CHAPTER 1

I tap my fingers on my desk rapidly as I will the second hand of the clock at the front of the classroom to move faster. It's the last day of the school year and more importantly, the last day of high school. For the past four years of my life I've been sitting in classrooms surrounded by people that dislike me without even knowing me, learning crap that is irrelevant to the real world but finally, after 4 awful years, I'm out.

The only class I enjoyed was my guitar class. Although the teacher was a drag, I loved sitting down with a guitar in my hands for a whole hour figuring out a brand new piece of music and slowly bringing it to life. I wasn't the best in the class as I got very nervous when it came to playing in front of the whole class for tests but I'm very stubborn and have a slight need to prove people wrong so when my brother told me I wouldn't be able to ever play a guitar half decently, I dedicated hours of my day to practicing and getting better day by day. I'm still not amazing but you should've seen the look on my brother's face when he walked in on me playing one day.

So besides guitar, everything about school was pretty much awful but there was just fifteen more minutes until the bell rang and I was free from setting foot in this place ever again. I bit my lip nervously as the tempo and volume of my finger-tapping increased earning me dirty looks from my classmates which I ignored considering the blissful fact that I'd never have to sit next to them in a confined space for 8 hours from Monday through Friday.

"Astrid!" I heard my teacher yell across the room. "This is a math class. Your drumming is not welcome." After that, a few laughs filled the room and my cheeks flushed. Luckily I didn't have to be in there much longer as the bell rang and sent its sweet sound all through the halls of the school. Finally, out with school and in with summer and then college in England.

I walked out of the classroom and into the halls flooding with teenagers celebrating the end of another school year. Everyone shouted and greeted their friends to make plans for the next two and a half month of freedom. I saw my best friend Hannah walking toward me with open arms and a huge smile on her face and sped up to hug her and celebrate together that we're out of the hellhole.

"C'mon let's go get some ice cream and go finish packing!" she kind of yelled with a voice dripping with excitement.

"Let's go!" I reply as we rush out of the building towards our bikes. We climbed on and raced to the ice cream shop a block away from school. Hannah got a chocolate ice cream cone and I got a vanilla soft serve in a cup. One of the many ways in which we were different.

After we finished our ice cream, we biked back to our houses which were right in front of each other. Hannah and I both went into my house to finish packing my suit cases for tomorrow after the official graduation. We had been planning to move to another country after graduation ever since we realized how much we disliked the small town we had lived in our whole lives. The plans had just been in our heads until we became serious about the move about 3 months before school ended so we decided to tell our parents and get everything set. Our college applications had been accepted and we had found a small house where another girl already lived to move into.

"Can you believe this? We're finally going to Liverpool! After two years of dreaming it and 3 months of planning, we're finally leaving this town!" I say, my voice dripping excitement.

Hannah shrieked with equal enthusiasm, grabbed my arms and said "By Sunday morning we're gonna be in a completely different country, with completely different people and it's going to be awesome!" We bounced up and down with pure joy as we finished packing my final suitcase which was filled with my nicer dresses, pictures and notes from my family and my journal in which I only wrote in at 3 a.m. when a thought kept me up. It was my personal book of emotions I shared with nobody, even Hannah was an outsider to the little black book.

Once we were finished in my house, we treaded across the street to Hannah's house to get her bags ready for tomorrow. We would be leaving right after the official graduation ceremony where we would receive our high school diplomas and our freedom so we needed out suitcases to be completely ready to be picked up from our houses and thrown on the plane that would take us to our destination for adventure.

After some struggling with getting the suitcases to close, we both collapsed on Hannah's bed and stared at her room. All the pictures and tiny jewelry boxes that lined her dresser were gone along with the books she kept on her nightstand and the stuffed animal pig that was always in between two pillows on her bed. It was weird to see the room that had looked the same since always so empty despite still being full of furniture.
But all the little things that made it Hannah's room were packed. It was as if we had taken the spirit and personality of the room and put in suitcases. My room probably looked the same right now, we just hadn't noticed. I began to get a little nervous about the move. I had been too ecstatic to be nervous but now I realize that I'm going to be away from home. Apparently, Hannah had been thinking the exact same thing because suddenly she voiced her concerns

"What if doesn't feel like home over there? We're completely starting over." She said with worry in her voice.

"That's the idea." I say as I turn and give her my most adventurous smile, sounding way more secure than I was feeling.