"Hey, Y/N are you ready for this?" Your boss asks.
"Uh, yea, LA is a lot different than Chicago, but no winter." You say laughing. You have never been so far away from home for longer than 2 weeks. You take one last look at your desk before you say your goodbyes.
"Omg, y/n, we are going to miss you so much!" Your best friend, Sage, says as she hugs you as tight as she can. You feel tears in your eyes, but you are 27 years old and have to get your life together. After Jeremy, you need to get away.
"I know I am going to miss you too." You break away from the hug and wave your last goodbye before you head to the L. You begin to cry as you will miss your friends and the city, which has been your home since your early days in college. UCLA will be amazing, and you will love it, you try and tell yourself. You being to pull out of the parking garage of DePaul University for the last time. Everything is already being moved to LA, so all you have to do is get on a flight. Your mom passed away when you were young, and your dad was never in the picture, so you do not have any family in the city.
THE NEXT DAY
It is 5 am, and your flight is in 4 hours. You gather the rest of your things and take one last look at your apartment, which has brought so much joy over the years. You place the keys on the counters and walk out. You head to the L on the blue line. You look back at the city one last time. The things you are going to miss the most is the four seasons and watching the bears beat the packers at soldier field. After about 45 minutes you arrive at O'hare airport. You check your bag.
"Miss y/n?" The TSA agent says. "LAX?"
"Yes." You respond. Once you are past him, you place your items on the belt and take off your shoes. You walk through security. You look at your ticket, and it says gate H10. You head towards the gate, and on the way, you get your favourite, an iced coffee with vanilla and no creamer.
You put your headphones to drown out the world. You turn on one of your favourite songs by Fleetwood Mac, called songbird.
'And I love you, and I love you, I love you.
Like never before.'
You find your gate and sit in one of the chairs, and you have about 45 minutes before your flight begins to board. You go on your phone and begin looking at old pictures. You don't want to cry in the airport, so you leave Instagram and go onto Netflix and find something to download to watch on the plane. You scroll, and because you love criminal minds, this show called Narcos pops up on your suggested shows. You read the description, and it looks like a good show, so you download the first few episodes.
You have to find shorter shows because of work and how busy you always are. The 45 minutes pass quickly, and you gather your things and wait in line to board. Once you are on the plane, you find your seat and make your self comfortable as it is a 4-hour flight. After the flight is boarded, the flight attendants give the safety brief. You always hated taking off, so you make sure you have water and listen to music to calm yourself.
Once the flight is in the air, you pull out your phone and turn on Netflix and being to watch Narcos. The into of this show is amazing you think to yourself. And then you wonder why you have never watched it before.
After the first episode, you are hooked and begin to start the next one immediately. You start to get a crush on Javier Pena. There is something about him that you love. With work, TV isn't really an option because you are always so busy. There are about 3 hours left on the flight and told yourself you would sleep, but Narcos is not allowing that.
Episode 2 of season 1 was just wow. (if you know, you know). Butterflies. The base of this show is about catching Pablo Escobar, a drug lord in Columbia in the 80s and 90s. You are for sure, going to have to finish this show when you can. As it is early August and school does not until late August you have some time to relax.
The flight attendants begin to walk down the aisle to pass out snacks and drinks. Once they get to you, you prepare yourself even though you are 27 years old and a college professor. Your social skills are not the best.
"Ma'am, would you like anything to drink?" She asks.
"Um yea, could I have a coke please." You say with a smile.
"Of course, and pretzels or the cookie?"
"Cookie please." This is your favourite part about flying, are the snacks. Once she is gone, you can breathe again. You prop up your phone so that you can watch and enjoy the cookies and drink. The flight is a little over halfway, which brings you to episode 3 of Narcos. There are only 30 total episodes, which is great for you.
You finish all the episodes you downloaded, and the plane begins to decent. Landing is never fun, and it never will be. You put on your comfort song and close your eyes. Once you are on the ground, you open your eyes and being to gather your items.
