It's Hard to Say Goodbye(Geraldine Vesper) "Do you have everything?" I asked weakly. I eyed her as she stuffed a wad of one dollar bills into a crevice in her lime green suitcase. "I think so," she said, adusting her smiling banana keychain just so. I wanted to deserately plead her to stay, but a lump of sorrow was caught in my throat. "Don't go," I croaked. She looked up. "Did you say something." I hung my head in reply. "Is Shawn going to meet you there?" Shawn was her boyfriend. She was absolutely swoon with him, despite all my gripes about his tattoos and piercings. He even got her to etch a coiling tattoo on her arm. "Yeah," she mumbled, clicking away at her cellular phone. "Will you call me when you get there?" She shrugged. "Maybe. It depends if I get there on time." I knew she lying. The way she anxiously eyed the front door told me that she was ready to...abandon me. My eyes moistened. She put a skinny hand on my shoulder. "This is for our future." I nodded somberly. "It...is." She jangled the car keys in her hand. "Great." And without another word, she dashed out the door towards her beat-up car she had received when she was sixteen years-old. He held my shoulders. "Will she be back?" I asked sorrowfully. He rested his chin on top of my head. "She's her own person, now." I knew he was right. "Goodbye, Mom," I whispered as I heard her car skid down the road.

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