The Doors to Newhaven

Chapter 1: Newhaven

 How I ended up riding on a train to a bitter cold, snow filled New York. To reach the sanctuary of my best friends apartment in Newhaven. I don't know. All I know is it went a little something like this. 

 "Anabelle, the university here is even better than the one you're going to now." I sighed, not wanting to listen to my best friend Sophie but finding myself giving in inevitably. 

 "But I love Shadowgate, I've grown up here Soph, I can't just leave." There was a rustling through the phone, then an audible groan. 

 "Come on Belle, you're emotionally attached to Shadowgate like your sister is with the Kardashians. Its getting worthy of a psychiatrist. You need to experience the world. Plus its Christmas, and you'll be home all alone if you spend it in Shadowgate." I was caving, but I came back with one more point just to be stubborn. 

 "My sister invited me over for Christmas. I wouldn't exactly be alone." I knew even through the phone that Sophie was rolling her eyes. "Belle, who would you rather spend Christmas with. Me or your sister?" Silence emanated through the phone for half a minute, before I finally surrendered. 

 "What's your address?" And that's how it went. Me agreeing to switch schools and live with my best friend in New York. Because I was lonely living in a city of only 400 people, and because I apparently needed to see the world. 

 I drove to the airport two days later. Got on a 5 hour flight from California to New York and then arrived at Penn Station in Manhattan one hour later. 

 Even in the cars of the train it was chilly. I was dressed in my grey pea coat and my favorite red scarf. And my wavy brown hair covered by a matching red hat was peppered in snow flakes that were melting slowly. My teeth chattered, and my hands clenched in my pockets for warmth as I waited for my stop.

  Lots of people were on the train. Yet I seemed to be the one person that stood out the most. I was tanner, sun kissed by the California sun. And my blue eyes though dark as the ocean could be seen as innocent. My paranoia told me that everyone on the train knew this was my first time traveling across the country, and that I'd never been in a city as big as New York before. I looked out the window to focus on something else, and to ignore the nagging feeling that I was being stared at.

  More time passed, and I arrived at my station just as the sun was going down over the city. Reducing the temperature by a couple more degrees. I stepped out to the Newhaven Station, and it was definitely colder than Manhattan. 

Taking my bags I stepped across crunchy ice and snow to the taxi cabs, and quickly got inside one, directing the man in the drivers seat to Sophies apartment.

 When I arrived at Sophie's apartment, it was dark. The city lights the only thing left alive to bring light to the roads and sidewalks. I payed the taxi driver then stepped out into the cold again, onto the wet icy road and glistening wet pavement. I looked up at the apartment building and even in the dark could tell it was charming. 

 Christmas lights hung from both the top and bottom floors of the outside windows, and balconies occupied each as well. The entire line of apartments on the street were built out of brick and gingerbread white trim. Each door ascending down the line had a different colored door, making them all distinct, Sophies was blue. Taking a deep breath of cold air, I began walking up the steps to the sky blue door, and I rapped on it softly. 

 I heard footsteps then the door knob turning, then Sophie was standing in front of me, A huge grin spread across her face. 

 "Anabelle!" She hugged me fiercely and tugged me inside. Grateful to see my best friend I hugged her back just as tightly.