It wasn't like I wanted to go to the boarding school that I had won a scholarship to. I was content with my friends here, Clary, Simon, Jace, Alec, Isabelle, and Magnus, and the education wasn't bad. But my brother, Nate, said that it would be a lovely opportunity to receive a better education. Honestly, it sounded like an excuse to get me out of the small one bedroom apartment we have shared ever since Aunt Harriet died a few months ago. Nate had developed a gambling obsession ever since she died, therefore, making it feel like I do live alone, besides the bills barely getting paid by Nate's home job. Mortmain had given Nate a job because my father worked for him. Or, at least he had before he died in a car accident with my mother.
"Everything packed, Tessie?" Nate calls to me from the kitchen. I nod solemnly, wanting to wake up and this just be a horrible dream. That I wasn't leaving my friends, my sanctuary, the only people that keep me going ever since my aunt died and Nate shut me out.
"Have fun!" he calls to me waving as a taxi, already loaded with all my possessions, most of which being books, takes me away. The taxi arrives at the airport and my bags go through security. There, as I am about to walk through security, I spot them.
My friends.
My home.
And I was leaving them!
I rush into Clary's arms. We cling to each other like our lives depend upon it. Which, in all honesty, they probably do.
"You can't forget me! No matter how rich you become from writing your books, or whatever seriously hot guys start crawling all over you, you will never forget me, you will tell me everything, you will still be here for me, understand?" Clary demands.
"Of course, Clare Bear," I say to her, "there is no way I'd ever forget about you or any of you, but don't get your hopes up, because, in reality, there's no chance I'm going to fit in." Eyes glance at me skeptically. "Oh come on! Did you even see that place? It's for billionaires, no, sextillionaires! There is no way I'd go there if I had a choice," I declare. Which is the absolute truth, how was I supposed to fit in with the people I detested at my own school, and they weren't nearly as rich? I wouldn't.
I look at them, all of them, and my eyes start to burn. I cannot cry here.
I cannot cry here.
"Group hug!" Isabelle declares. Within seconds, I am wrapped in Clary's arms, Isabelle's arms, Simon's arms, Alec's arms, Jace's arms, and Magnus's arms, and I realize, that for a long time, this will be the last piece of comfort I will get. No more anything.
No brother, no friends, no closet with nothing but books stacked high in piles, that turn out to be really hard to get out, in it, no scratched couch to do my homework on.
No more home.
Eventually, we pull apart. All of us, even the boys, have tears streaking our faces.
"I'm gonna miss you guys," I barely manage to choke out, stunned at how unstable my voice sounded.
"We'll miss you too, Tess," Magnus says. My friends are the only people who have ever called me Tess. I give them each a hug goodbye.
"Don't forget to call," Clary, Simon, Jace, Isabelle, Magnus, and Alec shouted in unison as I walk through security. I look back at them, they weren't perfect, but neither was I, to me, it doesn't matter if they are perfect or that I am perfect. It only matters that I fit in somewhere.
They were that somewhere.
As I look back, I see Jace comforting Clary, while she sobbed, with tears streaming down his face as well. Isabelle was comforting herself quietly, but eventually turned to Simon and cried into his shoulder. Magnus and Alec both had tears on their faces but were standing there. They said something to the others.
"We miss you already, Tessa Gray!" they shout and then put on a small, broken smile and waved at me. To which, I responded with tears flowing down my face without stop. They were in pain, the people I loved like they were my family, and it was my fault, I was the one leaving.
I boarded the plane, trying not to break out into a complete sob, but to no avail. For as soon as we started to take off, on the roof of the airport, I noticed the tiles spelt out:
WE LOVE YOU TESS
C-J-I-S-M-A
I leaned against the window crying harder than I cried when my aunt came in and told me that my parents had gone, and no, not just for a trip, gone forever.
Crying harder than I did when Nate shut me out, when he shut the world out and began to gamble.
Crying harder than when Nate would come home late at night drunk and would pass out on the couch, sometimes in his own vomit, and I would spend the morning I had cleaning.
Harder than when he would hit me while drunk, blaming me for our parent's deaths, for Aunt Harriet's death, blaming me for all the pain that he tried to drink away every night.
I used to think myself brave, but nothing, nothing in the world could've prepared me for this emptiness. The emptiness of knowing that tomorrow at exactly 11:45 AM in New York, they would be sitting down for lunch, and I wouldn't be there. I would be eating lunch with a handful of snobby kids that would be showing off ten thousand dollar bracelets they would only wear once.
Those are the kids I hate, and they also happen to be the kids I was going to school with. Even worse, one of these girls would be my roommate.
I pressed my forehead against the glass and looked at New York. From above, it looks nothing like the New York I know, the New York that I love, the New York I grew up in.
Welcome to the real world a voice in the back of my mind tells me.
