AN - My friend deleted my story as a joke. Yah, love her but so not funny! I've reposted now. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed my story so far. The favorites and follows make me smile just as much. Thanks!

Prologue

Casey McDonald watched the house fade in the back window of her mother's car as the three McDonald women drove away. It was a sad day in Casey and Lizzie's mind when they had been told that they were once again leaving and moving to another city. The surprise this time around had been that the Venturi clan wouldn't be going as well.

Over the past three years Casey had come to enjoy having Edwin as a younger brother and Marti as another little sister. While Derek would never be family to her, he had become one of her closest friends.

Last week her mum and George had announced that they were getting a divorce and that the McDonalds would be moving out. The responses to their announcements had been varied. She could vividly remember Marti screaming that they couldn't take her sisters away from her as she and Lizzie clung together and sobbed. Casey had let silent tears fall down her face and said nothing as she sat still as a statue. Edwin clenched his fists and gathered Marti and Lizzie in his arms hanging onto them as if they would disappear, shouting that they couldn't be taken away from him. She remembers though that Derek's reaction had been rare. He had sat still and actually let the tears fall from his eyes.

Once he noticed that Casey wasn't saying anything but was crying he sprang into action. He knew that only when she was really hurting she kept completely silent as she cried. Derek had wrapped her shaking figure in his arms and spoke deathly calm and dangerously to his father.

"You can't do this. Please make whatever happened right; you can't just take them away from us. It's completely unfair!" Derek wasn't above pleading at this point. Not when he was about to lose them. Unfortunately in the end nothing mattered and the McDonalds had packed up and left. The three Venturi children could be seen clinging to each other for comfort as they watched them drive away. At 18, 15, and 10 the three Venturi's had formed a special bond with the McDonald girls having Edwin and Lizzie being the same age as well as Derek and Casey.

Edwin and Lizzie had been the best of friends, Marti had loved and been loved by everyone, and Derek and Casey were the most unconventional best friends/mortal enemies. They got along when they wanted to, fought like crazy, and were always bickering.

Their senior year of high school had changed things between them; by graduation their fights were more playful and flirty, they would hang out and shared many mutual friends. They were equally devastated to see each other go. Casey was shaken from her thoughts as she felt her phone buzz. She barely had time to read and reply to the text before her mother had taken her phone away.

The girls were apparently to have no contact with the Venturi's and were given new phones, new phone numbers. George and Nora had completely cut off any contact or chance at communication that the children had with one another. They had gone to such extremes to separate everyone that the Venturi's were moved half an hour away across London and the McDonald girls were taken all the way to Vancouver, BC all the way across the country.

None of the children were pleased to discover that they had no way to contact each other but sadly they had no choice. Each child was sent to a new school, Edwin and Lizzie to new high schools, Marti to an elementary school, Derek was going to go to Queens University on a hockey scholarship and was studying Film making. He wouldn't be attending school for at least another year though as he needed to earn enough money to put himself through school for what the scholarship didn't cover. Casey had been offered the opportunity to teach dance at a local university as an assistant and jumped at the chance.

It had been six months since the day when she watched her world disappear through the back window' and now as Casey sat down in the local coffee shop she couldn't help but think about Derek's text message and her reply. He had simply told her 'I actually wish you'd stayed'. All she could manage to reply with was 'I wish we could stay too. We miss you guys alrea-'. She had managed to hit send as her mother grabbed the phone .If he didn't get the whole message at least he got that part. Looking down she wiped another stray tear as she thought about them all. Nora had told her that they had moved as well and she had no idea where they were living now so her and Lizzie could sneak off and go visit them.

Somehow her mum and George had managed to bring the five of them together, make them need and depend on each other and then take it all away within the blink of an eye. Casey took the last sip of her chai tea and rose from the table. Wrapping the scarf around her neck and slinging her bag over her shoulder she set out to work.

"I wish I could have stayed too" she murmured.