The New Me// L.H

{2}

{A}

After the longest flight I've ever been on and the only flight I've ever been on, we finally land in Australia. It's around eleven at night and the jet lag hits me super hard. I'm exhausted and feel extremely stiff from sitting in the uncomfortable airplane seats for fifteen hours.

For the past two weeks my father has been making calls and looking at houses online so we would have a move in ready house when we arrived here. Thankfully we have mattresses to sleep on tonight until we get the rest of our things.

I follow my parents off of the plane. We see a man holding up a sign with our last name on it. We walk over to him.

"You must be the Grande's. I will be driving you to your new home."

He hands my father what looks like a house key and gestures us to follow him. We follow him to a black car and he takes our bags. Thank goodness he knows where the house is. I just want to sleep.

It takes the man about forty minutes to arrive to our new home and I'm ready to pass out. He helps us with our bags, welcomes us to Australia and says goodbye to us. He leaves and my father opens the door to our home.

Well I guess this is the new home to my new life out here. We take our things inside and my father gets a blow up mattress. He gets them ready and hands my mother and I, blankets and pillows. It wasn't the comfiest thing, but as soon as my head hit the pillow my eyes shut and went to dream land.

___

We've finally finished unpacking everything and getting the house put together. My mother informed me that the schools out here have already started and that I start my first day tomorrow. I'm not excited or ready for this at all.

I'm not sure how they teach things out here or if I'll even understand anything.

"Ariana are you excited for school tomorrow?" My mother asks me at the dinner table.

I poke at the salad in front of me. I ignore her question well because she should already know what my answer is going to be. She lets out a sigh.

"Can you at least pretend to be excited honey? We're in Australia for crying out loud"

"Oh so exciting" I sarcastically say.

I stand up from my seat and place my plate on the counter by the sink. I walk up the stairs to my room and lock the door. My eyes look over to a few bags of clothes my mother had bought for me for school. I toss them into my closet, not bothering to look at them.

Just because I'm in a new home, new city, new everything. Doesn't mean I'm changing anything about myself. I look at the clothes in my closet. My variety of sweaters and basic dark t-shirts. My dark jeans and sweatpants. I look in the mirror at my bright red hair. Lets just hope I can stay in the background like I did before with Elizabeth and our other friends.

This year is going to suck. I can feel it. I just wish I has at least Liz out here with me.

___

My mother wakes me up super early. I groan and check the time on my phone. It is six in the morning. This woman is crazy. I roll out of bed and lazily go to the bathroom. Quickly I strip and turn on the warm water. I wash my long red hair quickly and clean myself.

After I finish I open the bathroom door, look both ways to see if my parents are around and run into my room. I shut my door and lock it. I dry myself off and slowly dress myself. The warm water makes me so tired.

I comb through my wet and tangled hair and then braid it into two braids. My outfit is just a simple black sweater and light skinny jeans. Nothing fancy, but it's just school. And if I don't have my best friend here, then why try to show off alone?

"Ariana are you ready yet? You need to eat now so you wont be late!" My mother yells.

I groan and grab my headphones. I open my door and grab my slip on vans from my closet. I walk downstairs and my mother has a stack of pancakes at the table.

"Come on sweetie eat up" She says.

I point to them and I'm about to speak, but she beats me to it.

"Yes they're Vegan. Gosh Ari, you think I forget these things, but you always remind me."

I shrug and sit down at the table. I begin eating and my mother rambles on about how excited she is about me getting to experience new things here. I'm sure not though. I miss home. I miss my friends. Now there's nothing I can do about it though.

I finish up my breakfast and slip on my shoes. My mother grabs her car keys and we walk out. We get in the car and she drives me to a new school I'll probably learn to hate. She drops me off in the front and I get out before she can do anything too embarrassing. I walk into the entrance and see the office as soon as I walk in. I enter and tell the woman about me being transferred here late and she finds my schedule, locker number and combination. I thank her and leave the office.

As I walk down this new hallway and look for my locker I run into someone. A very tall and hard person. The books in their hands drop to the floor and I groan. Shit seriously.

"Watch where you're going red head" The voice angrily spits.

I look up to the tall blonde boy who yelled at me. I take one of my head phones out.

"Sorry" I say.

"Of course it's a stupid American"

"Go fuck yourself" I scoff.

He does something I was not ready for. He pulls my headphones out, making my phone drop to the floor and crack. He then harshly pushes me into a locker. I cry in pain and drop to the floor. He stands towering over me and then lowers himself down to my level.

"Watch it next time" He whispers.

He then walks away. Did nobody see that? He literally just put his hands on me. Yes I said something rude, but I didn't physically hurt him. Not that I could if I tried.

Everyone else continues to do whatever they were doing before and nobody acknowledges me. I try not to let any tears slip out, but the hit from the lockers hurt like hell. I slowly get up and sniffle. My mind is still trying to figure what happened and why. I look down the hallway to see the boy standing there glaring at me. I turn my back and continue to look for my locker. Hopefully I wont have to be near this guy again.

___

My first day at this new school is finally over and I couldn't be happier. I'm still debating on whether or not to tell anyone about what happened between the boy and I. I'm the last one out of class and the halls are empty. I open my locker to put away my books. As I shut my locker, I place my headphones in and frown at my cracked phone. I begin walking down the hallway, but stopped by a tall boy with purple hair.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

He then pulls my headphones out. Once again my reaction comes out badly.

"Dude what the hell-"

I'm cut off as I'm slammed into the lockers again. The tall boy stands in front of me, his hands pressed against my shoulders. I'm in pain and try to get out of his grip.

"Let go, you're hurting me" I cry.

"I'll do more than that if you say a word about what happened earlier. Keep that sassy little American mouth of your shut. Got it?"

I nod as a tear falls down my cheek. He lets go of me and him and the other boy walk away. My back slides down the lockers and I let more tears come out. What the hell is going on? Why is this happening? What did I do wrong?

________________________________________________________________________________

Word Count: 1,425