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Chapter One
"Mom, Dad, I'm leaving," I announced as I burst through the front door of our house.
They stared at me for a few seconds before they both asked at the same time, "Why?"
"Do I need a reason?" I answered their question with a question. I continued on to my room to pack. They followed me up the stairs to watch me as I threw my clothes into a luggage I had stored under my bed for exactly this reason. "I just need to get away. I want to explore and have enough space to do my art." I looked pointedly at my mom, and understanding bloomed in her eyes. She was an artist too, she must have felt a need for a change of scenery at some point in her life.
"Valentine, sweetie," my mom touched his arm lightly. "If she wants to pursue her art, then so be it. Every great artist must travel the world." I looked over at her and took a break from packing at that. My mom and Valentine had been travelling the world before Jonathan, my brother, was born. And then, when we were both old enough, we began to travel again. Long enough to pick up the language and make friends, but never enough time to actually live for once. We had been in London for about four years now, after my begging for me to stay to finish University. Now I was 22 and was ready to live on my own. Without Sebastian. She picked up my art paints and pencils before saying, "We'll send these to you when you call us and have a definite address."
"I already have one. It's on Alphabet Street in New York. I'm going to have roommates. All I need to do is tell them that I'm coming today." I quickly gave the room a once-over to check that I hadn't missed anything. Nope, I was good. I zipped the luggage closed and stuffed my sketchpad and manga's into my purse to serve as a carry on. This would hopefully be enough to keep me entertained for the 7 hour non-stop flight.
"So soon?" my dad asked carefully.
"Yes," I answered immediately. "I need to go."
And so I did. I booked the next available flight that had a single seat and rushed to the airport. I checked my luggage in and whizzed through security. When I was speed-walking through the airport to catch the plane I heard an announcement over the PA system.
"Clarissa Morgenstern, please come to gate 52," the nasally voice said. "Clarissa Morgenstern, gate 52."
And that was when I started running. I had to slide to a stop in front of the gate and wave to the clerk at the desk before they noticed me. They smiled at me, checked my passport, and sent me through.
As I waded my way through the thin aisle in the plane, everyone who was already in their seats was giving me the stink eye. They were probably thinking, this is the girl that's been holding us up. This trip is already longer than it needs to be.
Oh well, they could suck it up.
The flight was a good one. No bumps or any need for the drop-down oxygen masks. I had never needed to use one throughout my family's travels and I didn't plan on using one now. All I really did was sketch the rolling clouds we were above and read some manga, occasionally just listening to music whenever my eyes or my hand got too tired to do any more work.
And out of that 7 hours, I think I slept about five minutes. Which meant I was extremely exhausted when I stumbled out of the airplane. I followed everyone else until they started to disperse and run to people that they knew. I looked around and saw a sign that said MORGENSTERN in tiny, all caps handwriting. There couldn't be any other Morgenstern's on that plane, could there? I didn't think so, so I walked over there.
"Clarissa?" a man asked. He couldn't be older than 25, I guessed. He had short brown hair and glasses. This was probably mean of me, but I categorized him with the nerd group.
"That's me. You can call me Clary, though. You must be… Jordan?" I asked.
"Simon," he amended. "You were close though, there's only two of us, so… good job."
"Well Simon, it's nice to finally meet you." I stick out my hand and hike my purse up on my shoulder in all one fluid movement. Simon takes it.
"It's nice to meet you too."
After 40 minutes of waiting for my luggage and small talk, I learned that Simon was indeed a nerd (he was a professional hacker and technology whiz) and that Jordan, our other roommate, was a police officer. In the car, Simon had taken off his jacket because it was hot, which revealed a manga shirt, which provoked a long, in-depth discussion about what we thought about them and how good they were, yada yada yada.
"Home sweet home," Simon said, getting out of the car to go open up the trunk. He gave the cab driver some cash and insisted on carrying my probably overweight luggage. It was bulging out at the sides and I think a zipper was pulling apart.
He opened up the door and motioned that I should go in first. I did. I took in the surroundings, and the first thing I thought was: It's perfect. There was three rooms. Only one was open, so I took that as my room and entered. Another thought: Perfect. The room was completely empty except for a bed frame and a mattress, and an in-wall closet that had lime green curtains to close it off from the room.
Simon came in, followed by my luggage. "Do you like it?" he asked, handing my luggage to me. I propped it up on the bed and opened it. The top half sprung apart like a repelling magnet and rested on the other half of the bed.
"It's perfect," I beamed.
