My plane took off from JFK Airport and landed at the Richmond International Airport. As I looked back before I boarded the plane all I saw was My uncle and his girlfriend. Chase was supposed to be there, but she had gotten sick. I told her that it was alright, and that I would write to her. My eyes were filled with tears as I entered to where the stewardess was. She took my ticket and showed me to my seat. I looked out the plane window and said good-bye to the life that I had once known and was so secure with. The plane took off and now I was on to a voyage, a new chapter in my life. All I did was write letters to everyone, so that I could mail them when I landed in Virginia.
"Please buckle your seatbelts and place your trays in an upright position." The captain said. I giggled in my head a little bit at the sound of that. They actually do say that. Once again something that I didn't know that was true, but it was. The plane had landed and I took my baby blue backpack out of the storage. I didn't even remember what my mother looked like, or if she was married or dating. I hadn't seen her since she took off on my dad and I when I was six.
When I entered into the airport I saw a sign that said 'Welcome Home Hailey'. I guessed that was here. I decided that since my life is changing I should change too. "Are you my mother's family?" I asked shyly. There were four older boys the youngest most have been sixteen. They nodded their head yes.
"If you are..." One of the boys started to say, and then he reached into the pocket of his pants. "If you are Hailey McKenna then yes we are here to pick you up. We are your brothers." It was weird for them to say that. I never had brothers before. They seemed pretty nice. Later on I would learn that looks could, can, and are deceiving.
My mind instantly became clouded with the thoughts of a future. I took a one more step into the direction of the four boys. Looking around for my mother. Where is the world could she be? The thoughts of having brother's and looking around for her mother and just the moment. Made her miss that her mother was right behind her. She turned to see the women that once left and what she was now.
Standing in her shadow stood not the broken images that she had forced out of her head, but those of hope and difference. What she remembered of her mother wasn't there, but a bright, tall, complex women. Blonde, with brown eyes that were big as mine, she just felt as though for the first time my soul was complete. She took my hand and we began to leave the airport.
It was bright and cheery as we came up to Silver Hollow road. My step-father was weeding as we pulled into the driveway to my new home, different then the city lights or apartment. I Hailey McKenna for the first time had a back yard. I said my hello's then was escorted to my new bedroom and given a tour of the town and house.
I was also enrolled into my first public school. Although it had a real name Kennedy Jr./Sr. High. Weird, but oh well. The first couple of months went real well, that was until I turned thirteen. I wish I never turned that stupid age ever. EVER! I can still remember the first night.
I was in my bedroom a week after I had turned thirteen. My eyes danced around with the curtains that hung on my window. The moon only shining with half of his might, supposed to be smiling down on me, but not tonight. Maybe it was an evil grin. But my oldest brother knocked lightly on my door. I was half asleep and I knew, I KNEW, I didn't tell him to come in. But he pranced his way into the room knowing full well what he was about to do. He curled up into bed with me and didn't for once during the entire thing remember we were siblings. When he left the room I was once again in the darkness of the unbearable. Tears flowed down my eyes, but didn't make a sound. Eyes fixated on the dancing curtains, but this time not dancing with them, but scolding them for watching.
This continues with just him. Not a word was spoken to anyone. I started to become with drawled from my new family and hid in my bedroom every chance that I had gotten. Scared and alone, like that horribly dreadful day that my father had passed on. Half way into the year the other three brothers began to do the same thing. Now I knew I had to do something. The pain at home was more unbearable then anywhere I had ever been or even been through.
I would never return home from school. I would hide where ever I could. My grades started to slip and for the first time I did something that I never thought I would ever do. I started to drink and do whatever drug I could get my hands on. I knew that it was wrong, but it allowed the pain in which took over my heart seep away for the moment. My mother and her husband were to never know that they were doing what they were doing to me. So I could and wouldn't tell them.
I knew the only time that I was safe in my own house was when I was alone. No one would be home and I would dart into the house and lock the front door again so that I knew when someone was home so that I could run out the back door. One time that I did, I saw a brochure for a school name MT. Horizon for adolescents that have, nice way to put it, but well have problems. I thought that they were going to be sending one of my older siblings there, but you could imagine my shock when they told me it was me.
We had a family meeting that was based on the brochure. I can still remember what my brothers said. "It is like you have changed our something Hailey. We want to get to know you, the you that came here. Not this new person." I just wanted to scream out YOU MADE ME THIS PERSON. YOU GO TO THE DAMN SCHOOL! But as I did many of times I with held my statement and thoughts. I knew what they were doing was wrong, I hoped that they had know it too.
I felt like I was being punished for something that I didn't do. I was almost fourteen and in ninth grade old enough to attend the school. I was old enough when I entered the grade, but I didn't have problems then, well I did but it was only one of them not all four cornering me into a position in which no one should ever be in.
That night I started packing for yet another chapter in my life. I just wish that I could throw this chapter away. So that maybe it could be over with and forgotten about. A part of me wanted to stay and tell what happened, but a majority of me wanted to go and get away. To rewrite the last chapter. Something had to be better then nothing.
Like that I was on my way to Mt. Horizon. It had to only be four days later. Four. Used to be my lucky number, but now it was the number that haunted me for life. I wondered if it would ever dissipate. The pain that I was feeling all because of the number four.