(EDITING 2022) Don't Forget Where You Belong | morganehlenfeldt

Chapter 1

I wake with a start. My eyes immediately scan my surroundings.

Why am I on a plane?

Oh, right. I'd almost forgotten.

My father had finally gotten the job he and my mother stressed over for months, so we packed all our belongings and prepared for the move. It wasn't until we stood in line at the airport, and I glanced at my ticket that I realized we weren't moving to another state, but to another country. If we'd stayed in Glasgow, Kentucky for just two more weeks, I'd finally have my diploma. Instead, my parents decided moving across the Atlantic Ocean to make more money was more important than their daughter's high school graduation. At least they didn't pretend to care.

I turn to my mother, who's sitting in the seat beside me. Seeing that she is asleep, I check my watch. It read 6:10pm, but that's the Kentucky time zone. I sigh.

In London, where I'm being forced to move, it's six hours ahead, 12:10am. We've been in the air for seven hours, and I've been asleep for almost four. There's still over an hour left of flight time. By the time we get to our hotel, it should be about 2:30am.

I groan loudly as the thought of being the new girl at yet another school dawns on me. I feel my mother shift beside me. My eyes dart to her, praying she stays asleep. The last thing I need is another one of her lectures about how much I'll love London, all the museums and buildings, architecture and history, blah, blah, blah... I'd seen enough on Google Images. All I wanted was to stay with Emily and graduate from a school where I'd actually made a friend. I guess that was asking too much from my parents.

To my disappointment, her eyes flutter open. She sees me watching her and sits up slowly.

"Hey," she says, rubbing her eyes. "Did you sleep okay?"

I shrug. "Yeah."

She nods, and I watch her lose interest quickly. "There's a bathroom in the back, if you need to freshen up."

This is her way of telling me to check my appearance. I stand and squeeze past her, rolling my eyes when she quietly whispers, "Don't forget to lock the door." I pass other passengers, most of whom are snoring or occupying themselves with something unproductive. I make it to the back of the plane, where a small backlit sign says RESTROOM. My eye catches a tiny door with the green unoccupied symbol. I push open the door and slide the lock behind me before turning to stare into the small mirror that takes up most of the wall.

My wavy brunette hair falls about five inches past my shoulders, and my hazel eyes look almost gray in the dim lighting. Freckles dot my face, which I hate. My dad always said my freckles were "angel kisses" and my mom called them "beauty marks." I called them flaws. I'm thin for being as lazy as I am, with an average body shape that isn't visible through the thick layer of baggy clothes I threw on before reluctantly getting on the plane. A single layer of mascara emphasizes my eyes almost perfectly. Somehow, I'd managed to learn how to apply just the right amount of makeup to my plain face in order to make it look almost pretty.

My reflection stares back at me, and I realize how unoriginal I must look to other people. Just a boring, seventeen-year-old girl with long hair, dark eyes, and baggy clothes. I felt like a character in a dumb teen romance... without the romance. So just dumb?

When we first moved to Kentucky, my parents told me to make friends. They told me it was the last move, that we'd be staying in one place for a while, that I could hang posters and paint my bedroom walls and make friends, even date. So I did all of those things (except date, obviously... have I mentioned how boring my face is?). I bought band posters and succulents, painted my walls a dark shade of blue, even added some gold specks along the edging and corners to bring it all together.