Once the seatbelt sign is off, everyone gets up and grabs their bags, and you do the same. As your deboarding the plane, you trip on a seat and nearly fall. You have never had the best balance. As you walk through LAX, you try and find the baggage claim, and this airport is huge. Once you find it, you wait for your bag. It is so hot, and wore jeans, which was not the best idea.
You grab your bag and then go outside to find your uber you called while waiting. The driver takes you to your new apartment the school has set up for you. UCLA is much larger than DePaul. Once you arrive you find your new place, it is located near the university. You are only one hour from the beach, which is nice. Once you are in your apartment, you see all your boxes. You drop your bag and begin to unpack, as you only have 3 weeks to do so, but you also have a lot to do.
You are lucky this apartment is furnished, so there are a bed and couch and a few other items. It is small but nice. As you are only one person, you don't need a whole lot of space. You turn on music and unpack the kitchen area first. You only have about 15 boxes, so it is not a lot after the kitchen, which only took an hour. You take a break and grab some water. And check your phone, you message your friends that you made it and took pictures of all your boxes.
After your short break, you begin to unpack your bathroom as this is another small box. That box does not take as long. It is about dinner time, and you have no food. You look at the map on your phone to find some places near you. You see that there is a Mexcian place near you and you grab your keys and head out.
It is about a half-mile walk, which is nothing to you as you lived in Chicago. Once you arrive, you look over the menu and order some tacos. You sit down at a nearby bench and eat. The sun is setting, and it looks beautiful. LA is very different than Chicago, as there are mountains.
Once you finish your food, you head back to your apartment, but you stop at a small grocery store on the way back and grabs a few essentials, like wine and some snacks. You get back to your apartment, you find your wine glass and pour yourself a glass.
After you have a couple of sips, you find your bed box and grab the seats and pillow and make your bed because you know once you start drinking, you will pass out.
After many drinks you find yourself watching Narcos again. You call your best friend and tell her all about this show.
"Yo, you have to watch Narcos, like omg it is so good and Javier Pena.!"
"Okay, are you drinking wine?" Sam says.
"Yea," you say laughing. You get very smiley while drunk.
"How was the flight?!"
"Well as always I hate taking off and landing, so that didn't change." You say as you are pouring yourself another glass.
An hour passes, and Sam goes to bed, and you are about to finish the bottle. Once you finish the bottle, you make your way to your bed and just pass out on the bed without actually getting fully into it.
It is about 8 am, and you wake up with a massive headache. You slowly get up and find your way to the bathroom. You get ready to shower because you need one after being on the plane and were unpacking yesterday. After your shower, you grab some breakfast and get ready for the day—your first order of business to grab a coffee. You goggle a coffee shop near you and a ton pop up. You find the one that is the closest. That happens to be near the Mexican place you went to last night. Since it is more in the day time, you put on the headphones and Prince's Purple Rain. The walk was nice, this time you were wearing shorts as it was already 90 degrees at 11 am.
You walk into the coffee shop. It's cute, the walls have pictures of famous people who have been inside before, and you recognize most of them. You had your coffee place in Chicago that was right across the street from where you worked, and they had your order down within a month of you going there. You walk up to the barista.
"Uh hi, umm can I have a medium iced coffee with vanilla."
"Sure thing." She puts in the information on the cash register. "What's the name for the order?"
"Its y/n." She writes your name on the cup.
"The total is going to be $3.75." You hand her some cash. Once you are done paying, you make your way down to the end of the counter. The coffee was made quickly, which you were happy about.
"y/n." They call out. You grab it and then head out. You want to explore, but you also want to unpack. You brought a backpack this time in case. While you are sipping your coffee, you head to the same grocery store as last night to grab a few more items. You grab some pasta, apples, milk, and bread with peanut butter and jelly. Once you pay, you head back to the apartment to begin unboxing again. You want to get the tv unboxed so you can watch narcos more.
Once you unbox most of the boxes, you take out the tv to hook up. Lucky for you that was easy, and you began to watch more Narcos. Every time you hear the theme song, you just want to dance. You finish the first season that night. You began to go on Instagram and follow the cast. Especially, Pedro Pascal, who plays Javier Pena.