The Secrets We Share

New beginnings

ALIYNA

Today was the day I packed up my belongings and moved to live with my foreign exchange family in Sicily, Italy.

I rolled myself reluctantly out of bed and threw on my dressing gown because the wintry chill of England was no joke, even though it's currently summer.

After tying my dressing gown so I was officially cosy, I carefully tiptoed down the stairs being mindful of my mum who'd just come home from her night shift at the hospital and was now tucked up in her bed.

My mum is a psychiatric nurse for the elderly; she works her ass off every day, juggling home life and work life as a single mother of three. If there's anyone in life I will always truly respect no matter what, it's definitely her. That's why I'm doing this exchange in the first place; however this is going to sound odd but it's not exactly an exchange, what happened was the girl I was going to exchange with decided last minute she didn't want to leave her home and travel to England alone to learn English.

Luckily for me though, all parties came to an agreement that I would still move to Italy for the year to learn Italian but along with learning Italian I would also be teaching the other girl English but from the comfort of her own home instead.

You're probably wondering why this would benefit my mum. Firstly this family has paid for my flights over to Italy but on top of that I'll have my own room in their house and they're letting and paying for me to attend the private school their children too attend. And now that my mum won't have to pay for the girl who was suppose to take my place here, now there's one less person she has to care for 24/7, even though it took me months to convince her to let her baby girl go that far without her.

Also, since this family is powerful and scarily rich I can hopefully make connections so one day my mum can retire and not have to worry if she has enough money saved to actually live a comfortable and peaceful life. So yeah this is my plan and I thought becoming bilingual would be an impressive thing to put on the CV.

As the kettle started to boil the water for my tea and I had popped my bread into the toaster, I noticed my phone turn on revealing a notification. I reach for my phone and switch it back on to see that the notification was a reminder I set a few months back; a reminder which clearly stated I should bring my suitcase downstairs right as this reminder goes off so I don't forget to take it with me.

Now I'm continuously staring at the notification on the screen, wondering why something feels off about it but I don't know what.

I was about to brush off the ominous feeling about the reminder on my phone when suddenly my toast popped out of the toaster and the kettle started to whistle; And that's when it finally clicked. "Shit", I said unknowingly very loud. It would appear that my idiot self forgot to even pack her own suitcase let alone remember to bring it down the stairs.

Quicker than lightning I bolted up the stairs somehow forgetting my earlier mindfulness about my mum and charged into my room pulling and slamming draws and cupboards shut until I was certain I had everything I needed for this extremely long trip.

Somehow my earlier madness seemed to have dialled itself down and I was starting to feel slightly calm again; I had now fed my stomach and was chilling in front of the Tv when out of nowhere i started to imagine all the worse things that could happen to me happening as soon as i left the house.

What if my plain crashes, what if i miss the plain in general or what if the family doesn't warm to me and hates me. What if I'm actually shit at teaching English and they'd wished they'd found someone more competent instead of me.

" oh no... no-no-no", I kept quietly repeating this aloud as I knew the Tv was set just loud enough to mask my worries from my mum who I'd hoped was sleeping upstairs. Welll... I was very wrong because as I turn to the other side of the sofa thinking no one's there so I can put my feet up, who's sat directly next to me, mother dearest.

"Aliyna", she paused for a moment, "are you-o" before she could finish her sentence I cut her off and said "mummm, good morning. how was work ? You feeling okay ? Shouldn't you be asleep in bed right now after that long shift, how come you're still up silly!" I went to get up from the sofa to gesture my mother towards the stairs and up to her bed.

However just as I thought she was about to get off the sofa she instead pulled me back down and placed one hand on my cheek whilst the other went under my chin. She pulled my face upwards so I'd finally make eye contact with her. Surprisingly,I'm glad I did because as our dark brown eyes connected with one another I noticed that familiar sincerity and warmth from them and frustratingly I crumbled.

Pulling me into her arms and my face onto her shoulder my mum calmly said into my ear once more without me interrupting her, "Aliyna... are you okay".