Chapter 1:
I sat quietly in the uncomfortable seat with my ear buds in my ears, listening to some cooking channel with my eyes closed focusing on the words the country woman was speaking. Flight sickness always took me on the seven hour airplane ride to Toronto, the place I used to call my home.
I went there every summer since I moved all the way across Canada to some small town in British Columbia. I hated it there. I yearned for the humidity and the business of Toronto, but my parents wished for a “quieter life to settle down in”. So I was forced to settle with staying with my Aunt in Toronto for the entirety of my summers. Which wasn’t a bad thing, of course, but I never wanted to leave after the mere three months.
I loved everything about my aunt, her youthful personality, which was sometimes naïve. I loved her beautiful apartment right on the shore of Lake Ontario. I loved her new boyfriend, Michael, who was always very nice to me from when they started dating about a year ago. This was my second summer with him living at my aunt’s apartment. My aunt was incredibly beautiful. She had long, wavy blonde hair. Like a surfer. And she had beautiful light blue, wide eyes, like a child. She had fair skin and full red lips that always were in a smile.
I sighed and adjusted my position. Would it kill whoever designed airplanes to make the seats a little more comfortable? I was just glad that there was only about half an hour left of the long flight.
“So, what are we going to do this time, Mia?” My aunt asked, staring at me with her big eyes, awaiting a reply.
I took out my ear buds and thought for a minute, “I’m not sure. I’ve saved up all year so I’d like to do some shopping with my friends.” I replied with a smile, thinking of Ariana and Celeste. I knew that they’d definitely want to come shopping.
My old friends and I never really grew apart from the distance, unlike most people with their friends. Our friendship actually grew over the thousands of kilometers. I guess it was because I never really stuck with many of the people from my new town, which wasn’t so new anymore. I never had many friends in that small town. It was difficult.
So every summer my friends and I would be together as much as possible in the short time frame.
“I was thinking that maybe we can rent a boat for the summer, we could even spend a couple nights on it!” My aunt’s enthusiasm was definitely contagious, so we spent the remainder of the flight gushing over what we would do.
…
My aunt was, to say the least, quite wealthy. She worked as a manager for some clothing store that was big in Toronto, so she could afford to do all these things with me. And, she loved spending money on me anyway. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but I suspected it was the lack of children of her own to spoil.
My family, on the other hand, did not have the luxury of money. My parents had low paying jobs and the “big move” across the country definitely put them back a few thousand, since I have four siblings. Three brothers one sister. It was quite chaotic at home. But none of my siblings insisted on returning to Toronto every summer like I did. Maybe because they all had made new friends while my head and heart were still in the empty apartment back in the big city. I loved my family all the same, I just did not approve of the decision to leave.
So here I was, on an airplane descending into Toronto Airport.
When the plane landed I was relived. I did not want to put the puking bag in the seat of the airplane to use, not this time.
