Chapter 1 - Move in

(Due to some tech difficulties, I'm having to rewrite and reupload this story. Sorry about that, but I'm hoping it will be even better this go round and if you all have any thoughts or comments, please feel free to share!)

1
Emily Plump was not happy about moving to Tubton. Back in North Carolina, she'd had a perfect life. Maple Valley was her home; she had spent years building up her social status, managed to bring herself up the high school ladder, and finally was able to get in at Cheshire Hills, the most prestigious college in the county. Everyone she knew lived in that sunny town, and now she was being forced into obscurity to some crummy town in Central Ohio.

Emily didn't blame her parents for moving her out here. Her father needed to find a new accounting job and one had opened up at a business here in Tubton. It made sense that they would want to move here. The Plumps had family in Ohio and her parents were looking to downsize from the East Coast lifestyle anyway. They wanted to get back to their Midwest roots and Emily would never hold that against them. At the very least, she would be able to keep going to school at Cheshire, so long as she could hold her soccer scholarships.

As the Emily's mom rolled up the driveway to their new house, Emily sneered. The house was a ranch with an attic space. Emily thought it was the perfect metaphor for her new situation: small, dull, and trying too hard to look cute. She found the whole town to be less than genuine. It looked like the sort of place where everyone knew their neighbor and no doors were locked, but she knew better than that. That wasn't something that really happened and any place trying to give off that feel was lying.

When she got out of the car, she was greeted with yet another problem. A shrill cry came from behind her and she was quickly wrapped up in a hug. Her cousin Jessie was there. Another issue with Tubton was that her father's brother was living just down the street from them. Emily didn't hate her cousin, but she wasn't very fond of her either. Jessie was everything Emily worked to be, but it seemed to her that Jessie didn't have to work for it at all. She had friends, a car, a great social standing. She was even in better shape than Emily, despite not doing any sports. This was what irked her the most. Her time at Maple Valley High had instilled a sense of insecurity in her body; she'd mostly overcome it but only because she kept herself so trim nowadays. Before picking up soccer, she was a little on the heftier side and she had sworn never to let herself go back to that lifestyle.

Jessie was ecstatic to see her cousin. She greeted them to the neighborhood and told them they were invited over to her house for dinner. Emily's parents obliged, much to Emily's dismay. She spent the rest of the day moving her things up to her room in the attic. It was nice to have essentially a whole floor to herself. There was the bedroom, a restroom, an even a little kitchen. She kept her things in boxes since she would be leaving to go back to Cheshire in just a few weeks.

At around 6, the family left for dinner. Emily actually liked her Aunt Olive and Uncle Ed. Her aunt called herself an actress, though really she just did bit parts in community theatre. Her uncle worked at the same accounting firm as her father did. Emily had noticed that Ed had started to develop a bit of a belly. It seemed that Olive had taken up baking as a pastime and since she felt she had to keep her shape for her acting 'career', most of the treats went to her husband.

Dinner went well and it was nice to catch up with family. Even if Emily didn't like Jessie much, she was still fun to be around, in small doses at least. Jessie begged her to come out with her friends the next night and Emily obliged. She figured she'd have to put up with her cousin, at least for a few weeks. Then she could go back to Cheshire. "Maybe Tubton won't be so bad," Emily thought, "As long as I'm not here for ever.