Troubled

Chapter 5 - Home is where the heart is.

The engines of the plane whirred loudly, and I shifted in the scratchy airplane seat uncomfortably. We still had an hour into the flight before touching down at JFK, and I was eager to get off the plane at this point. The earlier hours of the plane trip were boring and uneventful, in addition to the fact that it was freezing on the plane and my jacket was stowed in my backpack.

Janet was sleeping in the seat next to me. Leaning on my shoulder, her head was heavy. She must've been really tired with all of the shopping and packing she had to do. I was also getting a little antsy. In addition to feeling exhausted, I also had mixed feelings when I got on the plane.

Part of me wanted to stay, but another part of me missed Taylor and all our friends back home.

I was also disappointed that I didn't get to spend much time time with Dad this time, but I was aware of how much his work meant to him.

It was just that I wished he had more time off so we could've actually squeezed in a father-daughter moment during this visit, but we never had the chance.

At least I had Janet to keep me occupied. And also I wasn't short of "adventures" during this trip. The thought of sparkling, pale blue eyes never failed to make me feel fluttery on the inside. Oh well.

Brushing aside my thoughts, I closed my eyes. Not long after, I fell asleep...

-----

The sound of the pilot speaking on the airplane's intercom woke me up from my dreamless sleep with a jolt.

"Good afternoon passengers, this is your captain speaking, we are due to land in John F. Kennedy International Airport in an estimated fifteen minutes. The local time in New York at the moment is two-fifteen in the afternoon, and the weather is cold as it is snowing heavily. Hopefully we will manage to get a landing without any delays in this weather. Once again, we thank you for flying with us and hope to see you again."

Ugh, great. Snow? So predictable. It is the winter season. Guess we'll just have to bear with it. I sighed and my brows knitted as I frowned, then I flopped my head down again, leaning on the uncomfortable seat and waiting silently like the good girl everyone thinks I am.

---

"Seriously, I am so pooped to be back home," muttered Janet as we were walking past the immigration counter, lugging our bags with our aching arms.

"What, don't you miss everyone?" I asked. I missed all our friends. Taylor I missed the most.

"I do, it's just that... Oh, never mind."

After that we just walked in silence, neither of us saying a word.

When we walked out the large glass doors that led into the outside of the airport, were the taxi stand was located, the biting cold made us flinch. I was wearing my jacket now, and Janet had her shawl, but they were useless barriers against this kind of weather. The floor was slick with dirty melted icicles, and the air was hard to breathe in with all the wind.

We were the only ones queuing for a cab in the stand. Many people surrounded us but they had no intention of taking a taxi. Earlier we considered taking the airport shuttle to the city like everyone else to get to my apartment, but we thought that hailing a taxi was more efficient as the shuttle would be packed.

We waited for five minutes. Then ten. We were almost going to leave to take a bus when the clock showed we had waited fifteen minutes, but then we spotted a single bright yellow cab coming toward the stand.

We got inside the vehicle where it was warm and toasty, the heater was on. The cab driver, a severely tanned forty-something-year-old mustached man, hauled our bags into the boot, then strapped his seatbelt when he got in the car.

"Where to, misses?" he drawled with a deep southern accent.

"To the city."

"Anywhere specific in the city?"

"Upper East Side, Park Avenue. Number eleven," I responded immediately.

We then took off. The cab ride was long, about fifteen minutes till we reached the city because of slight traffic. Janet tried to make conversation but I was too tired to talk to her, so we each just looked out the car windows, silent. The only sound that could be heard was the honking of the cars outside and the crackly sound of the cheesy eighties song playing on the radio.

-----

We struggled to bring our luggage out of the cab onto the doorstep until the front door flung open and there she was. My mother. She was smiling and welcomed us with open arms and helped us get our luggage inside. I hugged her tight and said that I had missed her. The whole house had an delicious aroma of my mother's yummy chicken pot pie.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're back, girls! It's been a while," she said, affectionately placing her skinny hands on our shoulders and hugging us tight.

My mother is a very small person. Everything about her is slim, tiny. Her cheekbones and elbows jut out sharply and she has always been skin and bones for as long as I've known. Even then, she has the healthy, glowing radiance of a nicely aging forty-year-old woman, just slightly puffed-out bags beneath her blue eyes and some grey strands in her hair and that was it.

My mother used to joke that I was "big and brawny" like my father, who was large and had the same dull hazel eyes that I inherited from him. Even though I'm not really big, I'm average in size. However, I must seem huge to a tiny person like her.

But now that my parents are divorced, she doesn't talk about my dad much. Only when she owes me the truth, that's when she'll speak about him. Even though whenever she does it seems strained.

I trudged down the hall to my room and opened the door. The lights were off. Taking a closer look, I noticed my twin older brothers sprawled across my bed, sleeping. I smiled. They looked so huge on my tiny single bed.

I adore my brothers. Even though sometimes they got on my nerves, that didn't mean I didn't love them. Sure, they could be overprotective yet annoying, but it was sweet. I hadn't realized how much I had missed them even though I was only gone for a while.

I ruffled Cody's hair softly and kissed Jeremy's cheek, then slowly tiptoed out the door, careful not to wake them up.

Nothing's better than family.

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hey hey readers :)

yay for new update! ❁

as you all have noticed, our username has changed to @lemonbeachy ❁ and notice that i said our, because we (nata and niki) have merged our accounts into one :)

(this is from nata: i figured that because my good friend niki's so talented and she helped me think up so many awesome ideas, so i decided to do this with her! her suggestions are so creative, she deserves credit)

happy reading!

love,

❁ nata & niki ❁

ps: niki's personal wattpad: @itismenikitabella ❁ ❁ ❁