𝑻𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒆 [𝒍𝒓𝒉] 𝒂𝒖

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏

*✭ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 ✭*

2020

We, humans, change daily. Every day just a little bit, but the change is still there. So one day, we will be a completely different person and when we look in the mirror we can hardly believe that the face that smiles back belongs to the same person we once were.

Our everyday life consists of new routines that change slowly but continuously. Life is guided by changes and would be boring, too, if it weren't for them.

But this change was different. My mind was completely there. Everything that happened around me, I absorbed. I was aware that I was on a train from Sydney to the other end of Australia.

Leaning my head against the cool glass of the cabin that was made for six, where I was all alone with my eyes closed, I tried to block out the restless shaking of the train. I almost fell asleep, but every time I was about to do so, I banged my head against the train window and was brightly awake again at once.

I would miss my mother and father, I already knew that much, even though most of the time I had the feeling that they had seen me as more of a burden than a blessing. I could argue about my brother. Although deep down, I liked him very much, I was glad to be free of him for several months.

I was also angry with him. After all, it had been his idea that I travelled to the other end of the country to visit a boarding school for difficult adolescents, as my mother used to call it.

The relationship between me and Matthew had always been... let's say critical. We quite liked each other, actually, but we were the complete opposite. He was the well-behaved poster boy and I was the girl every parent hoped their child would not be like that.

We had already had countless arguments behind us, where I complained that he had snitched on me again when I snuck out of the house at night to go to a party, but of course, it didn't stop him from doing it again at the next best opportunity.

He always threatened me that one day he would find a way to get rid of me once and for all and congratulations, Matt, you did it.

The reason my parents thought his brilliant idea of sending me to a boarding school wasn't that bad, was mainly because they caught me in bed with my best friend Jaxon last week. And we hadn't done anything. I had simply offered him to sleep on my bed, as I felt guilty for letting him sleep on the floor.

That combined with the nightly excursions that had been increasing lately and the fact that my grades had been getting worse and worse in the past months seemed to be the stain that broke the camel's back.

I have to admit that I had always expected that one day, I would end up in a boarding school.

I didn't fit in with my relatives at all; they were all just picture perfect kids and teens. My cousins - all of them; they were almost always at the top of their class and had their future planned in a structured way until they would reach their midlife crisis. And then there was me: Olivia Cox, who didn't even manage to keep track of her homework for the next week.