hurricane // hs.

chapter one.

I'm woken abruptly by someone shaking my shoulder. "Hi, excuse me? Sorry the plane is just about to land and I thought you'd want to be woken."

I rub my eyes and open them to find the old man I'm seated next to on the plane. "Thanks." I snap a bit too harshly. He looks slightly taken aback but I choose to ignore it. Being woken up doesn't usually put me in a great mood.

My name is Zara. I'm from Melbourne, but I'm currently on a plane to England. My Dad lives here, in Cheshire, and seeing as my Mum passed away a few weeks ago, I'm now going to live over here. For a while at least. I haven't seen my Dad for two years, I mean it's not that there's a reason, I've just been busy with school and things. We're still pretty close though I guess, he calls me sometimes to see how I'm going. Lately that's been not so good. I'm having a pretty hard time dealing with everything about my mum, I just miss her so much.

The cold air hits me as I walk out of the airport, looking for my Dad. It's freezing here, everyone was right. I send him a quick text to let him know where I am, and grab a coffee from a nearby shop. I sit down and take a sip of my coffee, thinking about how different my life is going to be here. I don't know where I'm going at all, I'm starting at a new school next week, and to top it off I know no one. I'm interrupted from my thoughts with a light tap of the shoulder, I turn and see my Dad, I jump up and throw my arms around his neck, god it's been so long.

We pull away and he looks at me with sympathy in his eyes. "How have you been doing Zara, I know this must be hard for you, especially at your age."

I take a deep breath and answer. "I'm fine, I guess. you know, considering."

He pulls me in to a tight hug and I hug him back.

The drive to cheshire couldn't have been any longer, I'm sure it wasn't but it felt like forever, I was so excited, yet also anxious. But we're here now. Dad covers my eyes as we get out of the car and walk into the house, and when I hear the keys settle on the bench he takes his hands off. I blink my eyes adjusting to the change of lighting, and look around, it's small and cosy and modern, everything I want my own house to be when I grow up. I smile and turn to Dad.

"It's great" I say to him.

"Thanks, I certainly think so." he chuckles back to me. "Oh, and I'll show you your room?"

"Yes!" I practically squeal with excitement.

We walk up the stairs and he shows me to a door, I walk in and take in my surroundings. its a perfect size, and has a a balcony going off to one side. Except there's no decoration in the room at all. Just a bed, doona, desk, and a cupboard. As if he could read my thoughts he said "I thought I'd leave it for you to do the decorating, you know I'm not too good at all that stuff."

I laughed. "Thanks." and gave him a smile.

"Also, there's an ensuite." He said walking through the room and opening a door. I stuck my head in and looked around, it was small but it was modern, which I was thankful for.

"Thankyou so much, for all of this. It's great, really." I said walking over and pulling him into a tight embrace.

"No worries" he replied. "Right well I'm off to bed now, if you need anything come and get me. Night Zara, love you."

Night Dad, love you too."

He smiled at me walking out of the room.

I decide on unpacking all my stuff, so I won't have to do it tomorrow. I want to go have a look around town tomorrow and familiarize myself with the place anyway. I walk back and forth between my suitcase and my cupboard hanging up all my clothes, and by the time I'm done it's 11:30pm and I'm pretty tired. I walk into my ensuite, god this is so great having my own bathroom, and brush my teeth, wash my makeup off my face, and pull my hair back. Walking back into my room I change into one of my oversized shirts, I honestly can't sleep in anything else.

I jump onto my bed and lay there, staring up at the ceiling. I find myself smiling, thinking how this is the happiest I've been in weeks.