She opened her window and looked out passed the black looking water under the Main; passed the bleak landscape of London's dawn and the fervor that was slowly generating in the streets. She tried to imagine her home in New York. She pictured her cubby she had created out of stacks of books. It hadn't been ideal, but she'd had nowhere else to put her tremendous amount of novels, so it turned into her fort. The fort proceeded to be her shelter from high school drama, emotional turmoil, and her brother's drunken escapades. It transported her to innumerable different dimensions. The fort reminded her that her life could be much worse. After her aunt's death, she burrowed in the shelter and was reminded that she could be living in England or Germany during World War II. After she received the news from her brother that she would be moving across the ocean to England in order to live with him, she was reminded that she could have been the creator of a life form that wanted to murder her and everyone that she had ever loved. She simply had to sit and she drifted away from reality into a cold circle of hell.
The girl now turned away from the window, closing the curtain in her wake. Of course, she knew she couldn't return to her home; not yet, at least. She had no known family, or any family that chose to acknowledge her, anywhere in New York. Or in the entirety of America. A barely-sixteen-year-old girl with no job or way of supporting herself could not possibly live on her own. Her only living relative was her brother, who had moved to England after graduating from NYU for better job opportunities in his field. She didn't know what he meant by 'his field'. Sometimes she believed his field was drinking or gambling. She loved her brother and missed him dearly, but she couldn't quite grasp why she had to uproot her life and move to a different country. He was the adult; shouldn't he move back to America? They had a nice enough apartment in a nice enough area. She had nice enough friends and a nice enough school. Her aunt had left her a nice enough amount of money in her will. They both have nice enough funds in trusts their parents had left them after their deaths. Well, she did. Her brother probably spent it all the second he turned 18. Her brother barely had enough money for her to take a boat trip for two weeks to arrive in London. She didn't want to think about how he was going to support them living together, and eventually, her going to college. She intended on getting a job as soon as she could, but first she had to put her life back in order. Finishing school included.
The girl glanced sadly at the chests in her cabin. There were two. One filled with some of her clothing and such, and the other stuffed with her favorite books. She had three other trunks stowed away, two of them also filled with books. She managed to, heartbreakingly, dissemble her fort book by book. Her brother said they only had enough funds to allow her to bring five trunks. Her whole life in five trunks. Clothing was unimportant to her. She managed to pack all of her clothes, shoes, accessories, and makeup into two large trunks. That led to her realization that she had much more clothing than she first believed. The books were harder. She discarded the books she thought were mediocre or not entertaining. Also books she wouldn't want to read again. Even though she didn't like those books, it still felt like stabbing her soul with needles. She told herself that it would be good for her; refreshing and rejuvenating. It needed to be done. The rest of the books, thankfully, fit into her last three large trunks. She still wept for the ones that were left behind, but she resolved that they were a waste of both space and time.
She turned back to the window and sat on her small bed. The shore was approaching fast now. The ship was weaving between others to find a place at the Southampton dock. The rain was pouring harder. The darkness of both her life and London was coming. Her love and joy was fleeing. The time for seeing her brother for the first in a year was soon. She had no idea where she was going or what she was doing. Her fort was gone. Reality was suffocating her. She didn't want to continue.
She had to continue.