Remembering Love

Chapter 1

"Madie!" A voice screamed as I open my eyes to see my best friend, Annie, in my face.

"What do you want! I'm sleeping." I say, rolling over under the covers and putting a pillow over my head to block out any other noises that may disturb my sleep.

I've been testing the whole week for finals in all my classes. College life is exhausting. I deserve some rest.

"We have 20 minutes, Madie! For lords sake, wake the hell up." I finally give in and role myself out of bed since it is winter break, I am a little excited to be going to Europe with Annie. Annie is from England, so I have decided to go along with her for the holidays. There's no reason to go home. There's no one there waiting for me to come back anyways.

I pat myself on the back for packing everything the night before so I don't need to do it right now. As we gather our bags, I check the clock to see how we did on time, and it's only 4:48 am. Why are we flying half way around the globe at the butt crack of dawn?

We arrive at the airport around 5:20 and head to the runway. We give the people our tickets and board the plane after putting our bags in the luggage area. And of course, Annie's parents bought two first class tickets.

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"At this time, we would like you to fasten your seatbelts for landing. We will be arriving in London in 15 minutes. Thank you, for choosing British Airlines."

"Thank The Lord!" Annie exclaims from the seat next to me. I'm ready to get out of this plane. It's been too long. But I am also sad because I got to enjoy free food that was quite delicious. We land eventually and make our way to the baggage claim.

"Are we calling a cab?" I ask Annie as we walk to the doors of the airport.

"No, my mum sent Jeffrey." She says as we walk out of the airport. Of course she has her own shofar. It always makes me wonder why she's in Washington anyways. We stand there for a few minutes until I see a black limo park right in front of us.

"Is that for us?" I ask Annie while pointing to the limo without breaking my eyes away.

"Yeah? What did you expect?" She asks. I shrug as we make our way to the limo. A short man walks out of the limo, and takes our bags. I never noticed how lucky I am to have a friend who is so amazingly rich and amazing who can take me to London for the holidays. I went last summer after my first year of college with Annie, but I haven't stopped gawking at every building since we landed. It's even more beautiful with snow on the ground. I'm sad our trip is only until the first week of February.

It's about a half an hour after getting in the limo and we are finally out of town.

We pull into a long driveway covered in trees and snow. A big black gate, acting as an entrance to a white mansion with a rounded driveway, a fountain in the middle of it, and grass that is covered in snow all around the property.

After the limo comes to a stop, we walk inside of the house, Jeffery and another guy holding our bags behind us as we enter the large wooden doors. There's two large stair cases when I walk in that meet in the middle of the second story, with a big chandelier in the middle of the house. This part of the house so far, has always been my favorite.

"Where would you like these miss?" The guy with Jeffery asks me. I force myself to look away from the scene in front of me and look to Annie.

"You can just put them in my room, Conner." Annie answers for me as she takes my hand to guide me towards the living room. I see Annie's mother first, Teresa, who looks perfectly stunning for her age stands up and walks towards us.

"Annie, dear, oh! And Madelyn, it's so nice to see you!" She says while taking me into a bear hug.

"It's nice to be back," I say back to her and she smiles at me. She turns to her daughter to give her a motherly hug and then she turns around and walks towards the living area where Annie's father is sitting, watching sports.

"John! Annie and Madelyn are home! Come over here!" Teresa says.

"Nice to meet you young lady, Madelyn is it?" Annie's father says to me while shaking my hand while I laugh lightly at his sarcasm. He laughs too and takes me in for a bear hug. He's always been a joker.

"Thank you so much for letting me enjoy the holidays at your place. It means a lot." I say.

"No problem, dear. Are you two hungry? It's in the kitchen. Cordelia should be in there to make a plate for you. Come along, John we're nearly late!" Annie's mom says as she grabs her purse and walks out the door.

"Where are they going?" I ask Annie.

"Who knows. Maybe a charity thing. They have a ton of those all the time." She says.

"Oh. Well who is Cordelia?" I ask.

"Oh! She's our cook. She's amazing. Really, she makes delicious food." Annie says as we walk into the kitchen.

"So you have a cook now? Well I can live with that." I say while grabbing a plate from the cabinet.

"What are we doing tomorrow?" I ask Annie as she walks into the dining room from the kitchen.

"I don't know. I'll have Jeffery take us into town in the morning. Maybe we can go shopping?"

"Okay! I'm good with that!" I wonder if I'll make any friends in England? Maybe some of Annie's old friends? Who am I kidding? Probably not.

Annie and I go up stairs after having dinner, and get ready for bed since we had a long flight, and I've been up too long. After unpacking our things, and getting settled in, Annie and I walk over to her enormous bed, and get ourselves tucked in.

"Night, Mads." Annie says, half way into sleep.

"Night, Annie." I say, and try to get myself to fall into sleep.