The Not-So Brits

Chapter 1~ The onion

Hello people of Wattpad! This here is my first story and I would really appreciate you reading it. You, yes you, the one with your eyes glued to the screen. Anyways please keep reading, you know what they say: don't judge a Wattpad story based on it's first chapter! (not sure if anybody actually says that but they should...) Thank you for putting up with my incessant blabber. Here we go!

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Check out my second story --) Keeping Sane

The first thing teachers always told us to do on the first day, is write on a small piece of paper one word to describe ourselves and why. But, honestly, how could you sum up all the tiny little quirky, imperfect things about yourself into one word?

I guess I'm sorta like an onion: I seem somewhat tough on the outside, but the more layers you peel through, the more people realize that I'm just an emotional wreck that ends up making people cry.

Though, every year, I know how that would go over with the guidance counselor, so I end up settling for "shy". I guess most people assume I'm either stuck up or unsocial from the beginning, but the truth is I'm neither.

But, I really don't care what people think of me, unless they are an important part of my life, which I realized, I hadn't in a very long time.

At the previous hell-hole I was enlisted at, I was constantly being judged, and not that I actually cared much, but as much as I say I'm perfectly okay being alone, we all get lonely once in a while. What I needed was change.

And that's what I planned to do. While my parents were busy with work and other things that seemed so unimportant in the scheme of life and death, I had secretly applied for a scholarship at a boarding school in London. Of course I had no intention of getting in ( but I realize that you already know I did because you wouldn't being reading this if I hadn't). To be honest I had actually forgotten about it until the day I received the letter.

Well, technically, because it was sent to our home address in LA, I didn't "receive" the letter. It was more of a muffled sob that came from my mother that told me she had gotten some unwanted news in the mail.

FLASHBACK

My dad, little sister, and I all looked up from our bowls of Cheerios to find my mother in her PJs and morning hair, stifling back tears as she read the paper aloud:

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Porter,

It is our deepest pleasure to announce to you that we would be elated for Miss Avery Roxanne Porter to join the Evanson Hughes Institution this coming fall..."

She has to stop here as her sobs have become louder than her actual voice. My father, being the loving man he is, just sits there staring into his milk, probably thinking about how much money he has wasted by letting his cereal turn soggy. I don't know what to do. I don't feel like I should apologize and I wouldn't even know how to begin with trying to comfort my mother. But she regains her calm and stares at me with a look that could kill.

" Would you like to explain or should I just put this in the shredder with the other junk mail?"

This was not the woman I knew. Not ever had she become this demanding and frankly scary, especially after an emotional moment like the one that just happened seconds ago.

But I am not someone who was easily scared off. I calmly looked her right in the eyes and said,

"What does it look like mom? Because to me it seems like an escape from the life I'm currently stuck in."