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license. There wasn't any need to drive when Sara and Evan chauffeured me every day. But now I was going to be responsible for getting myself to school.
    It took about twenty minutes for us to reach the outskirts of Weslyn where my mother was renting a house. We veered down an interwoven maze of streets that wrapped around each other within the disorganized neighborhood. Unlike Sara’s neighborhood, all lined up neat in a grid of large homes, this swirling road map had much smaller houses. Kids ran from one snow covered yard into another, since most of the properties overlapped their neighbors’ without a bordering fence.
    Anna pulled into the driveway of a house at the tail end of the maze. With only one neighbor, it was isolated on the dead end, across from the stark woods that surrounded the neighborhood. I pulled up along the curb so Anna could back out when she left.
    The small yellow two-story house was quaint, with white shutters framing the windows and a weathered white porch welcoming us to enter. The front door opened, and my mother appeared, propping the screen door open with her hip. She waited for us to each grab a bag with her arms crossed, shivering from the winter air.
    I didn’t make eye contact as I passed her into the house, fearful that her clear blue eyes would reveal something other than the words that came out of her mouth. “Hi, Emily. I’m glad you’re here.”
    “Thanks for letting me stay with you,” I replied awkwardly.
    “Of course," she answered, her voice coated with nerves. "This is your house too now. You even have your own room.”
    “You have to see it,” Sara burst out, taking me by the hand and dragging me up the wide wooden staircase set in the middle of the small foyer. Anna laughed, making me suspect that they did more than shop yesterday.
    At the top of the stairs was a small landing. Straight ahead was an open door that led into a bathroom, and two closed doors flanked the stairs. Sara opened the door to the right and flipped the light on. I slowly followed her.
    Stepping into the room, I let my eyes trace all four walls, three of them white, and the wall where the door stood open, solid black. I turned in a circle to take it all in, inhaling the lingering fumes of fresh paint. My lips curled up.
    A full-sized bed sat across from the door, covered with a black and white baroque comforter, accented with white pillows bordered in black. Above the bed was a three dimensional art piece that looked like a hundred black butterflies were bursting out of the white wall, tethered by black wires.
    Two small twin windows to the left of the bed were framed dramatically in thick black curtains. A white chest of drawers rested against the black wall next to a full-length white framed mirror tilting on a stand.
    On the opposite side of the room was a desk; its glass top was stenciled with black flowers and butterflies and set upon two white bookcases. A cloth covered board with the same black and white baroque pattern hung on the wall above it. There was a note pinned to the board that read, “Welcome Home, Emma,” in Sara’s undeniable scrawl.
    “Do you love it?’ Sara demanded in anticipation.
    I turned to find Anna and my mother in the doorway awaiting my reaction.
    “I can’t believe you did this,” I gawked. “Thank you so much.”
    “Of course,” Anna replied. My mother stood a few steps behind Anna, watching.
    “Do you want something to drink?” she asked Anna when Sara started unzipping the duffle bags to put my minimal possessions in their place. The two women disappeared down the stairs, Anna’s voice drifting away as they neared the bottom.
    “Sara, really, thank you.”
    Sara paused with a stack of shirts clasped between her hands, recognizing the sincerity in my voice.
    “I knew you were nervous about moving in with her,” she explained, setting the shirts in the opened drawer, “even if you wouldn’t admit it. My mom wanted to get to know Rachel too, so