With great comfort, she leaned against the tree. The tree was her haven, her place to escape. It was always there when she needed it to be and it never yelled at her. It never interrupted when she spoke to it; it was never mean or hurtful. Whenever she touched the tree, she felt it deep inside. She could feel it's every breath, sense it's every desire. Even the birds took comfort in the droopy boughs of the weeping willow.
She especially loved the willow forest in the springtime. Against the cloudless blue sky the grove looked soft and gentle. Like a blob of blue paint with a smudge of green in the center. She often took her paints with her when she went into the woods. She'd spend hours painting, reading or writing peacefully until her stepmother called her back to reality.
Callow Everett loved spending time with the trees, her best friends. So much in fact, that her father said she should build a tree house so she didn't get dirty sitting on the ground. Callow told her father that a tree house would ruin the beauty of the forest. He'd simply laughed at her.
Callow had spent all summer with the trees; even some nights were spent under the stars. It was hard for her to think about going back to school. She'd be starting a new school this year. At the end of last semester, Callow's father dropped the bomb—they were moving from their small Colorado ranch, to a large mansion in Georgia. The mansion had belonged to Callow's great-grandfather on her mother's side. When he died, the mansion was left to Callow, but since she was under eighteen, her father was the proprietor of the land. It took six days to pack everything Callow had ever owned into boxes to be shipped across the country to a place she'd never seen. It was hard for her, leaving her friends and teachers, and the school where she had spent so much time. She almost said no to her father when he asked her if she was ready. They'd been standing outside the gates that led up the drive to their quaint ranch. She stood there looking down the path at the small wooden home that Callow had been born in. Her father, Jonathan Nimble Everett, came up to her and put his arm around her shoulders. He beamed down at his one and only daughter, and his youngest child.
"Are you ready?" He asked. No one knows how close to saying no, Callow was. She opened her mouth to say it, but it only came out as a sob. "Aw, honey. Don't worry about it. I promise you it will all be ok. This is a great chance for us to make a better life for us all. A new mother, a new home, a new school. A new chance for us to start over, to be a real family."
Callow thought about her stepmother. Francine Beckerstaff Everett was a woman Callow never would have imagined married with stepchildren. Callow didn't exactly despise her, nor did she love her. It was a mutual toleration between them both. Callow's older brother, Callus, wasn't home enough to make heads or tails of the situation. He was away at Colorado University.

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