The Walk Towards Sunshine

Chapter 1

After many hours of reading and dozing off in the plane, we finally arrived in the US. The Californian sun kissed my skin and there's this right amount of coldness in the air. Mum got a cab and we reached our new home for about an hour.

The neighbourhood is quiet. Probably because it's after lunch and the people are off dozing off? The neighbourhood back in the UK is haunting me and the homesickness is washing over me. I told myself to not worry and start to get used to it. Mum has enough things to worry about and I should not get in the way of that. I look at our new house and thank god there's a porch. It is kind of similar to our home in the UK. They have the same calming blue color. It's a two-storey house, except this one has a lot of plants. Our windows have plants, there are plants hanging on the porch and more that surrounds the house. I turned around and noticed that if our neighbours don't have excessive plants displayed on their house, there is this huge tree. You can really tell their love of nature.

"Our neighbours have a plant slash nature addiction." I said to mum.

"Our house is no different, honey." Mum raises her two hands in exaggeration and we look at our new house together. "So what do you think, Drew?"

"You actually picked a house that is almost same as ours."

"Yes. I was thinking about you. I contacted the painters and told them what colour to put and take care of the plants while they're at it so our house doesn't look dead when we arrive."

"They did an awesome job."

"They sure did." Mum kissed my cheek. "Let's go inside?" I nod.

I am completely speechless when we entered the house. The house is fully furnished. It must have cost a fortune! All this house needs is us and our personal things.

"Whoa mum. I am expecting an empty space."

Mum laughs. "I figured we have a new house so we might as well buy new furniture."

"How long have you been preparing this?"

"Long enough, son. Now come on and let's fix our stuff. I still have grocery shopping to do."

The living room has a couch, two armchairs, lampshades, coffee table, s flat screen television, and a lot more things that I didn't even know this house would provide. I didn't help mum fix the things right away. I roam around the house first and check out our sweet new bathroom. The shower sticks on the roof! After drinking in the beauty of the house, I help mum. No wonder she only brought with us the light stuff from our old house like our picture frames, plates, silverwares, glasses, and other personal things. When I asked mum about the furniture that day, she said it was a surprise. We spent the three hours putting the frames and few wall decorations and fixing the kitchen.

"I'll be cleaning my room later. I'll go ahead and buy some food first." She went to the door. "Your room has the one with green walls." She winked at me and left.

I went right away to see my room. The color of the wall is indeed, my favourite shade of green. My new bed awaits me in the corner and so is the brand new study table that I'll thank mum later. Unfortunately, I can't put a t.v. in my room because mum wants me to concentrate when studying and she knows opening the television is tempting. I plopped my bag full of basketball posters, a basketball, some old medals of mine, a picture of me and my mum, and my favorite pillow at the bed, a pillow that was given to me when I was five. I went down once more to get my suitcase filled with clothes and placed them on my bigger closet. Surely, my bookshelf above the bed is full of comic books and medals on the other side. I placed the picture frame of mum and me on top my study table. The photograph was taken when I was seven and mum and I were on the beach.