Blow us all Away

Chapter 1 (Jess)

The engines were mimicking my heartbeat, boom boom, boom boom, boom boom. I knew that life will be better once I reach New York but my mind keeps saying that there is no way to be able to tell who these people will be like or how I will live now. The entirety of the plane trip was going to be at least ten hours and I was only half an hour in and already starting to spiral.

There was one person that I knew with me so I wouldn't be alone the whole flight, my social worker, Nina. I had mixed feelings for her because she was very kind and welcoming but could be very boring at the same time. I had been staying with her for the time being after my old foster parents decided that they did not like me, so she let me stay instead of moving from place to place constantly.

To stop me from spiralling anymore I quickly grabbed my book out of my backpack, the title reading "In the Heights: Finding Home, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Jeremy McCarter" I have been a big fan of Lin's musicals, shows and movies most of my life, and have always wanted to meet him. I knew that he was an amazing father to his two kids; Sebastian and Francisco and I wished that I had a father like him. In the Heights is one of my favourite books and has been since it came out. I opened to the first page, preparing myself to reread the book once again for at least the seventh time, I knew exactly how it goes every time, the predictability was comforting but it still was an emotional rollercoaster each time.

Nina looked up from her own book, probably being a romantic novel, she looked down at my book suspiciously, I could feel her staring at me so I decided to look up and I saw her excited expression.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked confused and worried.

"No reason, just I'm happy for you, you're going to have your own family, not just these characters in a book," Nina says, trying not to sound suspicious.

I still was not convinced that everything was fine but decided that it was best to get back to my book to take my mind off everything going on. I had learned to ignore it when Nina was being suspicious, we had an almost sibling-like relationship which I loved. She was even going to stay in New York for two weeks to make sure that I was happy and ok with my new foster family.

After what seemed like two hours, I looked up from my book to see that I had already made it halfway through, with five hours still left of the trip. Next to me, Nina was fast asleep leaning against the back of her seat with her hands resting on the book in her lap, she took the middle seat so I wouldn't have to have anyone next to me and so I could lean against the window if I would want. For a moment I started to drift off to sleep as well, and with the swaying motion of the plane, I was out.

It had been almost four hours since I had fallen asleep, but sadly I was jolted out of slumber by Nina saying to wake up because if I wanted to go to the bathroom apparently now was the time because she was going. I slowly got up and moved through the aisle to get to the line for the bathroom. Once we got to the front of the line Nina let me go in first, so that I would not need to stand in the line waiting awkwardly.

By the time I got back to my seat, there was only half an hour left of the plane trip, and I was starting to spiral again. There were millions of thoughts racing around my head.

'What if they don't like me?' 'What if I don't like them?' 'What if they are rude?' All these what-ifs are going through my head, spinning around in circles until I couldn't take it anymore. Then luckily my thoughts were interrupted by the intercom.

"Can all passengers please return to your seats, place all carry on back into their compartments, lift the tray table and have your seat in an upright position, to prepare to land."

I looked out the window beside me at New York from above, suddenly the world was quiet and peaceful around me as I admired the view and put everything away. Suddenly I was not afraid anymore of what was to come next, all I knew that is I would be ok. We had finally landed and made our way to get our bags.

Nina and I had arrived at the bag collection area waiting for our luggage to come past. I was still in shock that I was in New York, coming all the way from Australia, I decided to not let myself think of anything that could go wrong.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nina walking away from me and starting to talk to someone as I reached to grab my suitcase. Then I saw him, in shock, I dropped my bags onto the floor. There he was, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the same person who wrote the very book that I was reading on the plane trip and the book that was now just slightly hanging out of my bag.