Somewhere Between Now and Crazy

I had never been so glad to be on solid ground in my life.

You would have been, too, if you just got off of a twelve hour flight from London to the small and rural town of Siren, Alaska . At least it's raining. At least that's the same. It always seems to be raining.

The flight? Oh, now there's another story in itself. I've flown before. I fly a lot. I'm the textbook definition of a frequent flyer. But this was, hands down, the worst and the longest flight in my existence. If it would have been my first flight- if I was a flying virgin, so to speak- I would have sooner swam across the Atlantic than fly ever again. It was terrible. I love rain, but it rained the whole damn flight! And the turbulence was extremely rough. I tried to use the restroom at the three and a half hour mark, but in mid-pee I was afraid the floor below me would split open and I would fall to my doom without my pants on. Luckily, that didn't happen, but when I sat back down and this man who was so fat it was unreal fell asleep on me, I began to wish it had. I can still smell his oniony breath.

It's just dawned upon me I haven't formally introduced myself, so I figure I should go ahead and do that right now. My name is Maxwell Fitz. I was born in Rome. My dad has this weird job, and we seem to move so often I don't even bother to unpack. Don't bother by asking me what he does- I've asked him before. He's never given me a straight answer.

My mom doesn't work. She just sits around, looking pretty. She looks like me, or rather, I look like her. Curly black hair, large brown eyes, caramel skin. Our eyes are unnaturally large, I feel like an ostrich sometimes. At least I'm not tall. Well, actually I am. Tall, that is. Freakishly so. 

I said earlier, I was born in Rome. My mother was born in Rome. Her mother was born in Rome. I am Roman. Don't believe me? Take a gander at my nose, then. Believe me now? Good. Shut up.

My mom met my dad. I think he's of Scandinavian decent, but he's so secretive he could be a Nigerian prince and I would never even know. He was born and raised in New York City.... It doesn't matter. He met my mom, and my mom popped out my sister. She's sixteen and never shuts up about her boyfriend, Derek. Stupid Derek. I was born two years after her, in Rome. I don't remember Rome, because we moved to Beijing when I was only two months old. Since then, we've lived in Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, San Francisco, Houston, Orlando, and London. I'm only fourteen.

I know little about Siren. All I really know was that when I say, "I'm moving to Siren," people would look at me as though a dragon just crawled out of my ass. I was scared when I was first told about this town, I was scared on the plane, but standing here in the airport, with my ears suffocating and probably covered in foreign germs, is the most scared I have ever felt in my life.