I've Found You

Chapter 1

I glanced anxiously at the clock for about the fifth time in the past ten minutes, wondering yet again if time always passed more slowly at the end of the day, or if it was just me. The school bell seemed to be taking extra long this time, seeing as today it signaled not only the end of the school day but the end of the school year altogether. Good timing too, I wasn’t exactly sure if I could survive even one more day. Finally, though, it did ring, allowing me to get up and practically sprint out of the classroom at record speeds. I didn’t even look back as I exited the school and caught my bus to downtown Toronto, “the city of dreams” or so everyone called it. I didn’t exactly see it that way. To me it was just a city, and one that I couldn’t wait to escape at that.

I probably should have introduced myself to you earlier. My name is Valerie Andrews, I’m 17 years old, and I’ve spent my whole life in the city of Toronto. Growing up in such a large, urban area has really shaped my style and outlook on life, and as you might have guessed I have a tendency to over-shop now and then. Yeah, I guess you could call me a city girl, but somehow I’ve always felt that this wasn’t the city for me. I’m actually about 99% convinced that I was born in the wrong country overall. Now I know what you’re thinking: so many girls say this about themselves just because they want to live overseas where all the boys are tanned and have accents straight out of a fairy tale. Well, my reasoning is a lot different from this. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always felt that no one properly understood me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always had a ton of friends and I’ve never had to deal with being the odd girl out, but the friendships I developed never seemed to push anywhere past the surface. No one ever seemed to quite catch on to who I really was. And so, because of this, I’ve become exceptionally good at plastering a fake smile across my face and agreeing with everyone else on whatever superficial topic they were discussing. Deep down, though, I’ve always been craving more. I want to find a place where I fit in, where my brain is in sync with everyone else. And I’m pretty sure I know where to go.

This is why I find myself standing in the airport, waiting in line to buy a one way ticket to Australia. I’ve been thinking about it for the past few months, and I’ve made up my mind that this is the place I want to start my search. What am I searching for? Well, to be honest, I don’t even specifically know. I just want to meet people more like myself. Anything else I find is a bonus. I guess you could call it one of those “finding yourself” trips that divorced stay at home moms go on when they find themselves in the middle of a midlife crisis…except I’m not a divorced mom and I’m not in any way having a midlife crisis. I think I’m blabbering on about nothing again. I have a habit of doing that sometimes.

So anyways, I purchased my plane ticket for flight 307, which left at 10:30am tomorrow and was scheduled to land in Aussie at 9:30am the next day. Holy shit, my flight was 23 hours long?! I suppose it was worth it but goodness gracious I was going to be seriously jetlagged by the time I got there.  Now that the easy part was done, it was time to go home and get the hard part over with. And no, that wouldn’t be convincing my parents to allow me to fly across the world and spend a few months in a foreign country. My parents didn’t really care about that sort of stuff. Actually, they never really cared about anything at all. Besides, they had their own flight to catch in the morning! They were headed off to some remote island for the summer, I couldn’t be bothered to remember the name. They would barely even notice I was gone. No, for me, the hard part would be packing my bags. Bet you were expecting something a lot more exciting than that, right? I didn’t have a lot exciting going on for me in this city. I was hoping all the excitement would be found in Melbourne, Australia, the city I would be spending my summer in. In just two sleeps my life would be changing drastically, and I could only hope it was for the better. On that happy thought, I left the airport and set off for home, feeling a lot more sentimental than I had in a long time.