“We are getting re-stationed.” My father took another gulp of his beer.

“Again?” We had just moved here, not even a year ago.

“Why?” My sister yapped in, I looked over, her face was already turning red.

She’s pissed. I watched her grind her jaw, once, twice.

“You told us.” She exploded, pushing her chair from under the table.“You told us we would be able to finish school here.”

I looked over to the left, my mother was fidgeting with her apron. I knew she had been quiet all day today for something. She didn’t want to deal with my sister, these past few years had gotten worse and worse between them.

Every move. Every deployment. It ate away at their relationship.

A whisper escaped her lips. “Jasper.” We made eye contact. She reached over, grabbing my hand. Rubbing her thumb over

My father rolled his lips together, I could see him struggling. Battling with himself, don't react. I cheered for him, to be the bigger person I knew he was.

Kara was standing now.

“You guys always lie to us.” Spit flew from her lips. She swung her arm, toppling everything in her path off the patio table. It all crashed to the ground. The glass full of mom's fresh lemonade shattered.

“This will be the last time.” Our father said her voice louder. His body tensed up, he wanted to react to Kara so badly. He wanted to shout back at her.

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Kara's fists were balled together, she waited a few moments, waited for him to react as she did. I watched her lip twitch in disappointment. She hit another glass off the table as she stormed off, shaking the whole house as she slammed the door.

Both of our parents let out a sigh. They had been holding their breath the whole time.

I got down on my hands and knees, picking up my sister's mess. I was always picking up her messes, someone had to.

“I didn’t even get to tell her I’m getting deployed again.”

“What?” I snapped my head, meeting my father's lowly gaze.

“I’m sorry Jasper. This time though, I’ll be able to move to a different sector of the army. I’ll get a nice office job.”

“How? How many more times are they going to send you to fight?”

He had done enough for them, this was his third deployment. Each time, he came back different. More off-key, I knew he had seen things we hadn’t seen. Things that made our school exchanges nothing.

“I’ll get an office job after this.” He muttered into his beer before taking another swig.

“So where are we going this time?”

“Upstate New York.”

Great, somewhere cold. I looked up at the sun, taking in the hot summer's heat. Kara defiantly wasn’t going to like this.

“Well good news is the house is by Lake Ontario. It’s got a nice view of a castle.”

My mother got up and returned with the broom and dustpan.

“I’ll take care of this Jasper.” She started to sweep up Kara’s mess.

And they had already picked out a house, how nice of them to involve us. I guess it saved them the heartache of arguing with us. Either way, I knew my sister wouldn’t be happy. I let out a deep sigh.

“I’m going to take a nap.”

I ran my hand through my hair, the humidity and the news had taken more than enough out of me. I left my parents outside and made my way to our half of the house. The half my sister and I shared.

Two moderate-sized bedrooms, with a bathroom between them. Hopefully, the new house would have a similar layout. The walls were like a barrier against Kara’s meltdowns.

Speaking of which, her music was vibrating the floors. I opened up my bedroom door, my pictures waved to me from the walls.

At least I had an outlet. My comics.