"Melanie!"
I whipped my head around to find a man, mid-forties, calling out my name from a crowd of people. A smile swept across my face and I fixed my hoodie.
"Dad, hi," I said as I was pulled into a hug. He took my orange duffel bag from my hand and I kept rolling my beat-up suitcase. I entertained him with stories of my last year of school on the ride to his suburban home.
I stared in awe as he pulled up to a fantastic house. Large windows faced the quiet road, and a huge mahogony door welcomed me.
"Mathew!" my father called as he dropped my bags off at the entrance. "Mel, your room is going to be up the stairs, right down the hall. Are you hungry? You must be tired from your flight." He went ahead into what I assumed was the direction of the kitchen, and I followed him.
As I scanned the refridgerator, a door opened and my brother came into the room.
"Hey, Melanie," he said, hugging me tight.
"Matt! I've missed you."
"We've missed you, too. You're going to love Baltimore," he smiled, pulling away. "Hey, I have some friends down in the basement, why don't you come meet them?"
I was less than enthusastic to move, not that I didn't love being with my dad and brother. I just wanted to settle in before I was bombarded with new people. "In a bit, I'll go down. I want to just drop my things off in my room."
He understood and disappeared again through the door.
Finally just taking a can of Red Bull, I walked back out to the enterance and slung my duffle bag over my shoulder, and with my suitcase also in tow, made my way up the grand stairway. Once upstairs, I mumbled to myself, "right down the hall," where my father told me room would be. I opened the door at the end of the hallway and was successful. A blank white room ; I felt like it was a clean slate.
I sat the energy drink down on the bedside table and flopped back onto the plush bed. I decided just to take a nap, to give myself something to do. Besides, I was tired from the flight from Seattle. Not feeling like opening my bag to find sleeping pants, I just slid my skinny jeans off and climbed into the bed.