I've Found You

Chapter 5

After receiving the furniture and spending hours upon hours rearranging it until it finally lived up to my standards, I stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to finish boiling so I could make myself a well-deserved cup of tea. I had to admit, I made one hell of an interior decorator. The dark wood furnishings and red accents complimented the whole apartment so well that it looked like the whole thing had been ripped out of the pages of a magazine. I had managed to make it look modern and chic, with just the right amount of that old fashioned appearance.

Somewhere behind me, my brand new tea kettle started whistling the tune of “twinkle twinkle little star”, signaling that my tea was ready. I poured myself a mug, grabbed my laptop from the counter where it was charging, and sat down on the couch in the living room. Pulling the fluffy red blanket from its spot on the arm of the couch, I wrapped it tightly around myself and opened my laptop. I was feeling very out of contact with the outside world. In a way, it felt like I was surviving in my own little bubble of chaos out here in Melbourne. I needed some reassurance that life back home still existed.

I opened up an internet tab and went straight for Facebook. Hmmmm…. Where to start? I decided updating my status wouldn’t hurt, and then maybe I could check in with a couple of my friends.

New apartment in Melbourne is looking great! Will try and post some pictures for everyone later x

There. Status updated. Almost immediately the chat boxes started popping up, mostly from people wondering why I was in Melbourne. Oh shit, that’s right…I hadn’t told anyone I was going. I messaged all of them back, making up some bullshit excuse about visiting distant family in Australia for the summer. Most of them wished me a good trip, the others didn’t even bother messaging me back. I doubted they bought my story, but then again I couldn’t quite say I cared too much. I logged out of Facebook and opened up a new tab. This time, I decided to check my twitter. Most of my mentions were from people wondering where I was and why I’d decided to go incognito all of a sudden. I decided to spare myself the trouble of replying to everyone individually and just post a generic tweet regarding my whereabouts.

Visiting some fam in Melbourne for the summer! New apartment looks great, can’t wait to show you all some pics later :) x

I logged out of twitter, not wanting to deal with the dozens of questions that I’d surely receive from my all too curious friends. Hmm… What now? In the back of my mind I felt like there was something I was supposed to be doing on here, but I couldn’t remember what exactly it was. I was about to open a google tab and try to find out what I’d been missing in the world of celebrity gossip when a link for YouTube caught my eye. That’s it! I was supposed to be looking up those Jano-whatever boys on YouTube!

The first video I came across was titled “Awkward Train Situations”. I clicked the link, and sure enough there were the faces of the boys I’d met this afternoon. The video turned out to be quite funny, so I watched its counterpart, “Awkward Train Situations #2”, followed by every other video on their channel. By the end of it all, I was in absolute tears. Who knew five boys with a lot of free time on their hands and a shame level of zero could be so addictively hilarious? I was starting to understand the purpose behind their ridiculous costumes today. Still laughing, I clicked the yellow subscribe button at the top of the page.

I opened up a new tab and went back to twitter, deciding that I would find them all and follow them. I doubted any of them would follow me back, considering they each had 100K+ followers, but almost immediately a little notification popped up on my phone informing me that @JaiBrooks1 had followed me back. Wow, that was quick. He definitely deserved a tweet from me for that one.

@ValerieAndrews: @JaiBrooks1 thanks for the follow back, I wasn’t expecting one! Just watched all your videos on youtube…wasn’t what I was expecting but funny as hell nonetheless :) can’t wait to see what today’s costumes were all about xx

I decided to shut down my laptop afterwards. I was in need of a good night’s sleep. I hung the blanket I was wrapped in back on the arm of the couch and made my way upstairs to my bedroom. Stripping down all of my clothes and throwing them off in the corner somewhere, I grabbed a towel and headed to the en suite for a shower. I felt dirty and sweaty and there was no way I’d ever be able to fall asleep in this condition. I let my hair loose from the ponytail it had been in all night and stepped under the scalding hot water.

Sigh. Hot showers always relaxed me to the point of exhaustion. I reached over to my right and grabbed my apple cider scented shampoo, lathered some into my hair, and started thinking about my day. I hadn’t expected things to be so eventful yet. I mean, of course I intended to meet people and hopefully make some friends, but not so soon! And on top of this, I was supposed to be attending a party tomorrow night with an almost famous boy and his friends who I had just met not twelve hours ago. Sheesh, Melbourne was really giving me a run for my money. I didn’t mind though, I had a feeling it was only going to get better from here.

I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in the white terrycloth robe that was hanging on the back of the door. I wrapped my hair in the towel I’d grabbed earlier and proceeded to flop down onto my bed. Grabbing my phone, I was more than surprised to see yet another text from Jai.

Jai Brooks:

Glad you liked our videos :) do you wanna hangout tomorrow before skip’s party? I could show you around the city if you want

Valerie Andrews:

That’d be cool :) I need to get some shopping done anyways, I'm sure you know where to go for that better than I do

Jai Brooks:

Oh god, more shopping?! Hahah jks I’d love to come shopping with you :P meet at your place at noon?

Valerie Andrews:

Sounds good, see you tmrw! Goodnight xx

Jai Brooks:

Goodnight x

Tomorrow was just sounding better and better by the minute.