New Beginnings

chapter 1.

My heart rate steadily inclines inside my chest which seemed to be closing in on itself, making it harder for me to breathe. I gripped the chairs' arms until my knuckles whitened and my eyes widened as I briefly glanced out the window. The plane slowly tilted upwards into the sky, continuing to ascend while picking up velocity.

"Oh my God," I breathed.

Looking over at my mum and little brother Ben, they somehow managed to seem completely relaxed. Ben noticed my panicky condition and let out a small laugh,

"It's not like you're going to die, Riley," he turned his blue eyes to gaze out the small oval window next to me. Pass the planes' wing you could see the city we had spent our entire lives growing up in, get smaller and smaller- until Cairns' buildings were only small grey dots in the far distance. I could imagine the small children waving us off in their backyards like I used to do when I was younger. There goes my entire childhood, I thought to myself as I leant back into my uncomfortable chair, trying to ignore the unsettling feeling in my stomach. Instead, I altered my attention to an aeroplane assistant going over the safety rules and regulation, and the procedure in case of an emergency landing. Which hopefully wouldn't happen.

After acknowledging where the oxygen masks and life vests were, I kicked off my new Adidas shoes and curled up, trying to find the best and most comfortable position to sleep in. I closed my eyes, thinking back to why I was here to where I am right now in the first place. I, Riley Chan -a 17-year-old girl, in year 11, am leaving two of my closest friends- Lauren and Olivia, just for my mum's new job as an interior designer. I'm moving from Cairns to live in Adelaide for the good of our entire family of three. Great, I can't wait. As I was definitely not looking at the positive side of things, I tried to switch perspectives. I'm moving into brand new, bigger, better and more modern house, I get to make new friends- hopefully and... I couldn't think of anything else that was positive. I opened my eyes to see the breathtaking sight of an entire ocean of various shades of blue below me, all blending into one another. I think of nudging Ben to show him, but instead, I find him fitfully sleeping. Cairns is no longer in sight, it was probably very, very far behind us now. Looking at the clock on the screen in front of me which read 6:38 AM, I calculated how much longer we had on the plane in my head: about two and a bit more hours. Sighing deeply I prodded the small TV and flipped through the available movies. Eventually, I settled on a film called 'The Basketball Diaries', which I had never heard of, but assumed was okay for it was starring Leonardo Dicaprio- who was amazingly hot.

I woke up because of an uncomfortable feeling of air pressure building up in my ears. I swallowed to rid of the feeling and looked over at mum, who smiled back,

"One of the stewards will be coming around soon with brekky sweetheart." I nodded in response and smelled the air. Inhaling deep, I could detect a delicious aroma wafting through the air. As if waiting for me to do this, my stomach grumbled in hunger, making me realise how hungry I was.

Not long after we were walking off the plane with luggage in both of my hands and a decent breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages and a bread roll in my stomach.

"Is Adelaide like heaps colder than Cairns, mum?" Ben questioned,

Mum looked up from her phone and looked blank, still processing the question. Then suddenly her face lit up,

"Oh yeah, it is a lot less hot than Cairns is and is also a lot less humid- which is a good thing." she replied. Seeing a notification on her phone, I noticed she had contacted our furniture removalists to come to our house, with a response of 'of course ! on our way :)'

**

In comfortable silence we exited past checkouts and security, occasionally making small talk about Adelaide or asking a simple question like 'Can you please pass me my bag?' Stepping out of the big terminal, through automatic glass doors, we made our first steps into our new, to be the hometown of Adelaide. Together our family had found an available taxi which gracefully drove us to our to-be new home. Upon arrival, the house looked sad and bare after only recently being constructed. There was no existence of any garden or lawn, leaving the house to look entirely barren.

"Isn't it lovely Riley?" Mum exclaimed, sounding more enthusiastic than ever.

"Yeah, sure." I bluntly replied,

Noticing my curt attitude towards moving in mum got the hint and dropped the subject. She knew that it was a big thing for Ben and me to do, just for her job.

Making our way inside, we all took in the interior of the house. All the rooms were sleek and modern, and the designer had made good use of space. But just like the outside it was deprived of furniture, lacking anything to decorate it with or make it seem homely. The house itself was two stories; containing three bedrooms, a lounge room and a bathroom upstairs, along with the kitchen, dining room, living room and another bathroom downstairs.

Looking around the small backyard, consisting of a shady verandah and a strip of grass, I could hear Ben shout from upstairs,

"Dibs this bedroom!"

Racing up to see, I could tell it was the master bedroom for mum.

"I don't think so," I said while laughing, going back down the hall to see the other two rooms,

"Mine's this one," I claimed, it was the second biggest room with an impressive, extensive window overlooking the neighbourhood.

Once Ben had done enough complaining about his room being the smallest, we started to help mum bring in furniture with the removalist guys- who had shown up in their truck a few minutes ago. Since it was just past lunch, we slaved the rest of the day unpacking everything from the huge truck parked on our front to be lawn. Emptying out the last remaining box full of tupperware, I flattened it down and stacked it against the others. Once finished, I walked back through the house which had looked like an abandoned, empty house a few hours ago, to a much more home-like abode. Mum had bought all new furniture to fit with the new house, but apart from that, I could recognise many of the things placed neatly where one would think to find them. I could see picture frames of our family and certificates of achievement on the way up the stairs to my room, along with little souvenirs and knick knacks mum had bought overseas while backpacking.

Opening the door to my room, I marvelled at the size of it compared to my bedroom in Adelaide. My bed had been placed underneath the window with the same blankets and sheets on it which I had slept on a few nights previous. I had already put my clothes away in the built-in wardrobe covered by sliding doors which had full-length mirrors on them, all which was left to place was a box full of little spare pieces. Taking them out one by one, I put each item on a shelve carefully. The perfume bottles on shelves with books along with some jewellery. Looking down into the box I reached down to grab the remaining two picture frames. The first was a cute rectangular photo of Ben and me when we were still quite small. Looking over to the second frame caused me to freeze and look deeply at it in thought. It was a little picture of when my parents when they were still together; Dad was smiling down into mums' eyes while balancing me on his hip. Mum returned the smile looking at him with love in her eyes. The photo made me feel sick. I quickly put the picture behind the rest of my belonging where I couldn't clearly see it.

When I was satisfied with the overall look of my room, I sat down on my comfortable bed and looked around my surroundings. Everything had a place to be and was neatly located. I had a small bedside table piled with my phone, a book I was currently reading, a tissue box and a small bin underneath. Shelves were packed with books, and my knick knacks were freckling most surfaces of my room. A Kikki.K calendar was hanging above the head of my bed. Looking out the huge window near my bed I took in the view of a quickly disappearing sunset behind the Adelaide rooftops. Feeling content with my work, I stood up and made my way downstairs to help mum with preparing dinner.