Jessica's Journal

"Well, congratulations, Dad." That was all she had to say, all she could say before her throat tightened and her eyes welled up with tears. She listened carefully as he told her the details. Four months. Maximum. Soon her closest family, all of them, would be 2,000 miles away.

After she hung up the phone, she lay silently on the cold floor. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She had known this was coming. She was prepared, she thought. But she wasn't. Again, she became choked up. At 24 years old, she thought she didn't need her parents. How close was she to her brother anyway? At that moment, she realized how much her family meant to her. She wished she could stop them, but she couldn't.

No going back.