Big thank you to Lil Badger 101 and mirdaishan for reviewing. I'm gonna try and update this as often as possible during mid-term break. Hope you like this. And to people who have followed or favoutrited, I would love to hear what you think in a review? Pleeeease?
Also, although Greg lives in Norway and his mother speaks Norweigan he speaks fluent English. Let's just imagine they live in an English speaking part of Norway, but his mother likes traditions so she speaks Norweigan still.
Also, this is set like, ages ago, but the songs are current. Ignore that, I wan't even born then.
He was counting clouds. There was nothing else to look at, only skay and clouds outside the small airplane window. Greg had read the safety booklet and the in-flight menu twice already. He hadn't had time to think to bring a book, or anything else practical. Just himself and a rucksack.
The clouds were actually interesting, if you looked at them long enough. A hand. A bear. A flower. A car. A rugby ball. A music note. A dinosaur. Greg wasn't sure if it was his overactive imagination, sleep deprivation or the altitude that made him start seeing penguins with machine guns, a grandmothers head on the body of a fox, the periodic table of elements, a dutch windmill and Leonardo Da Vinci's vetruvian man.
The woman beside him was asleep. So was everybody else on the flight. But Greg was way too excited to sleep. He tapped his fingers on the tray table. He tapped them again. Getting into a rhythm now, Greg used his other hand too. He pulled two pencils from his rucksack and started drumming away, to the tune of Fun's song Carry On.
"Well I woke up to the sound of silence
The cars were cutting like knives in a fist fight"
Out of nowehere, he heard her voice. He looked across. A girl, about Greg's age with long blonde hair was singing the words, facing away from him. She was looking out the window, looking oast the sleeping business man next to her.
"And I found you with a bottle of wine
Your head in the curtains
And heart like the fourth of July" she continued.
"You swore and said
We are not
We are not shining stars
This I know
I never said we are
Though I've never been through hell like that
I've closed enough windows
To know you can never look back" Greg joined in.
Someone two seats back produced a guitar from his luggage compartment and joined in. A few people were waking up now, one or two put in their earphones or went back to sleep but many joined in, ar tapped their feet along to the music.
"If you're lost and alone
Or you're sinking like a stone
Carry on
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground
Carry on
Carry on, carry on"
As they finished, the girl finally turned aound and looked at him. The first thing he noticed were her eyes. They were green. And amazing. They eyed each other for a minute, and then she smiled. Greg smiled back.
"But I like to think..." Greg whispered.
"I can cheat it all..." she sung back.
"To make up for the times I've been cheated on..."
"And it's nice to think, when I was left for dead..."
"I was found and now I don't roam these streets..."
"I am not the ghost you want of me." she finished.
The woman next to Greg smiled.
"Do you two know each other?" she asked.
"No." Greg replied truthfully.
"Why don't you sit together?" she asked them.
"I'd like that." The girl smiled.
"Me too." Greg grinned back.
The lady got up and swapped seats with her, not even waking up the business man. Greg doubted that he would have any idea that they had switched when he woke up.
"Hey." he said to the girl. "I'm Greg."
"Brooke." She replied.
"You going to New York too?" he asked her.
"Yeah. It's the city of my dreams." she smiled.
"I just ran away and one hour later, I was here." Greg admitted.
"Wow. You're brave." Brooke said.
"I just had to get out of my town." Greg explained.
"Small?" Brooke asked.
"Yeah." Greg nodded.
"I come from a small town too. I've been saving up for this." Brooke told him.
" I just brought all my inheritence money." Greg laughed.
"I've been working all summer, and I got enough for the ticket, an apartment and to keep me going for a while." Brooke said.
"Do you have an apartment yet?" Greg asked her.
"Nope. Do you?" she replied.
"No. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get there." Greg admitted.
"Me neither. Do you have family in New York?" Brooke asked.
"No. You?" he returned.
"Nobody. You're the only person I know in the city." Brooke laughed.
"And I'm not even there yet. I don't know anybody else either." Greg replied.
"I like your hair." she told him.
"Thank you. I like your eyes." he replied.
"Thanks. Did you dye it yourself?" she asked.
"With some friends. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing." Greg laughed.
"You seem to have a lot of those." Brooke smiled.
"What do you mean?" Greg smiled back.
"Dyeing your hair, hopping on a plane to New York..." Brooke giggled.
"Yeah, I getcha. This one time, I jumped off the top of my house to impress a girl." Greg confessed,
"You did what?" Brooke gasped.
"My mother nearly threw a fit. I landed on my feet, right in front of the girl." Greg remembered.
"And was she impressed?" Brooke asked.
"Very." Greg told her.
They laughed. And they went on laughing for the next four hours. Laughing, talking, getting to know each other.
It was 2am when they finally began to descend. Suddenly, the clouds became the ocean, and they could see land in the distance. They flew over the Atlantic ocean, and the flight attendant announced that they would be landing in twenty minutes. Even early in the morning, the lights of New York city still shone just as brightly as they did in the movies, and Greg and Brooke stopped their conversation just to stare out the window.
"This is it." Brooke whispered.
"This is the beginning." Greg replied.
The flight landed, and they made their way through security together, never stopping their conversation. By the time they got to the airport doors, Greg felt he knew her better than he had ever known most of his girlfriends. Then they walked out the doors and suddenly realised that neither of them had any idea where they were going next.
"Let's share a cab." Greg suggested. "We can find a hotel to stay in."
They got in one of those famous yellow taxis, and asked the driver to take them to a nice hotel. He dropped them off outside The Waldorf. They both went in and booked seperate rooms, which ended up being right next to each other. They spent half the night out on their balconies, talking to each other.
Greg felt his first day in New York had been successful. He knew a total of one person.
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