had moved, they had wanted to call child protective services, a decision I had to talk them out of twice in two days.

My heart was aching not being around her, and none of us had been able to do anything productive since she left.

The most I had been able to do was get out of my bed and down to the living room.

I was waiting for the damn phone to ring since the her car left, and I was starting to lose my mind, and my thoughts were starting to wander. What if she was in a car crash? What if Clara had

lied and didn't take her to Florida but somewhere much farther, or maybe she was going to bring her to a foster home or something. What if Toni never called me? What if she didn't want to see me anymore?

Just as my thoughts were drifting, the phone began to ring, it had barely made a noise when I picked it up.

"Toni?"

"Hey Benny." My pulse started racing at the sound of her voice.

"Are you okay? Are you in Florida?"

"Yeah, I am." She sounded tired. "Turns out Clara has family here. . . . Her parents are a lot to take in but her brother seems to be nice enough."

"Her parents? You mean they're there?"

"Well they don't live with us, they live about a half hour away but they came to help us unpack and stuff."

I gripped the phone tightly in my hands as we spoke. "Oh. . . . How's Florida?"

"Benny please don't try and make this sound like some kind of vacation this is hell."

"I know."

"I've only been here a day but so far I haven't seen a single kid outside, I didn't see a park the whole drive and to top it all off apparently the closest, and only baseball diamond in town is two blocks away and owned by some team. I'm gonna be surrounded by Phillips if I go there."

"Doesn't sound too good."

"And I don't have you guys." I wanted to break down crying again when she said that, but with a few deep breaths I managed to hold it together. "How are the guys?'

"They're heart broken, Yeah yeah has been trying to convince his dad to come get you with the squad car and I don't think Smalls has stopped crying yet."

There was a pause. "And you?"

"I miss you Toni." I told her wholeheartedly, there was a sound on the other end that I took as her sniffling. "I'm gonna get you back."

"I know, I know. For now though it sucks. Ah shit."

"What?"

"Clara is back, I have to go." My heart sank into my stomach when she said that.

"Okay."

"I love you Benny, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"I love you too." The phone clicked off, in anger I slammed it back down on the receiver and headed straight to my room.

Walking in I kicked my desk chair sending it falling to the floor, the clothes sitting atop of it went sprawling across the floor.

This was what it was gonna be? A few lousy minutes talking with her everyday, and that was considering I was going to get to talk to her every day. It was unfair, unfair to everyone but especially to her.

Toni had been living a shitty ass life her whole life and she came here, met us and everything was okay. Clara's abusive, her dad is negligent, then took off on her, and we were the only thing going good for her, and then it's just all taken away.

I was annoyed with everyone telling me "She's only in another state", but to me she might as well been on another planet. This is where her life is, not in Florida, not with Clara, she's supposed to be here with us, and no matter what we were going to get her back.