Off the Map

4

I had to wake up early to catch my plane. I had already planned the outfit I would wear for the plane ride. So when I got up I simply put on my clothes that I had laid out. A pair of comfortable legging and a light sweater that said dibs on the drummer on the front. I put my hair up in a messy bun, and put on a tiny bit of makeup.

"Florence, hurry up we have to leave soon," my dad yelled from downstairs.

"Okay dad, I'll be right down," I picked up my carry on bag which I had packed with my phone, charger, headphones, snacks, etc... I quickly snuck into Spencer's room and gave him a quick hug goodbye before heading downstairs.

"I'm ready to go," I said with a smile. I was so excited but I was still a bit sad, I was going to miss my parents and my brother and this whole place. My mom walked out of the bathroom.

"I'm ready to go whenever you are,"

"Let's go we don't want me to miss my flight," I said still trying my best to keep smiling. I knew the second I stopped smiling my parents would break down and start crying. The drive to the airport was silent, nobody knew what to say. Eventually we got to the airport and my parents helped me with my bags.

"I'm going to miss you guys," I said.

"We're going to miss you too," my parents replied with a smile. My parents walked with me until we had to go in our separate directions. The second after we had said our goodbyes and they had waved me off I started to cry, I would miss then so much but I knew that this was something I had to do.

The plane ride was only about an hour and a half so I didn't bother to watch anything. Mostly I just listened to my music. Most of the music on my phone wasn't pop. Some of the bigger names downloaded onto my phone were bands like 5sos, the police, arctic monkeys, fall out boy, imagine dragons, etc... but sometimes when I was taking pictures I listen to classical music like Beethoven and Mozart. I find it helps me concentrate.

About half way through the flight one of the flight attendants came by handing me a bag of pretzels and a cup of water. I thanked her and continued to listen to my music. I loved flying on planes, getting to see the view and lucky enough for me I got a window seat. Boo-yeah! We started our descent and the closer we got to the ground the more nervous I got. What if none of the other contest winners liked me? What if they start to hate me? All of these thought kept floating through my head until I picked up my bag and started heading for the crowd of people holding signs with names on them. Someone from national geographics was supposed to come pick me up. Looking around at the crowd I finally saw a young looking man in jeans, a grey tee shirt and a leather jacket holding up a sign that 'Florence Hoyte: national geographics' I smiled and headed over to the man. As I got closer to him I realized how old he actually was, his hair was salt and pepper like and he had a bit of stubble around his chin. From afar he looked twenty-seven maybe but close up he looked to be about forty.

"Hi there, I'm Florence." I said, still smiling.

"Hi Florence, I'll be taking you to where you will be staying but first as just a precaution I need to see your passport just to make sure you are who you say you are,"

"Sure, here you go," I said opening up my passport so that he could see my ID picture.

"Alrighty, now that that is in order, follow me." the man said turning around a walk in the direction I assumed the car was in. I quickly followed behind him while in a constant battle with my luggage. Why did the car have to be parked so far away? It wasn't that I had bad luggage it was just that I had three bags, a carry-on and my camera bag.  After what felt like a mile's worth of walking we finally arrived at the car. Thank god. The man, who's name was still a mystery to me, placed my bags in the trunk as I hopped into the passenger seat. There was yet again another silent, awkward drive. At one point I had asked if I could put on some music, to make things less awkward, but I didn't receive any form of the word yes in return.

"Any type of music you listen to would be distracting to me," he said sternly and in an annoyed tone. That was the end of me trying to make polite conversation. We drove for what felt like an hour before pulling up to a building that I thought looked a bit like a hotel. I guess I would be staying here. I looked down at my phone hoping to see that one of my friends or if Spencer had texted be but I had no new messages. As I looked at my phone I saw that we had only been driving about twenty minutes.

"You're one of the last ones to arrive so I'm sorry that you won't get to pick your room," the man said as he helped with my bags. We walked into the lobby I guess you could call it and the man approached the front desk. There was a tall lady working there with blonde hair that was pulled back into two french braids. She was quite pale and looked as if one drop of sunlight would burn her skin.

"This is the last of them," the man said as the woman handed him a room key. I was in room 312, luckily there was a working elevator so I hopped on the elevator with my luggage and went directly to my room, the man explained on the way up that all the winners were staying on the same floor, he also explained that in a few hours we would be having a meeting where we will be given all the rules, schedule and we would get to meet each other. Once he left my room I closed and locked the door, I felt so tired from having to get up early that I just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep on my bed. Which I intended to do right after I took my shoes and makeup off.